ENGL 470 BLOG

What are the major differences or similarities between the ethos of the creation story you are familiar with and the story King tells in The Truth About Stories ?

Due to not coming from a religious background, there is no one creation story that I necessarily believe in, nor are very familiar with.  I tend to believe in the earth forming through a purely scientific route, such as the ‘scientific view’ shown on this page.  Although this link is to a religious tolerance group’s website, I feel it gives a nice and quick synopsis of what I generally believe.  For the purpose of this assignment I did some research into several different creation stories, finding that the one I was most familiar with was that of Adam and Eve – for those who are unfamiliar with many religious creation stories (like myself), this is an easy to understand synopsis of their story.  Basically, Adam and Eve are put in the Garden of Eden by God, and asked to watch over it.  They are allowed to eat anything in the garden, except for fruit from the Tree of Knowledge at the centre of the garden.  Curiosity (in the form of a talking snake) forces them to eat the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge.  The next day they admit to God that they ate the fruit, and he banishes them to earth, where Adam must work to grow crops and create food, while Eve must deal with the pain of giving birth.

The story of Charm is quite different from that of Adam and Eve.  It begins with her having a craving for the ‘red furn foot’.  Her hunt for her craving, which King alludes to some type of curiosity, turns into her digging too deep and falling through the planet onto Earth; which is covered in water.  She is forced to dive for sand/mud to create some sort of habitable land which she can live on.  Her twins then create more life on the land.  It is clear that this story is quite different from the one of Adam and Eve that I talked about before, but I found one main similarity between the two creation stories – curiosity.  Adam and Eve are curious about eating the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge (forcing God to condemn them to Earth), whereas Charm is curious about how far she can dig to reach her craving (causing her to fall to Earth and create life).  Although there are many differences in these two creation stories, I find it very interesting that curiosity is the main similarity.

Works Cited

• King, Thomas. The Truth about Stories. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003. Print.
• Religious Tolerance. 1999. Belief systems about the origins of life & the development of species. Web. Retrieved on March 23, 2015 from <http://www.religioustolerance.org/ev_world.htm>
• Short Story. n/a. The Origin of the World –> Adam and Eve. Web. Retrieved on March 23, 2015 from <http://shortstoriesshort.com/story/adam-and-eve/>

In this lesson I say that it should be clear that the discourse on nationalism is also about ethnicity and ideologies of “race.” If you trace the historical overview of nationalism in Canada in the CanLit guide, you will find many examples of state legislation and policies that excluded and discriminated against certain peoples based on ideas about racial inferiority and capacities to assimilate. – and in turn, state legislation and policies that worked to try to rectify early policies of exclusion and racial discrimination. As the guide points out, the nation is an imagined community, whereas the state is a “governed group of people.” For this blog assignment, I would like you to research and summarize one of the state or governing activities, such as The Royal Proclamation 1763, the Indian Act 1876, Immigration Act 1910, or the Multiculturalism Act 1989 – you choose the legislation or policy or commission you find most interesting. Write a blog about your findings and in your conclusion comment on whether or not your findings support Coleman’s argument about the project of white civility.

For this assignment I have chosen to look more closely at the Immigration Act of 1910.  I chose this mainly due to the fact that after researching all of the Acts and Proclamations at hand, the Immigration Act of 1910 had several extremely discriminatory things that immediately captured my attention.  It is interesting to note that the Immigration Act of 1910 was released quite soon after the Immigration Act of 1906, and was more or less a revision of the Immigration Act of 1906 – adding several disturbing clarifications.  The Immigration Act of 1906 was, put simply, a way in which the Department of Immigration could control the influx of undesirable immigrants (Canadian Council for Refugees, 2000).  This Act gave the government full ability to refuse or deport immigrants through creating new, as well as reinforcing old, measures of restriction and enforcement, as well as widening the scope of ‘prohibited’ immigrants (Canadian Council for Refugees, 2000).  Now comes the Immigration Act of 1910, which was set in place to ‘further enhance the discretionary powers of government to regulate the flow of immigrants into Canada, reinforcing and expanding the exclusionary provisions outlined in the Immigration Act of 1906’ (Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21, 2015).  As I stated before, there were several discriminatory points outlined in the Immigration Act of 1910 that could my attention:

