Write a blog that hyper-links your research on the characters in GGRW according to the pages assigned to you. Be sure to make use of  Jane Flicks’ GGRW reading notes on your reading list.

Northrop Frye, the quintessential mid-twentieth century Canadian literary critic, has found himself unknowingly and posthumously playing an integral part in the literary resistance permeating Thomas King’s novel, Green Grass, Running Water. Frye, both in his philosophy and his historical personality, comes to represent the Colonial status quo that King dismantles on route to helping us envisage alternate readings of our history and our stories. I am not just speaking about the character Joe Hovonaugh , who is inspired by Frye (Chester, 50), but of the novel’s structure in its entirety. The book itself, its fundamental way of being, is a stark contrast, if not a direct challenge to the literary world established in Frye’s writings. As Bianca Chester clearly explains, Frye was a structuralist who believes that meaning text is always confined to world of literature and thus has “less to say about the outside world than it does about something called “literariness.”(Chester, 50). King completely challenges this role of literature. He tells stories where history, politics, and mythical narratives live as equal partners. The paper acts as a meeting point, a bridge, a safe space where fiction and fact can share a bedroom without the truth police breathing down their necks. The division of labour is absolute, even the reader has a role to play. While, at times, his book reads with passive ease of a harlequin novel, it quickly becomes clear that a little more effort will go a long way.  Important pop- culture references, political satire, Indigenous knowledge and historical allusions, are planted like seeds throughout the pages and with the necessary doses of curiosity and diligence the meaning and importance of the text grows exponentially.

In the following paragraphs, we will journey as engaged readers through ten pages of King’s novel and take the time to uncover the stories that lay beneath the story. Herein lies the essence of what Chester calls the “dialogic” meaning making in King’s text (Chester,47)  By layering the story, King begins conversations at all levels which puts distinct parts of the puzzle in active dialogue. The reader is in dialogue with the author, realist narratives are in dialogue with mythical ones, history is in dialogue with popular culture, and literariness is in conversation with the ‘real’ world.

Pgs 212-222 (1993 edition)

Disney, Pocahontas and Indian Industry

At the beginning of this section in the book we are located in Los Angeles, amidst the return of Charlie and his father, Portland, to Hollywood. Following the passing of his wife, Portland (whose name is also that of largest city in Oregon ,a relevance I have yet to ascertain), has brought his son with him to the capital of the film industry as he tries to revive his latent acting career. Instead of the jumping back on to the big screen, however, Portland finds himself working in a strip club called “Four Corners” playing the  token angry and belligerent savage who first intimidates the innocent Pocahontas and then seduces her with his wild antics (King 212).

The name of the club itself, Four Corners, is , as Jane Flick points out, a darkly satirical allusion to a place, in the southwestern United States, where Arizona, Utah, New Mexico, and Colorado meet  and which is of significant cultural import to Native Americans (Flick 158). The sad irony being that  in the burlesque club the patrons are entertained by a dance that highlights the racist, Eurocentric, and deeply offensive portrayal of Indigenous people/culture in mainstream media. Pocahontas, the main erotic draw of the show, is based on the historical figure that Disney has made famous (in their movie of the same title)  that depicts a romanticized image of the  savage princess whose super-model figure and wild beauty is a prize to be won by conquering European settlers. Even in current American politics the name Pocahontas has taken on a life of its on and been used to demean and ridicule female politicians associating with their Indigenous heritage

Of course, the strip club is only one example of  King’s major fascination with the media’s (and specifically film’s) historical representation of Indigeneity. After Four Corners, we return to Portland’s home where we (re) encounter Portland’s old friend C.B Cologne , who is Italian and also has played many of the “Indian” leads in the classic Westerns. Cologne’s name is a cynical nod at Christopher Columbus (his Spanish name was Colon) who is famous for being the first explorer to “discover” America (Flick 153). The reference to Columbus seems to draw our attention to the way Europeans , echoing the way the Columbus  erroneously gave them their name based on his own narratives, have manufactured (in no small part through film) an image of the  “Indian” to fit with their perspective of reality.

Alberta is Alberta Frank and Old is New

In the next few pages we skip to the realist storyline involving Alberta Frank and her continued struggle to decide how to have a baby without involving a man. Alberta’s name is an obvious reference to the Province that much of the novel rotates around. It is also suggested that her last name, Frank, might either refer to her “frank” personality or ,alternatively, to the deadly rockslide in Frank, Alberta in 1903. While the rockslide connection is interesting and adds another layer of possible dialogue (the relationship between individual people and larger historical events), I find myself more interested in the conversation between the Alberta, the Province and Alberta, the person. The Province of Alberta is home to the Blackfoot as well as  some of the most stunning natural landscapes but it is also home to modern industry that is devastating the land at an alarming rate. In Alberta, the character, there is also this contradiction, the wrestle between worlds. This desire to move forward, to birth the next generation but a simultaneous fear of the masculine energy (which some might also associate with resource extraction) that threatens to mess it all up.

In this same section Alberta imagines Charlie mounted on a pinto “ briefcase in one hand, the horse’s mane in the other, his silk tie floating behind him” (King 214). The pinto horse is of significance because they are closely associated with the “painted” ponies that are depicted in Cheyenne paintings at Fort Marion but are also a make of Ford car that features in the novel ( Bobo’s and eventually Charlie’s rental) (Flick 146) . The juxtaposition of horse and car echoes King’s theme of the overlap and possible tensions between traditional and modern (Western) ideals.

Next,  we return to Lionel watching a Western on TV (the same Western that everybody seems to be watching that night in Blossom, Alberta). However, the film does not run its normal course. Pushing the boundaries between fiction and fantasy, King interjects non-rational occurrences in to his realist narrative. First off, “four old Indians” are seen in the movie, waving their lances on the banks of the river with one “wearing a red Hawaiian shirt” (King 216). The old “Indian” are the same four escapees from the asylum in Florida . They take on different names during the novel but they are quite clearly representing  the seventy- two native Americans who (see Cheyenne paintings at Fort Marion above) were captured and held captive for nothing more than being “Indian”. As Marlene Goldman mentions , the novel’s reference to the Fort Marion prisoners ,”serves as a formal and thematic touchstone that highlights the challenge of the novel to the imposition of non-Native boundaries and enclosures and, more generally, to European modes of mapping.” (Goldman 21) By placing these four characters  inside a traditional ‘Cowboy Western’ with the likes of John Wayne and Richard Widmark, King is forcibly disturbing these  boundaries and demanding that we dialogue with the narratives that these films are perpetuating. In turn, the presence of the  “four old Indians”, who are also representing  the Cayote-Trickster transformers of Indigenous culture, signals the start of  a total reclamation of the Hollywood story which ends later in the book with a successful Indigenous revolt (stunning all the viewers who cannot believe that a movie they know should end one way, does not).

