Welcome to any and all readers from the online section of English 470. I will start with a word in the way of self-deprecation: I lack any semblance of technological acuity. I have long been a Luddite and am slowly coming to terms with the fact that my technophobic lifestyle is going to be increasingly difficult to maintain. So please, bear with me. Beyond this, I am a fourth year English literature major at UBC finishing up my degree. I have had few encounters with Canadian literature, but am enjoying J.Edward Chamberlin’s If This is Your Land, Where Are Your Stories? and look forward to the rest of the syllabus. Of the writers I have encountered in my studies Virginia Woolf, Thomas Pynchon, and Vladimir Nabokov (among others) all stand out as favourites.

As far as this course goes, it seems that the primary arc we will be following (or at least the one that stuck out for me) regards the divergences and intersections between European and indigenous narratives of Canadian identity. What interests me about this material is that it may give us an opportunity to view the ways in which prominent literary figures reconcile Canada’s self-styled image as a hub for acceptance and multiculturalism with a national history marred by racial intolerance. What also sticks out is the idea that narrative can bind a group of people to a piece of land. What characterizes a “citizen” of Canada? What are the ways in which we can lay claim to the title “Canadian”? I hope to gain a more nuanced understanding of indigenous narrative traditions and the way they interact with storytelling in modern Canadian literature, as I am grossly lacking in this area.

I wasn’t certain what to post as far as links go, so I thought I’d share some of my favourite Canadian content. I am a lover of film and music, and these two artists stand out to me as being inextricably tied to the signifier “Canadian,” but not in necessarily patriotic ways. Guy Maddin is a filmmaker from Winnipeg whose semi-autobiographical, quasi-factual “documentary” My Winnipeg (2007) is a landmark of Canadian cinema and deals with the idea of a subjective history, which Chamberlin also explores. The film is an exercise in self-conscious myth-making and those who have not should have a look.

For music, I’ll add Polaris-Prize winning, instrumental drone stalwarts Godspeed You! Black Emperor. This Interview expresses some decidedly anti-Canadian sentiment and anger which they later made more concrete by declining the aforementioned national music award when it was awarded to them.

For my own little bit of subjective history, here is an image of the hamlet of Bragg Creek, the town in which I grew up.

I look forward to spending the summer with all of you (or your online incarnations) and discussing the assigned literature

Works Cited

Costa, addy. “Godspeed You! Black Emperor; the full transcript.” The Guardian. Guardian News and Media Limited, 11 Oct. 2012. Web 15 May 2015.

“Photo Gallery.” Bragg Creek and Area Chamber of Commerce, Boden/Ledingham. Web. 14 May 2015.

“Sleepwalking in Winnipeg.” The Criterion Collection, January 2015. Web. 14 May 2015.