• The allowance for Cabinet to restrict ‘immigrants belonging to any race deemed unsuited to the climate or requirements of Canada’ (North American Immigration, 2011)
• When reading through an actual photocopy of the Immigration Act of 1910, I found the term ‘alien’ defined as ‘a person who is not a British subject’ (Early Canadiana Online, 2015)
• Later in the year, several orders-to-council were passed to further enhance the governments discretionary power, including one that required ‘all immigrants of Asiatic origin were required to have $200 in their possession before being permitted entry’ (Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21, 2015)
• Another disturbing point I found while reading the Immigration Act of 1910 was the fact that ‘Section 38 gave the government broad authority to change admission criteria without amending the Immigration Act’ (Kukushkin, 2006))

Although these are just the main points I found to catch my attention in the Immigration Act of 1910, there are more to be talked about. Due to the findings and conclusions I have drawn from the Immigration Act of 1910, I strongly believe that they coincide with, and support Coleman’s argument regarding the projection of ‘white civility’.  I believe that if Canada was initially built on facts such as the Immigration Act of 1910, there is no denying that there is definitely ‘a specific form of [Canadian] whiteness based on the British model of civility’ (Paterson, 2015)

Works Cited

• Canadian Council for Refugees. 2000. A Hundred Years of Immigration to Canada 1900-1999. Web. Retrieved on March 12, 2015 from {http://ccrweb.ca/en/hundred-years-immigration-canada-1900-1999}
• Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21. 2015. Immigration Act, 1910. Web. Retrieved on March 12, 2015 from {http://www.pier21.ca/research/immigration-history/immigration-act-1910}
• Early Canadiana Online. 2015. An Act Respecting Immigration (Immigration Act of 1910).  Web. Retrieved on March 12, 2015 from {http://eco.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.9_07184/2?r=0&s=1}
• Early Canadiana Online. 2015. An Act Respecting Immigration and Immigrants (Immigration Act of 1906). Web. Retrieved on March 12,2015 from {http://eco.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.9_07188/2?r=0&s=1}
• Kukushkin, V. 2006. Radical Policies. Library and Archives Canada. Web. Retrieved on March 12, 2015 from {https://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/immigrants/021017-2511.01-e.html}
• North American Immigration. 2011. Immigration Act (Canada) (1910). Web. Retrieved on March 12, 2015 from {http://northamericanimmigration.org/141-immigration-act-canada-1910.html}
• Paterson, Erika. 2015. Lesson 3:1 – Nationalism and Literature. Web. Retrieved on March 12, 2015 from {https://blogs.ubc.ca/courseblogsis_ubc_engl_470a_99c_2014wc_44216-sis_ubc_engl_470a_99c_2014wc_44216_2517104_1/unit-3/lesson-3-1/}

In order to address this question you will need to refer to Sparke’s article, “A Map that Roared and an Original Atlas: Canada, Cartography, and the Narration of Nation.” You can easily find this article online. Read the section titled: “Contrapuntal Cartographies” (468 – 470). Write a blog that explains Sparke’s analysis of what Judge McEachern might have meant by this statement: “We’ll call this the map that roared.”

I have never really put much thought into the formation of maps, but this lesson has definitely sparked an interest for me.  After putting some serious thought into it, several questions came to mind that I had never thought to necessarily be important ones – how are maps created?; who has a say in their creation?;  how can maps change through time?; and what happens when there is a land dispute?