Dr. Evil?

The final sub plot of this section is that involving Dr. Joe Hovaugh, the director of the prison/asylum at Fort Marion, who is obsessed with re-capturing his escaped inmates. The doctor is a character that plays and converses on many levels. To begin, his name is a clear word play on Jehovah, which might be away for King to highlight the Christian narratives that played a large role in Colonial worldviews. Going deeper into the character of Hovaugh, however, it has been understood that King modeled him off Northorp Frye and his ‘closed system’ approach to literature and the world (Chester 49).  Coming full circle with the opening paragraph of this blog, we see how King uses literature and story as a space for conversation. He challenges Frye, not by arguing with him directly, but rather by telling  stories that hold characters, allusions and references that clearly break down the walls that Frye was convinced existed between t literature and the world outside.

Works Cited

Chester, Blanca. “Green Grass, Running Water: Theorizing the World of the Novel.” Canadian Literature 161-162. (1999).Web. 14 Mar. 2019

Flick Jane. “Reading Notes for Thomas King’s Green Grass, Running Water.” Canadian Literature 161/162 (1999). Web. 14 Mar. 2019

Fox, Jana. Tricksters As Transformative Teachers. Transformative Educational Leadership Journal, 2017. Web. 15 Mar. 2019

“Four Corners Region Geotourism Map”. National Geographic. Web. 14 Mar. 2019

Gale, Thomson. “Christianity And Colonial Expansion In The Americas”. Encycolpedia.com, 2007. Web. 14 Mar. 2019

Goldman, Marlene. “Canadian Literature: Mapping and Dreaming: Native Resistance in Green Grass, Running Water”. University of British Columbia Press, 1999. Web. 14 Mar. 2019

King, Thomas. “Green Grass Running Water”. Toronto: Harper Collins, 1993. Print.

Morton, Ellen. “The Dramatic Remains of Canada’s Deadliest Landslide“. Slate, 2014.Web. 14 Mar. 2019

Poc, Nerdy. “Examining Racist Tropes In Disney Animated Films“. Medium.com, 2017. Web. 14 Mar. 2019

“Pinto Horse“. Petguide.com. Web. 14 Mar. 2019

Sachs, Honor. “How Pocahontas — the myth and the slur — props up white supremacy”. Washington Post, 2018.Web. 15 Mar. 2019

Image

Hurd, Dennis Sylvester. “1971 Ford Pinto Print Ad“. Flickr, 2018. Web. 14 Mar. 2019

Blog 3-5

In order to tell us the story of a stereo salesman, Lionel Red Deer (whose past mistakes continue to live on in his present), a high school teacher, Alberta Frank (who wants to have a child free of the hassle of wedlock—or even, apparently, the hassle of heterosex!), and a retired professor, Eli Stands Alone (who wants to stop a dam from flooding his homeland), King must go back to the beginning of creation.

Why do you think this is so?

The Truth About Stories

When we first encountered King in this class (The Truth About Stories) he challenged us to look deeply at the power that “story” has to frame our entire experience of reality. In the tale of the witches’ convention, which later became our storytelling assignment, we were explicitly told that “once a story is told it cannot be called back” (King 10). Soon after this he sets up the dichotomy of creation stories, juxtaposing the ‘Western’ biblical narrative of the Garden of Eden with an Indigenous story of a woman (Charm) falling from the sky (10-22) . In no ambiguous terms, King spells out the divergent worldviews that emerge from these two distinct versions of who and where we come from. The Garden narrative, with its dry, distanced approach and its inherent hierarchies, allows a perspective where profit and self -interest are encouraged above all else (27). Whereas Charm’s story fosters a world of cooperation between humans and all the different elements of the natural world (25). King goes even further by suggesting that some stories (or perhaps ways of sharing them) not only suggest a reality but also enforce that reality with the ruthless tactics of a totalitarian dictatorship. The Garden narrative, he argues, creates a closed circuit, a one street, where sacred and profane have been so clearly defined that no escape or alternative is possible.  If you believe in the sacred truth of Adam and Eve you cannot simultaneously hold Charm’s story in that same regard (25).

While there are obvious difficulties to King’s argument ( the contradiction of challenging  dichotomies  by setting up one and then depending on one ,narrow interpretation of the bible), the message is clear: Stories are powerful, they are agents of creation and destruction, and we become our stories.  Going further, I don’t think King’s choice of using the example of creation stories was in any way arbitrary. When you want to know the essence of something you have to go to its source and creation was literally the source of it all (for our reality, at least). By going to the source, I believe King, was trying to warn us that these stories run incredibly deep and spread a worldview like a heart pumping blood throughout a vascular system. Ultimately, though, King does not wish to see himself as a pedagogue teaching us right from wrong but as a storyteller engaging us in a conversation and so the essay (The Truth About Stories) can only point towards what the story (Green Grass and Running Water) will eventually deliver…. 

Don’t Show them your mind. Show them your imagination (King 26)

Lionel, Alberta, Eli, and even Charlie are characters that all inhabit a space between the two stories of creation. They are indigenous by birth, by blood, by heritage, by traditional stories but they are also all deeply immersed in the Western culture and its seductive, capitalist ethos that encroaches (literally and figuratively) upon the reservation of their childhood. I believe that King uses the story of these four individuals to help anchor our understanding of how the stories we tell literally play out in the lives we live. Since creation is the source, its telling and then retelling becomes the core metaphor by which we can observe transformation in the world of the novel and ,more generally, the interplay  between story and life, fact and fiction, and myth and reality. As Eden becomes subverted and distorted by Indigenous narratives, struggles of identity and meaning play out in the lives of the protagonists.  In their own way, each of the characters is struggling to find balance as they teeter between these different essential narratives, each worldview  pulling them in a different direction and perhaps towards a different creative source.

