Literature in Canada
Term 1
MWF, 1:00 – 2:00 p.m.
This course will begin in “a little town,” seemingly homogeneous and united within its collective cultural identity. It will then proceed to complicate this little town and its survival (Journals of Susanna Moodie) by engaging with texts that use both their form and content to offer alternative readings of Canadian subjectivity. What happens when the “Indians” win a victory over the cowboys (Green Grass Running Water)? What happens when a kappa (a Japanese mythological creature) lands on the Canadian prairies (Kappa Child)? Students will reconsider pioneer myths, the rewriting of national narratives, and finally, both the limits and possibilities of diasporic identity and Canadian multiculturalism (Soucouyant). Overall, the class will be introduced to shifting literary representations of Canadian identity and invited to consider their own position in relation to this ambiguity and uncertainty.