When a map was brought out to Judge McEachern in court during period of 1982-1983, he said ‘We’ll call this the map that roared’.  After quoting this in his writing, Sparke immediately refers to this as a ‘paper tiger‘.  Being unfamiliar with the term ‘paper tiger’, I looked it up and found the definition to be ‘something that seems threatening but is ineffectual and unable to withstand challenge’.  To me this was a very interesting thing to put some thought into.  The Gitxsan and Wet’suwet’en people had produced a map in court in order to confirm that the land was in fact rightly theirs, but in reality was the map they produced ‘ineffectual’ as Sparke immediately alludes to?  This map had been created through the oral histories of the Gitxsan and Wet’suwet’en people, but was that oral history that created this map enough for Judge McEachern to justify re-creating the boundaries of general maps of the day – not in his opinion at that time.

It is clear to us that this battle of oral history vs. today’s actualities is ongoing, but there has definitely been much positivity created regarding this topic in recent decades.  It is amazing to learn that the Supreme Court overturned the initial decision made by Judge McEachern – and this shows that oral histories can and should make differences.  In my eyes, Judge McEachern, by saying ‘We’ll call this the map that roared’, implied that this map was to him in fact a paper tiger, and although it had the initial voice to raise and ‘roar’, did it have the follow through? The fact that this case was over turned is evidence that oral histories make a difference in the decision making of today.

Works Cited

-Sparke, Mathew. “A Map that Roared and an Original Atlas: Canada, Cartography, and the Narration of Nation.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 88.3 (1998): 463- 495. Web. 04 April 2013.

-http://www.thecourt.ca/2007/12/10/the-anniversary-of-delgamuukw-v-the-queen-two-legacies/

-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paper_tiger

Write a short story (600-1000 words max) that describes your sense of home and the values and stories that you use to connect yourself to your home.

Home to me is a place of togetherness.  Growing up, home was just that – my dad, mum, brother and I were always together.  Yes, my brother and I would be off at school during the days, and my parents would be at work, but when we were at home we were always together.  Sports, mainly soccer, was also a stronghold around our house.  With dad being our coach when we were younger, and mum being our biggest fan, soccer was usually a hot topic around the house.  During the weeks we would be running between different soccer practices and academies my brother and I attended, and on the weekends we would be prepared and excited to get to, and hopefully win, our respective games.  This togetherness goes beyond the physical confines of our home.  I would always feel like I was safe at home regardless of where we were.  Whether it was soccer trips that took us to all corner’s for the world, annual summer trips up to Green Lake, or simply a family hike our outing around home.   The togetherness of our home and family is something I will never forget, because even now that we’re all older, if we are all together in the same place, it is exactly the same.  This aspect of home will never change for us.

Here is a photo of my brother and I doing our thing together when we were younger (not sure what’s up with the face he’s making):

Beyond the home I grew up in with my parents and brother, home to me is also the homes of my grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins that we constantly visited.  Any downtime in our soccer schedules would mean a trip to Nanaimo/Parksville to see my mum’s family, or a trip to Victoria to see my dad’s family.  The comfort of our families constant inclusion and interest in one another’s lives is what also makes these places home.  Therefore, it is not so much the physical aspects of our homes that make it, but rather the people, inclusiveness, and inherent interest in each others lives that create my definition of home.  Although some members of our extended family have moved further away now, and we don’t get to see them as often, we all always take off right where we left off. At home. Together.

All in all this assignment taught me something I had never really thought about before.  Previously when I would think about home, I would think of my parents house, and how it is today.  But really, that isn’t what home is to me when I really sat down to think about it.  Home to me is the family I have, and the experiences I have been through together with them.

Here is a photo with some cousins, my Grandpa, brother and myself on a more recent trip to my Grandpa’s place in Nanaimo:

Works Cited

‘Green Lake, BC’. Map. Google Maps. 30 Jan, 2015. Web. 30 Jan, 2015. https://www.google.ca/maps/place/Green+Lake,+British+Columbia+V0K/@51.2126726,-122.0112639,7z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x53800f87c7d32af5:0xe0c3c7e305081269

The expectation of this post is take Thomas King’s story about how evil comes into the world, memorize it, change it (or not), tell the story to family/friends, and record some commentary on what was discovered through this journey.