(T)he reader moves between the world of the novel and the world as experienced. (Chester 49)

On the theme of directions, King’s book is broken up into the four directions of the medicine wheel common to many Indigenous cultures which has also been associated with the four stages of the life cycle: Birth, Child, Adult , and  Elder. I want to suggest that King’s four central characters embody the evolving interplay (and sometimes direct conflict) of the different creation narratives as they play out through the four stages of the life cycle. Alberta is birth. She struggles to find a way to bring life into her disconnected and fragmented reality. She wants to be a mother but is wary of the corruption and loss of independence that marriage will bring about. It is only once she comes home to the Sundance, that pregnancy manifests and the movement towards rebirth can begin.  Lionel is the child, blocked in the stage of transformation. He is unable to break free from the shackles of his past and commit to an integrated positive direction for the future. Stories play out in his mind, but they cannot be actualized. As the western creation story shifts into dialogue with Indigenous ones, he is able to assert some independence from Buffalo Bill and assume control of his life. In the novel’s final image, he is surrounded by family and poised to support in the building process. Charlie, in my reading, is the adult. He has asserted his independence from Bill and has a successful job which provides him ultimate financial freedom. Yet conflict is found in the fact that his supposed independence is actually a trick, a sham. He is being used by the corporation that employs him and is then discarded when no longer of value. At the end, he is going on his own journey to learn from his father who, as the story is retold, becomes the Indian who led the charge to undoing John Wayne. Finally, we are left with Eli Stand Alone, the Elder. The one who completes and begins the cycle. While his death is where we end the story, his return home is where we begin (or is it the other way round?). We are never told why he decides to come home but somehow, we know it was because undoing the dam was also undoing the story and allowing the retelling to begin. Eli, the professor of western literature turned fearless defender of his Home, perhaps a bit of Thomas King himself, represents the beginning that is ever present in that which appears as the end of every story.

Links and Works Cited

Chester Blanca. “Green Grass Running Water: Theorizing the World of the Novel.” Canadian Literature 161-162. (1999). Web. March 7, 2019. 

Cooper, Rabbi David. “2364 The Mystical Garden Of Eden”, rabbidavidcooper.com, 2010. March 7, 2019.

King, Thomas. The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative. Peterbough:Anansi Press. 2003. Print.

Nelson, Norma. “A Life Story of an Indigenous Elder: Circling the Medicine Wheel’s Life Stages”. University of Manitoba, 2015 (unpublished). Web. March 7, 2019.

Image

Kilroy, Guy.”Sold Sign and House”. Flickr. 2014.  Web Image. March 7, 2019 (Open Source).

3 ] Frye writes:

A much more complicated cultural tension [more than two languages] arises from the impact of the sophisticated on the primitive, and vice a versa. The most dramatic example, and one I have given elsewhere, is that of Duncan Campbell Scott, working in the department of Indian Affairs in Ottawa. He writes of a starving squaw baiting a fish-hook with her own flesh, and he writes of the music of Dubussy and the poetry of Henry Vaughan. In English literature we have to go back to Anglo-Saxon times to encounter so incongruous a collision of cultures (Bush Garden 221).

It is interesting, and telling of literary criticism at the time, that while Frye lights on this duality in Scott’s work, or tension between “primitive and civilized” representations; however, the fact that Scott wrote poetry romanticizing the “vanishing Indians” and wrote policies aimed at the destruction of Indigenous culture and Indigenous people – as a distinct people, is never brought to light. In 1924, in his role as the most powerful bureaucrat in the department of Indian Affairs, Scott wrote:

The policy of the Dominion has always been to protect Indians, to guard their identity as a race and at the same time to apply methods, which will destroy that identity and lead eventually to their disappearance as a separate division of the population (In Chater, 23).

For this blog assignment, I would like you to explain why it is that Scott’s highly active role in the purposeful destruction of Indigenous people’s cultures is not relevant for Frye in his observations above? You will find your answers in Frye’s discussion on the problem of ‘historical bias’ (216) and in his theory of the forms of literature as closed systems (234 –5).

For this blog I would like to offer two sections. In the first section, I offer, to the best of my ability, and academic response the questions posed. In the second section, I offer a much more personal reflection on approaching this material, in general.

Part One: Overriding Dissonance

One major theme that is circulating the perimeter of many discussions in this class, as I see it, is the relationship of culture  (literature ,most specifically) and society. In  the West,  the past millennium has seen a general shift towards the breaking down of life into defined boxes that can be dissecting and analyzed. Storytelling ,for instance,  which served an integrated role in earlier societies as a source of communal values, ideals, and worldviews, became a cultural art form that could be analyzed and ultimately consumed as an entity distinct from the whole. The implication of such compartmentalization  is that different aspects to social life can be observed independently and without and relationship. Stories are found in bookstores or theatres, politics in government, morals in the religious institution, so on and so forth.

As I see it, this breaking down of society into its parts is what allows  Northorp Frye the ability to overlook the dissonance in Duncan Scott’s politics and poetry. According to a compartmentalized reality , Scott’s job as a politician, dealing with the day to day struggles of building a strong and unified nation,  and his alternate reality as a writer of poetry occupy two distinct societal spaces that need not be reconciled.

I believe that this mindset is articulated in  Frye’s writing when he  describes the study of literature as occupied with the formation of  “ cultural history”  , as opposed to political or economic history, and that it reflects “the social imagination that explores and settles and develops, and the imagination has its own rhythms of growth as well as its own modes of expression” (Frye 217). In essence, Frye is setting up a landscape to read Scott’s poetry  as an  imaginative (intuitive) expression of experiences living at that time in Canada. Scott’s expression of nostalgic reverence to Indigenous culture in his poetry is thus reflective of the feelings and emotions central to the writing of literature and not his political decisions, which come from a totally different part of his reality and is subject to different set of rules and conditions. Blaming the poet for the politicians actions would be a silly as blaming the foot for the hand that punches. Incidentally, this type of thinking might also be the way Scott himself can reconcile the cognitive dissonance evident in his politics and poetry. He might easily have been able to convince himself that the unique beauty of Indigenous culture is the truth in the poetic sphere while the need for its destruction is truth in the political sphere (no need to ask which truth is of a higher order).

Part two: Worlds Apart

I must have  reread the relevant sections of Frye’s essay for the twentieth time before arriving at even a glimmer of comprehension. He is speaking in my mother tongue but yet he is tying up my neural pathways in a complex mash of linguistic tricks and theoretical detours. I am frustrated by the way he makes sweeping conclusions about the development of the Canadian imagination in a language that most of  the country, other than a handful of intellectual elites, could never dream of grasping. I leave his book feeling that the world of creative stories and images, a world I have always felt I belonged, was beyond my reach. Maybe  he is a reflection of his time and the audience to whom he was speaking, in any case the Bush Garden leaves me feeling like I am lost in the jungle.

It was strangely fitting that Frye systematically catalogued the Canadian cultural imagination with a price tag attached to each installment. Reflecting a world where imagination is bought and sold next to the bottles of pop and chocolate bars.  Stories are not free to all but are subject to the uncompromising wills of a dangerously unjust economic system.

