This site is a collaborative group intervention project for English 470: Canadian Studies. This is an online course taught by Dr Erica Paterson, which ” provides a scholarly study of Canadian literature in a historical context with a focus on the intersections and departures between European and Indigenous traditions of literature and orature”.

The purpose of this site is to create an intervention dialogue in preparation for a group conference between all students of the course. Our small group has chosen Daniel Coleman’s article “Epistemic Justice: Canlit and the Politics of Respect” as a springboard for our work.

In his article Coleman distinguishes between a “politics of recognition” and a “politics of respect”, stressing that we have to escape  our tendency to define literature according to pre-established systems of thought. Coleman suggests that by deconstructing our value and classification systems we can accept new perspectives as independently legitimate. Coleman quotes Lee Maracle and writes “the spiritual objective of study is to transform the way we see, to broaden the field of vision”.

As a group, we believe that literature has amazing potential for transforming and broadening our vision of the world. Through this project we hope to take an approach to literature which will free us from our cultural constraints and from boundaries constructed to assign different voices with different values or worth.

Schedule/Hashing Things Out:
We are augmenting our group discussions through technology. Using email, a private Facebook group, messaging services, and Google documents, we will be democratically reading and discussing the contents of our blogs and dialogues.
Monday, March 24th by 9pm – Have read and discussed the assigned article,
Wednesday, March 27th by 9pm- Given your thoughts and critical annotations to the work assigned.
Friday, March 29th by 9pm – Worked on and edited the group collaborative annotated bibliography.

Works Cited:

Coleman, Danial “Epistemic Justice: “Canlit and the Politics of Respect” Canadian Literature 204 (2010): 103. Canadian Periodicals Index Quarterly. Web. 23 Mar. 2014.

Maracle, Lee. “Oratory on Oratory.” Trans.Can.Lit.: Resituating the Study of Canadian Literature. Ed. Smaro Kamboureli and Roy Miki. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier UP, 2007. 55-70. Print.

Paterson, Erika. “Coursed Overview.” ENGL 470A Canadian Studies: Canadian Literary Genres. Web. 24 March 2014.

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