Good evening my fellow Canadian Literature seekers! My name is Sarah Afful and I am going to be writing you from Toronto. I chose to study with you all at UBC, because I am from Vancouver and I did my undergrad there … yet Toronto called my name and thus here we are!
I cannot wait to jump into this course, as the structure of it is different from any university course I have ever taken. As we jump in and begin to question the system, so to speak, I deeply hope that we can shift our beliefs on what comprises Canadian literature. I hope to gain some agency in my studies and have a tiny impact on the future of the Canadian literature canon. As an African-Canadian I rarely get to explore the canon of literature in school, outside of Europe and I hope to find intersections between my experience and the Indigenous experience throughout the course. I also hope to gain literacy in web logging, as this is my first foray into that world! Bear with me as I find my footing.
In this course let us discover deeply the relationships between stories and land, but more pointedly the land that we all call our home. Working collaboratively we will become a part of the re-imagining and shaping of Canadian literature. I am most excited to be a part of that. We will re-imagine Canadian literature by culminating all of our semesters discussions and research into an Intervention Conference. How active! How important! This group dialogue we call our Intervention Conference, will allow us to offer up ideas on how to change the stories we tell ourselves and the way we tell our stories. So. Let’s dive in.
Is music as potent a way of telling our stories as the novel? Have a listen and sense if you get a story:
How are we supposed to tell our stories?
“We must tell them–around fireplaces, in cafes, on blogs, in theaters, on walls, on street corners, in front of our computers. We must unleash them from cages, trusting they’ll fly onto the shoulders and hearts of a listener, or two, or more. Sometimes like raindrops on a pond, they’ll create ripple effects in communities, and most certainly will touch a person’s life.”- (Unknown) Big Voice Pictures
Till next time!
Yours,
Sarah Afful
January 12 2020
Works Cited
“Anansi the spider” Pinterest, www.pinterest.ca/pin/234046511866636276/?lp=true. Accessed 12 January 2020.
A Tribe Called Red FT. Black Bear. “Stadium Pow Wow (Official Video)” YouTube, 16 June 2016, www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAEmjW9J3_o. Accessed 12 January 2020.
“The Power of Story: The Inspiration of Maya Angelou.” Big Voice Pictures, August 2018, www.bigvoicepictures.com/blog/2014/09/09/the-power-of-story-the-inspiration-of-maya-angelou. Accessed 12 January 2020.
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Hi Sarah!
I was captivated by your use of music in your introduction. Personally, I feel very deeply connected to music and I am always in awe at how vibrations in the air are able to resonate so much with a persons emotions and experiences. It’s very interesting that you brought up music as a form of story telling and i definitely think that it is a plausible medium for stories. Although I am aware that song and story are tied together in certain communities, a question i have (that i’m not necessarily posing to you) is whether certain communities have traditions of story telling that may exclude the use of music or use strict guidelines where it is purely oral story telling?
Cheers!
Hi Alan! Thanks for your message! Yes I have wondered that myself. It is difficult to think of a culture without music honestly, and as that saying goes “music is a universal language”. That said, the point of this course is to sit in the unknown and to question those ideas that we hold true. I am not sure where I heard the saying first that “music is a universal language” … but I sense it is. How incredible it would be to discover that there are cultures that disagree.I am glad though that WE have found common ground. Music of all types speaks to me and the layers that it carries speak to me on so many levels as well.
Cheers to you!