I can’t help but naturally compare this to my experience of story as presented to me in Harry Robinson’s world.  While there were times that Robinson also left me perplexed, it was not because his words were out of  my reach but rather because he was asking me to reach deeper inside myself. Robinson’s oral style made me feel part of an experience or relationship far greater than reader and writer. While Frye made me feel excluded, on the curb awaiting entry in an exclusive club. I know that Frye was essentially a critic and Robinson essentially a storyteller, so the comparison is some what unfair, but the fact remains they both were sharing narratives on the land we call home. I’m also not saying that there wasn’t great wisdom in Frye’s essays, I felt sure there was. But somehow it felt like I was being tested acess to a solitary perch outside of the  action  where I could observe from outside looking in, while Harry was opening doorways to new experience from inside building out.

Links and Works Cited

Frye, Northrop. The Bush Garden; Essays on the Canadian Imagination. 2011 Toronto: Anansi. Print.

Robinson, Harry. “Coyote Makes a Deal with the King Of England.” Living by Stories: a Journey of Landscape and Memory. Ed. Wendy Wickwire. Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2005

“Indigenous Peoples Worldviews vs Western Worldviews”, Indigenous Corporate Training Inc. ” https://www.ictinc.ca/blog/indigenous-peoples-worldviews-vs-western-worldviews

Image

Couse-Baker , Robert. “Cognitive Dissonance”. FlickR. https://www.flickr.com/photos/29233640@N07/16529106045 (Accessed Feb 28, 2019). Open Source

3] 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.”
4] In the last lesson I ask some of you, “what is your first response to Robinson’s story about the white and black twins in context with our course theme of investigating intersections where story and literature meet.” I asked, what do you make of this “stolen piece of paper”? Now that we have contextualized that story with some historical narratives and explored ideas about questions of authenticity and the necessity to “get the story right” – how have your insights into that story changed?

While my blog post is primarily a response to questions 3, I have decided to include question 4 because , I believe, there is a relationship between the two.

Sparke’s use of the term “contrapuntal” in describing the idea of subversive  maps  is immensely instrumental (no pun intended) in understanding his way of looking at the land claim trials of Gitxsan and Wet’suwet’en territory in the 1960s (Sparke, 468). According to the Mirriam Webster dictionary, contrapuntal refers to music that is either polyphonic (many melodies [or voices] woven together) or marked by counterpoint. On the most literal level, Sparke was noting that maps, when they offer historical accounting that predates settlement by Europeans and speak to multiple layers of our national past, have the potential to draw the reader to think differently about “colonial frontiers and national knowledge itself.” (468). Within the analogy, these different histories ,which are given place on the subversive map, are like distinct voices that sing together to produce the rich, harmonious polyphony sound of the territory or , put in another way, functioning as a counterpoint to an otherwise singular, flat melody.

With this in mind, Sparke offers two reading (or three) of Judge McEachern’s response to a subversive, polyphonic map handed to him by Gitxsan and Wet’suwet’en at the start of their land claim trial.  The first two explanations of McEachern statement, “We’ll call this the map that roared” are pessimistic. Sparke argues that the Judge was actually mocking the creators of the map by referencing a movie entitled “the Mouse that Roared” or the common expression “Paper Tigers”, which refers to a people who appear to pose a threat but are actually powerless (468). The third possible reading is to see it as reflecting actual power in this act of resistance which, although ineffective in the trial, lay the foundation for growing subversion amongst Indigenous peoples.

A cynic, hearing of this story and the ultimate verdict handed down by the judge ,where he completely dismissed the claims of the Gitxsan and Wet’suwet’en in a four-hundred page document, would, without hesitation,  write off the Judge’s remarks as a cruel scoff at Indigenous land claims  (like those found in Sparkes first two explanations)(470). Yet, I believe, that Sparke tells this story because he ultimately sees that the comments  suggest something deeper in the judge’s reaction to the map. However sarcastic the comment was, he still took the time to  respond to the map and chose to use the verb “roar” to describe it. Sparke seems to insinuate that , perhaps unconsciously, the map did capture, in a language  “the Canadian court might understand”  a legitimate and threatening claim to the land the judge was now calling home (470).

I think this last point, that the map had spoken in the language of the European mind,  is a key stress here and features prominently in Sparke’s next chapter and relates intimately, I believe, with Robinson’s story of the “stolen paper” (Robinson 10). In its essence, lies the idea that  Europeans could not, would not, and did not  listen to Indigenous territorial claims (or voices) until they were formatted in a way that conformed to their standards (and even then only nominally). In McEachern’ example it was the written map but, as Sparke goes on to demonstrate, this forced conformity is found throughout the court system itself. From the architecture of the space, to geographic  location, to the language and dynamics of the process, this was a sham mockery of justice that ,in reality , “served as a an apparatus of state power” (Sparke 472).

However, this system of forced conformity was not just a way to deny claims and pervert justice, it was also a devastating mechanism for cultural assimilation. European concepts like the courts, maps and written language are not benign examples of technological advancement. As Keith Thor Carlson reminds us, the imposition of a literacy was a colonial weapon capable of  “facilitating profound cognitive  change” (Carlson 43). Which brings us to Robinson’s story of the stolen papers. Without the time to dissect this completely, it would seem to me that Robinson’s story is highlighting this power of the written word but with added nuance and complexity. In the story of the twins, the younger brother steals the document which represents literacy and , as the story goes, derives power (and domination) from its concealment until eventually Coyote needs to travel to England and writes a book with the King. As we see, the movement is always one directional. Coyote must go to them, must write in their language, in their format. The Indigenous people come slowly to learn the written language of the settlers , and even, at times,  manage to subvert it  with polyphonic melodies, but is real relationship possible when only one side will take a step forward?

Works Cited and Linked

Carlson, Keith Thor. “Orality and Literacy: The ‘Black and White’ of Salish History.” Orality & Literacy: Reflectins Across Disciplines. Ed. Carlson, Kristina Fagna, & Natalia Khamemko-Frieson. Toronto: Uof Toronto P, 2011.

Robinson, Harry. “Coyote Makes a Deal with the King Of England.” Living by Stories: a Journey of Landscape and Memory. Ed. Wendy Wickwire. Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2005.

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.

Williams, Victoria. “What is Counterpoint?”, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UbDunxm598  (Accessed February 19, 2019).