There is a story I know, and it goes like this…

This is a story I know very well, as I have told it countless times, about how evil came into the world.  Before there were countries and regions and metropolises and cities, the world was a much more simple place.  With humans, animals, and others alike, equality was of utmost importance.  Everyone lived off the land as they needed, and if they fell short there were all of the others to help them.  If humans and animals could not fill the void of those not fortunate enough to be equal, there were others, such as witches with potions and spells, that were more than happy to fill the void – thus creating the equality the world then strived for.  There was competition for nothing, not food nor land or water, but a magical simplicity that ruled their world. This was all true until a gloomy fall day when an unnamed, dark-spirited witch came into the world – ultimately ruining it.  In these times, as is the same with now, fall/winter is a down time for individuals who live off the land; and since everyone lived off the land at this time, everyone, including the witches, were not doing much of anything.  With this down time, came an unfortunate idea from the dark-spirited witch whom no one knew very well – a plan for all witches to compete to create magic, potions, and spells of poor taste.  With an understandably poor first reaction from the majority of others, the dark-spirited witch confirmed with the others that the magic, potions, and spells of poor taste would be destroyed immediately following the competition; due to it just being that – a good-spirited competition.  Once the competition was completed, and every witch had created the poorest of creations they could imagine, it was confirmed that the dark-spirited witch had won the competition with his ability to obtain all of the poorest magic, potions, and spells created for all of time.  This is how evil made its way into the world – initially through the infinite evil of one individual.

Now for some commentary on what I discovered through sharing my story.

Being what I consider a relatively non-creative individual, I began this assignment with some hesitancy that turned to haste.  This is obviously never a way to approach an assignment, and I quickly realized it was definitely not the way to approach a story.  Through slowing down and forcing myself to take in and enjoy Thomas King’s chapter, I was able to see the wonderful details in the stories he portrayed to us.  This allowed me, a self described non-creative individual, to really delve into the enjoyment of making (and telling) a story.  Albeit my story is very short, it opened my eyes to the general appreciation of story telling.  The individuals I shared my story with were also initially hesitant to listen, as telling them a story such as this was not something I would normally force upon them; but, with some convincing, I was able to tell my story to them.  I found these people appreciating my creative short story, although it was out of the norm.  This allowed me, as well as them, to create a new found appreciation for not only sharing and listening to stories, but creativity in general.

Thanks for reading!

Devon Smith

First off, I would like to say hello to everyone, and welcome you to my ENGL 470: Canadian Literary Genre’s blog!  My name is Devon Smith, and I am currently in my final term at UBC, majoring in Sociology.  I was born in Victoria, B.C., but grew up in the Lower Mainland.  I have played high-level soccer my whole life, but am definitely a sports enthusiast in general.  As I assume the majority of other sports fan’s are, I am currently very excited and nervous about this weekend’s NFL playoff games. Beyond school and soccer, I play a full-time role in a management position for JOEY Restaurants; so I am definitely a busy guy.  That’s probably enough about myself, as I’m sure we’ll all get to know each other quite well throughout the term. Here is an old photo of me doing what I love (clearly didn’t quite have the proper technique down yet):

As I said previously, I am a Sociology major, so I am not necessarily a literature aficionado.  But, as I was looking through the list of courses that could potentially fulfill the Literature Requirement for my BA, I came across ENGL 470 – After reading the course description and looking up a previous syllabus, it was an immediate YES! for me.  Canada is clearly a multicultural land, but here we will be able to gain a better perspective, through the literature, on the processes that got us to where we are today.

Through this course, I hope to get to know all of you on an academic level – allowing us to build off of one another’s thoughts and ideas.  I am very interesting in learning, through the Canadian literature, the different agencies individuals residing in Canada have had and have now, but especially how these agencies have changed over time.  I believe that through the literature we are required to read, but especially through the dialogues we create on each other’s blogs, all of our expectations of this course will be easily met.

Talk to you all soon!