Monthly Archives: January 2016

01/22/16

Assignment 1:3 – Notions of Culture

“1. Explain why the notion that cultures can be distinguished as either “oral culture” or “written culture” (19) is a mistaken understanding as to how culture works, according to Chamberlin and your reading of Courtney MacNeil’s article “Orality”.” (Paterson, “Lesson 1:2”)

Both Chamberlin and MacNeil underline how conceptualizing culture as binary – culture here being either oral/written or barbarian/civil – can be dangerous, and can prevent us from accessing the gains that come from understanding culture as pluralistic. Continue reading →

01/13/16

Introduction

Welcome to this blog! Here you can join me on my Distance Education adventures, and learn more about Canadian literature as part of the UBC course ENGL 470A: Canadian Studies: Canadian Literary Genres, as taught by Dr. Erika Paterson.

This course will examine Canadian literature, storytelling and stories. As a country with a settler-colonial history, Canadian literature and storytelling is grounded in both Aboriginal traditions and those of the settlers. As a former European colony, Canada’s literature has strong roots in the trends and traditions of European literature. This course will cover all of these literary traditions, and how they interact with one another. Continue reading →