Facing History and Ourselves. “Until There Is Not a Single Indian in Canada”  https://www.facinghistory.org/stolen-lives-indigenous-peoples-canada-and-indian-residential-schools/historical-background/until-there-not-single-indian-canada  (Accessed February 19, 2019).

Image

“Roaring Japanese tiger hand-drawn illustration”. Raw Pixel https://www.rawpixel.com/image/449896/roaring-japanese-tiger-hand-drawn-illustration (Accessed February 19, 2019). Image

5.“If Europeans were not from the land of the dead, or the sky, alternative explanations which were consistent with indigenous cosmologies quickly developed” (“First Contact” 43). Robinson gives us one of those alternative explanations in his stories about how Coyote’s twin brother stole the “written document” and when he denied stealing the paper, he was “banished to a distant land across a large body of water” (9). We are going to return to this story, but for now – what is your first response to this story? In context with our course theme of investigating intersections where story and literature meet, what do you make of this stolen piece of paper? This is an open-ended question and you should feel free to explore your first thoughts.

Robinson’s story of the twin brothers , despite what one might have predicted , did not evoke a feeling of defensiveness in me as a “European descendant” but rather left me  hopeful and positive about facing the truth of our past and moving forward towards reconciliation  through real action. The idea that the violent , destructive, and shameful history of Colonial history in the Americas could be understood through the story  of a disordered and morally corrupt younger brother , in my mind, opened up the possibility of compassion for the mistakes of our past rather less useful emotions such as  anger or bitterness (or worst, guilt).  It also had the effect of distancing the horrors from individual people (who, in any case, died a long time ago) and rather framed it as a dangerous tendency that needs to be redressed and cleansed within the world today. As a white Canadian, I felt that any part of my personality that could have or did or even ,unconsciously, takes part in the colonial legacy was given a name and a face that needed to be confronted but that  it was not to be identified with the whole of  who I am.

Maybe I can illustrate what I mean a little better with a personal anecdote. When my father was young he had a grandfather who was severely addicted to alcohol and would often barely make it home at night. Many mornings, it would be my father’s duty to bring him inside, clean his dirty body and put him to bed. Beyond the inconvenience and trauma (of seeing your elders in this way)  to my young father, it also had an utterly destructive effect on the family structure as a whole. Without going into details, my great grandfather’s lifestyle had far-reaching effects on the finances, relationships, and dynamics of his family. Many people suffered as a result of his actions and the effects were felt even in future generations.

Now, one way to look at my great-grand father would be to shame his name, and discuss how disgusting a person he was for being so selfish and unconscious to the effects he was having on others. This approach would  encourage a bitter reflection on the man in hopes of erasing his memory. However, in a way it would also serve to reinforce the negative dimensions of his legacy by increasing the bitter energies in the family. Another approach might be to tell a story about how a part of him became a slave to the forces of alcohol in an epic battle where a corrupted aspect of himself took control over the rest. By seeing the essence of the man as a victim of forces he could , at that time, not overcome, we can develop sympathy for his failures and also clearly reinforce for his offspring the importance of being aware of the dangerous trap of succumbing to the selfish and addicted aspects of himself . In effect, the corrupted man can then serve as an example of where we might end up should we allow dangerous elements of our personality to reign.

In Robinson’s story I felt a strange empathy for the compulsive lying , confused, and (possibly) jealous younger brother who wrecks so much damage and , in turn,  lays the groundwork for his white descendants who manifest the disastrous colonial legacy that we all know. This character didn’t represent the European people but , in my reading,  a fallen aspect of their personalities that had lead them down a terrible path. In turn,  I was allowed to see the architects of the horrors of paternalist colonialism , not as wholly evil but as addicts who had succumb to the lowest aspects of themselves (ego- driven, power hungry, dangerously selfish children) and mindlessly played out a pattern implanted by this “younger brother” ancestor. The next step is that  I can begin to look at those aspects in myself that need to be addressed , rectified, and (ultimately) healed so that I can be a true agent of positivity and change. Story has the amazing ability to allow us to look directly at the which, otherwise, might be too painful approach.

As a side note, I don’t want to suggest that my metaphorical reading of the stories in any way diminishes its claim to historical accuracy but , rather, that a story’s ambiguous relationship to both fact and fiction position it to uniquely offer the listener/reader many windows of meaning.

With regards to the second aspect of the question, the stolen piece of paper, it suggests an enormous overlap with the themes discussed in class so far. In particular, it brought up ,for me, the questions of orality, written word and power. In my reading of Robinson’s story, the fact that the younger brother steals a written document is important because we see how a neutral entity, like a written document (or the written word, in general), can be transformed into a weapon. By deceptively withholding the contents of the document, the younger brother asserts control and power over his older brother by creating a dis-balance in knowledge. Since the spoken work is an innate ability endowed to all humans raised in a social setting and written language seems to be developed by certain groups and literacy needs to be taught, it is important to recognize that the written word would thus have more potential to be used as a weapon. I would like to spend more time thinking and exploring the complex relationship between language and power.

Links

Author Unknown. “What reconciliation is and what it is not” , www.ictinc.ca. Accessed on February 4, 2019.

Bedard, Jean-Paul. “The Power of Story and Metaphor” www.huffpost.com. Accessed on February 4, 2019.

Image

“Evie Looking in the Mirror”. www.flickr.com. Taken on April 11, 2012 (Open Source)

Similarities: 

Family– the good , the bad, and the ugly

Relationships– loved ones create a space of full acceptance and love that becomes home

The senses–  Our memories are deeply connected to the senses, especially smell. Smell is the most evocative and can often trigger deep experiences of the past.  The images and feelings conjured by my classmates sensual memories always made me feel warm and loved.

Spiritual traditions- home is also found deep within. The physical world is a reflection of an inner world within each of us and therefore our physical home (with parents and family) also ties deeply with our spirituality. While many children , at some point, run far from the religion/spirituality of their parents , many ultimately return (in some shape or form).

Home moving with you- this idea felt conflicted within me.  I travelled a lot and have lived outside of Canada (as an adult) for about half my life and , while I could make a life and become deeply intwined in other places, they would only be cheap imitations of the deep , unbreakable home of my childhood. Yet, I could take those memories with me and , often , appreciated home more when I was away.

History – home is the gateway to ancestors and generations gone by.

Sharing meals- Food , food, food. It is so much more than energy for the body.  We are what we eat but also how we eat.

Stories- I related to home being expressed through story. Sometimes, descriptive reflections are limited in their reach. Stories can talk ( Chamberlain’s paradox )at levels that go a truth much deeper than the rational mind

Identity through discrimination- The Jewish people , ironically, have been strengthened by their enemies. The connection and sense of home that I feel around other Jews is based, to a large extent, on the challenges we have collectively (and individually faced).

