Edward Leung

Buffalo Bill Bursum The first connection I made with Buffalo Bill was the infamous antagonist of the same name from the cult-classic book and film, Silence of the Lambs. In a famous scene from the 1991 movie adaptation, Buffalo Bill does a strange dance to the song Goodbye Horses – the song itself contains many metaphors as well, though the general theme is that there are not any actual horses, but instead, it is the singer saying good bye to their sanity. While the correlation is light, it did give…read more

Thomas King’s Blue Grass, Running Water is a tale that spans multiple stories, characters, and dimensions to shape a narrative that not only critiques colonialism throughout history, but also explores the meaning of creation. Now clearly, there are many elements in which we can explore here, but I want to focus this post on the first character we meet; or rather, the first presence of a long line of symbols and allusions we will meet along the journey. The Coyote plays quite the prominent role throughout the narrative as both…read more

“I am a British Subject, and British born, and a British subject I hope to die.” –  Sir John A.Macdonald Much of Coleman’s words and critiques reminded me of my history textbooks from high school; where the period between Confederation and the Second World War was taught as the Golden age of Canadian development – where the nation had a perfect balance between colony and country. We were taught that this period was a time of growth and maturity for Canada, a coming of age of sorts. But of course,…read more

  Throughout the “Contract Over and Over Again” chapter by Lutz, the discussion regarding the differing spiritual beliefs between the Indigenous and the Europeans during contact reminded of the famous phrase from Matthew 5:14 that Puritan John Winthrop had preached to his settler followers prior to the founding of Boston. “A City upon a Hill”   While I don’t want to make sweeping assumptions over all settlers arriving in North America or all Europeans of faith at that time, this sense of exceptionalism as a god-given right and purpose does…read more

After reading a couple of my peers’ stories inspired by the concept of “home”, I quickly wrote a list of terms that were floating around my head. The amount of variety and contrast within the list really demonstrates that “home” is not something we all view in a similar fashion and is inherently elastic. It can be internal or external, and personal or expansive. These are the terms I have identified: Surroundings Setting Memories Thoughts Feelings Belonging Identity Family Friends Safe Isolation Connection Community Past Future

Mum always said that I’d be able to find my way home. I don’t really know what convinced her of such a thing, maybe it was simply a mother’s intuition, or maybe just shallow words used to convince herself that I would somehow make it back in one piece. Probably a bit of both. Of course, as mothers always are, she was right. The farm looked exactly the same as the day I had left. “Tobacco isn’t as big of a crop as it used to be when I was…read more

I have a great story to tell you. As the pale blue object appeared in view, everyone on the bridge knew that they had finally found it. Just like the ancient scripts had said, it was the third planet from an aging star, in a system of eight others. After a forgotten number of generations, humankind has finally returned home. No one remembers why the species left. It was so long ago that the crew only had vague guesses at best. The atmosphere was clean and stable, the biosphere was…read more

While we’ve established that the usage of online publications changes the dynamics of how stories are told by blurring the lines between the very formal act of publishing and the very informal act of orality, I want to push the topic further by looking at whether this phenomenon also blurs the lines of the teller and the tale. After all, in the age where almost everything is posted and everything can become a story, are we seeing the real person behind all the photos and posts, or just a tale…read more