Partner becoming home– I loved this image. People you love and truly share with can come closest to embodying the safety of home. Still, with partners you have to work at it and build that relationship, home just is.

It was extremely easy to connect to people’s descriptive stories of childhood home as , I believe, it is a concept that dwells somewhere within the collective unconscious. While we all experience different memories as children, the comfort and warmth of home is something we all have implanted in our psyche (maybe from the womb). Those early feelings become a part of us and become an archetype of comfort and safety throughout our lives. I believe that concept of “home” deep within us then becomes a major source of strength and support that can be tapped into in difficult times. That is why depriving children of safety as children (through abandonment, abuse, or neglect) can have such a deeply traumatic effect well into adulthood; the archetype has been corrupted at its roots and accessing that sense of safety is much more difficult.

Differences

Politics- It is not that politics doesn’t factor into my sense of home. I am aware of it at an intellectual level but real home , true home is not found in the mind it is found in the heart

Economics – Again, I recognize privilege and I recognize that poverty (and politics) play enormous roles in our fate I just want to believe, however, that home is state of being imparted to all at birth and , while it can be corrupted by an unjust world, that corruption is not its essence.

Land- I have a hard time connected home to a physical piece of land. Maybe because it evokes the fears mentioned above

Places traveled abroad can be home – I am not sure

Home is where the heart is- I think I would rather say that the heart is where the home is. the difference being that it we do not choose our home, it has chosen us….

Works Linked

Chamberlin, Edward. “Interview with J. Edward Chamberlin”. Writer’s Café.  Web April 04 2013.

“Joseph Campbell and the Myth of the Hero’s Journey” https://academyofideas.com/2016/06/joseph-campbell-myth-of-the-heros-journey/

Growing up in Vancouver, we always had a rotating family Shabbat dinner (a traditional Jewish , family meal)  ever Friday night. One week it would be at my parent’s home, the next at my aunt and uncles and the next week  at my Granny and Oupa’s. It was always fun to be with the family but, as a teenager, it was often difficult to reconcile the high demands of highschool social life with the duty of staying home every Friday.  I have many memories of feeling frustrated and weighted down by this tradition that seemed restrictive and without any obvious benefit to my emerging social existence.

At eighteen, I left the Vancouver nest and went off to study on the other side of the country , in Montreal. This separation from my family would, ostensibly, have offered the perfect opportunity for me to dispose of the Shabbat tradition and recreate a life freed from the oppression of Shabbat. However, ironically, after a few weeks I came to realize that these dinner’s every Friday were the things I missed the most about home. A week that flowed forth into the next without the Shabbat marker seemed incomplete or undefined. There was no place for me to let go of one week and enter fresh into the next. I decided that I would begin to have Shabbat dinner’s ever Friday at my own student digs. Since my family was not around  I began to invite friends and acquaintances that I met through my studies and experiences at University. I would make a special effort to invite people from different spheres on the same week (i.e the Rugby team members with friends from the the theatre crowd). I would invite many people not knowing who would actually come and who would drop out at the last minute. The result was sometimes a massive Shabbat with thirty people and other times an intimate affair with four friends. Each week was distinct and full of its own flavour but the theme that always ran through was the idea of sharing a moment of rest together and an honouring of the week that had passed. It became the most memorable feature of my University career and a treasure that I still carry with me to this day.

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When I was in my mid-twenties I lived in Paris for about four years. What an amazing place to be for a young, aspiring  theatre artist. Every moment was rich with inspiration and beauty. Sitting in a cafe you felt part of a novel, walking down the street you were in a painting, and just being a few hours in a town square would provide enough drama to fill five acts many times over. Yet, the city also had a dark side. In the winter, the sky was grey, the buildings were grey, and the people often turned sour and bitter. One day, after a particularly gruesome visit to the immigration office (which is infamous for treating applicants as if they were all thieves or five year-olds in need of a spanking), I found myself in tears sitting on a hard park bench, alone. In that moment, images of the BC forests began to emerge in my mind. I would eventually call my parents and talk through my troubles but my initial comfort did not come from people but rather from the trees. Imagining the sights and  smells of the endowment land forest I had roamed freely as a child was enough to give me the strength to go on.

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There is a story I have been told many times and in many different contexts. In many ways , it has followed me throughout much of my adult life. It is possible that you have heard it too (it ‘s everyones story in some way) but I will tell it again anyways.

It tells the story of a man (but it could just as easily be a woman), let’s call him Benjamin, who is not very wealthy and struggles sometimes to even have enough food to get him through the day. One night he has a dream that there is a mass of treasure that can be found under a particular bridge in the (appropriately named) neighbouring town of Richmond. So, the next morning, excited by what seemed like a sign from above, he  gathered up all the coins he had in his house and bought a ticket on the skytrain to this particular spot. When he arrived at the closest stop on the train, he jumped out  and rushed down to the area under bridge that had appeared in his dream. When he arrived, however, a security guard was stationed in front of a massive gate, barring his way. When Benjamin asked to go through he was told that there was construction taking place and that only licensed personnel were allowed passed. On a whim, Benjamin decided that his best chance of inspiring sympathy from the guard might be to tell him the full story. So, he proceeded to tell the security all about his dream and reason for needing to enter. The security guard laughed, “Ha! You came all the way to Richmond because of a dream. How foolish. Even just last night I also had a dream that there is treasure under the oven of a man named Benjamin in Vancouver. Imagine. How silly!”

Upon hearing this, Benjamin said goodbye to the guard and ran back to the skytrain, still able to use his transfer, he rushed straight home. Sure enough, as he moved away his heavy oven ,from its usual spot, he discovered a trap door that opened to reveal mounds of  cash and unused gift cards below. The treasure he had been searching for had always been there, in his own home.

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Home is our source. It is also the place many of us spend most of our lives running away from and then , with what time is left,  struggling to return to. While we all experience different memories as children, the comfort and warmth of home is something we all have implanted in our psyche (maybe from the womb). Those early feelings become a part of us and become an archetype of comfort and safety throughout our lives. I believe that concept of “home” deep within us then becomes a major source of strength and support that can be tapped into in difficult times. That is why depriving children of safety as children (through abandonment, abuse, or neglect) can have such a deeply traumatic effect well into adulthood; the archetype has been corrupted at its roots and accessing that sense of safety is much more difficult. Ironically, in our journey towards self identity we often need to travel as far as we can away from our essential “homes” in an effort to assert independence only to often discover that the treasure we longed for had been under the oven all the time.

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Image 1: slgckgc,Shabbat Candles.Taken on June 18, 2010 (Open Source)

Image 2: RestfulC401 WinterforceMedia. Undercut bank in Capilano River Regional Park, North Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.11 April 2009 (Open Source)

Works Linked

Jeffrey, Scott. “A Closer Look at Carl Jung’s Individuation Process: A Map for Psychic Wholeness”, https://scottjeffrey.com/individuation-process/ (Accessed February 18, 2019)

Posner, Menachem. “Shabbat”, https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/633659/jewish/Shabbat.htm (Accessed January 27, 2019)

     It was once again the time for the Cosmic Spiritual Trainers Annual General Meeting and all three of the invited guests were excited. As always, they would meet to share anecdotes of their past year and demonstrate their new methods for helping humans to build up mental and spiritual stamina for species advancement. In the small but cozy celestial command centre they had a great view of the human world below where their covert spiritual exercises would play out. Of course, the training had to happen under the radar of the clients because if they knew it was a training exercise they would be tempted to give up or ask for help. It was crucial that they believe everything to be within the natural order of universal laws and that their success or failure was purely measured by their own abilities. The measurement of a great trainer was their ability to reveal the hidden strengths of their clients while hiding their own revelatory abilities.

After the meet and greet, still glowing from the laughter of sharing common experiences, the three top trainers of the Beriya celestial sphere ,one by one, showed off their newest techniques for training. Demonstrating on a live, unwitting, client below, the first showed how he could swiftly build a wall too high for any human to climb, that would subtly creep on to his client’s pathway and block access to their goals, and then , once they had showed enough determination and courage, a small doorway would appear etched in the stone, through which the participant could move on in their journey . The second, demonstrated how she could very deftly switch the current of a river just when her client had begun to achieve a certain flow in their paddling. Then, once they had pushed with all their strength, she would subtly split the pathway and return them to the flow with a renewed sense of purpose and power. Finally, it was the third trainer’s turn to go and, by the sly grin on her face, everyone could tell she was very excited to show her new discovery. Leaning over the observation screen, she urged the others to follow suit. “Be very quiet”, she said, “for this one you need to really listen”. And then, with the wink of an eye, she began to send thought patterns down through many layers of stratosphere. Listening very closely the trainers could hear the thoughts as the entered the mind of the client far below. The thoughts were in the form of a whispered story that told of all sorts of terrible and scary possibilities that lurked behind every corner on the client’s chosen pathway. It was immediately obvious how effective the technique was as the human participant started to change directions sharply, jumping off the path at the smallest sound, hiding behind trees, and even lying flat on their stomach. Their pace had slowed down to a near crawl and their body was rigid with fear and anxiety. The other trainers were very impressed. “Amazing!” they said in unison, “So powerful. Now, let’s see how you perform the release.”

At that moment, the trainer who had been demonstrated the technique, turned to the others with concern distinctly apparent on her face, “well, that’s the only problem, I cannot release. Once I send out a story, I cannot take it back, it is there forever.”

Storytelling Reflection- Rigidity in Flexibility, Flexibility in Rigidity

With regards to the content , the exercise of writing a story but applying the same ending was interesting in the sense that I felt both the freedom to move in new directions with my interpretation but also restricted by the prescribed ending. In my experience this had the effect of stimulating my personal creative process while , simultaneously, feeling tied to what Carl Jung or Joseph Campbell might call a greater ,collective creativity.  You see, normally I find creative story writing anxiety provoking because I never know where to start. However, in this exercise, having an endpoint in mind actually allowed my creativity to flow in a less inhibited manner.  On the other hand, the borrowed endpoint , in many ways, also made me the teller of a story that was larger than me. I could imagine telling the story of collective humanity while putting it into my own words.

From a technical perspective, the process also highlighted the themes of freedom and responsibility (or structure).When I moved from written word to oral re-telling I observed an enormous  playfullness emerge.  I was no longer in my own world trying to write an interesting story but was now in a direct relationship with my audience. I felt myself taking liberties with the story in an effort to make things clear and  keep the listeners entertained. Some of those evolutions, found themselves incorporated in the written form. So, in a way, there was a feedback loop taking place between the oral and written versions. I also noticed that my tone and emphasis became great determinants of how my story would be heard. In the written form I had an intended tone in my head as I wrote but I am unsure if readers will have that same tone when they read it. I wonder if great writers are able to craft a story in such a way that everyone reading might clearly capture the tone behind the words? On the other hand, is the freedom of interpretation also a great advantage of the written word. Often, we describe written words as fixed, however, in reality they leave enormous space for creative interpretation. Oral storytelling, on the other hand, is, in a way, more clear in the meaning it is trying to communicate. The two , in fact, have incorporate elements of flexibility and rigidity. In fact, that seemed to compliment each other enormously.

Overall, when I looked at the exercise through the lens of greater themes in this class things seems to get more complex.  I see that  the written word , so cherished a part of  European culture, as overpowering the orality of the Indigenous cultures during first (and continued) encounters. Why did this happen when there seems to be such potential for mutual benefit? Is  it because of the difference between oral and literate cultures , in general.  Is the nature of orality such that it will always be subordinate to the written word? Not necessarily because one is innately superior but because , in practice, literate cultures will always find it hard to overcome the rigidity of the written word?

Works Linked

“Joseph Campbell and the Myth of the Hero’s Journey” https://academyofideas.com/2016/06/joseph-campbell-myth-of-the-heros-journey/ (Accessed February 18, 2019)

Ong, Walter J. 1982. Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word. London: Methuen, pp.31, 37-49  http://newlearningonline.com (Accessed  February 18, 2019)

Image:

Figuring out this place called home is a problem (87).  Why? Why is it so problematic to figure out this place we call home: Canada? Consider this question in context with Chamberlin’s discussion on imagination and reality; belief and truth (use the index).Chamberlin says, “the sad fact is, the history of settlement around the world is the history of displacing other people from their lands, of discounting their livelihoods and destroying their languages” (78).  Chamberlin goes on to “put this differently” (Para. 3). Explain that “different way” of looking at this, and discuss what you think of the differences and possible consequences of these “two ways” of understanding the history of settlement in Canada

“I talked about the false choice that is so often presented to us, the choice between being marooned on an island and drowning at sea.”(Chamberlain 32)

Several times throughout his book, Chamberlain warns us against cornering ourselves into the unenviable situation quoted above (32, 127, 239). The repetition of this metaphor signals  its significance in Chamberlain’s over-arching thesis. Yet, the fun of metaphors is that they are never straight forward but ,rather, demand us to  forge our way along the winding path of meaning. The image was easy to conjure in my mind; Floating helplessly in the ocean and  grasping tenaciously to a single plank of wood, I come across a a deserted island where I am forced to choose between living stranded and alone or to keep holding on and eventually drowning in the waters. But to truly understand this metaphor, context seemed crucial.  In the book, the metaphor consistently appears at times when  the author is questioning the distinction between reality and imagination. Chamberlain seemed to be  waving a red flag and pointing towards the common trap of false dichotomy (i.e. Good vs. Evil, False vs. Truth, Real vs . imagined, Us and Them). He is highlighting the way these distinctions close our minds and force us into a place of judgment and categorization of “others” and cutting off alternatives for compromise and understanding. Until, in a way,  we are left clinging helplessly to a single piece of wood. The tragedy, according to my reading of the metaphor above, is that we needn’t think in these dilemmas (or dichotomies)  at all. Humans are capable and even naturally suited to living in contradiction. Stories are the best example of this. Across cultures and across time, myths and stories have occupied a space of paradox that exists between reality and fiction and have allowed for belief and non-belief to live in peaceful co-existence.  In light of this perspective, and to attempt an answer part of  the above question, the settlement of the Americas , can be understood,  not only as an appropriation of land but also the appropriation of reality. The violence of  settlement, according to Chamberlain, is  found as much in the dismissal of others beliefs as it was of  their territorial rights. The settler had tragically convinced themselves that they had to either make a life on the deserted island or drown.

Given this deeper, psychological understanding of colonialism we can also see why the question of ‘figuring out this place we call home’ might be more complicated than land rights, language, and economic retribution.  If the European appropriation of Indigenous land also effectuated the dismissal of alternate realities (ways of seeing the world),  then our current challenge , especially as non-indigenous Canadians, is to look deeply into our belief systems and recognize the colonization that has and continues to take place at the level of ideas (and the stories that transport them).

In retrospect, it seems easy to fall into the dichotomy trap and  judge the settler mindset as , at best misguided, or worst, evil. I believe this will only lead us down another pathway towards narrow choices and tense confrontation. It seems to me that, as Albert Einstein is often quoted as saying “ We cannot  solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them”.  In this vein, at the end of the book, Chamberlain writes that common ground will be found “when we come together in agreement not about what to believe but about what it is to believe” (240). It seems, therefore, we are being asked to step outside the comfortable zone of divisive dichotomies and rather focus on the paradox of human experience that unites us together. However,  it also seems undeniable that something within the colonial narratives that allowed them to be blind to Indigenous worldviews.

If I look at Chamberlain’s challenge through the a personal lens , I immediately think of the role that story has played in my own Jewish culture.  Paradox has always occupied a central place in our tradition. On one level  it can be experienced in the way we hold multiple (often contradictory) interpretations of our holy texts simultaneously. And , on another level, it can also be found in the way we intellectually assimilate the  ‘fact/fiction’ tension that has always been a part of our sacred storytelling .  The Baal Shem Tov, founder of the immensely influential Chassidic movement, was famous for inhabiting this space of contradiction. On one hand, some of his stories are so outlandish that the defy any rational thought but ,on the other hand, believing in them is a necessary part of the path to deeper spiritual understandings and connections . For more a taste of what I mean, you can check out The Stories of the Baal Shem Tov  here. Unfortunately, in recent times our culture has been struggling , post -holocaust, to retain tradition in the face of rapid assimilation into western culture. Many Jewish leaders view this assimilation as a greater threat to Jewish survival than anti-semitism. Now, this wave of assimilation began quite a while before the second world war and actually  finds its roots in a in the 19th century of Eastern Europe when the world was rocked by the “Enlightenment”. While somewhat of a stretch, I believe that the story of Jewish assimilation into enlightenment  might shed some light on the “stories” that  empowered the colonization of Indigenous  land, language, and economic  appropriation and , eventually, forced assimilation.

In the last few hundred years, the West has seen a massive shift away from ,what the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche might have called,  religious “dogma” towards “enlightened” scientific rationalism. It was over 135 years ago that the  famously declared that “G-d is Dead”. Was Nietzsche , albeit in a flamboyant  fashion,  simply highlighting the European intellectual shift away from the ‘antiquated’ embrace of (religious) myth  towards empirically-founded, physical laws   (for more information check out ” Nietzsche-God is Dead)?  In light of  Chamberlain’s book, could we  replace the word “G-d” (in Nietzsche’s statement)  with the word “Story”?   Could the shift Nietzsche was  talking about  be understood as  a  movement way from the contradictions of story and towards the truths of scientific worldview where science is seen as Truth and all else as merely “myth”?

I guess, in essence, what I am suggestion (or asking) is whether the Enlightenment movement in the West away from a religiously dictated morality was also a movement away from being able to live with the paradox of story. Nietzsche was highlighting the aspects of religion that restricted personal choice but what also lives within the crevices of religious dogma is the belief in stories of  a reality we see and do not “see” simultaneously … something incomprehensible and (at times) threatening to a scientific (enlightened) worldview.

The answer to my question (like any good question)  is yes and no.  Yes, outwardly, contradiction and irrationality were stripped from the dominant post- Enlightenment  narrative. But , also no,  because on a deeper level,  as Chamberlain discusses, science and mathematics , while hidden behind shrouds of objectivity and fact, are actually stories too which demand belief and acceptance of contradiction. Chamberlain’s metaphor of drowning at sea, might be asking us, first and foremost, to be transparent in the acceptance of our own stories which  will lead us to accept (at very least) the legitimacy to the stories of others?

Cited Works

Chamberlin, Edward. If This is Your Land, Where are Your Stories? Finding Common Ground. Toronto: AA. Knopf. 2003. Print.

HyperLinks

“The Baal Shem Tov’s Legends.” Breslev.co.il, www.breslev.co.il/articles/breslev/baal_shem_tov_and_students/the_baal_shem_tovs_legends.aspx?id=14923&language=english.

Hendricks, Scotty. “’God Is Dead’: What Nietzsche Really Meant.” Big Think, Big Think, 4 Jan. 2019, bigthink.com/scotty-hendricks/what-nietzsche-really-meant-by-god-is-dead.

Image Details

Image is from Unsplash and was published prior to 5 June 2017 under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication

Hi. My name is Laen Avraham Dov Hershler. I am the child of Jewish immigrant (settlers) to Canada from South Africa in the 1970s. My great grandparents had been settlers to South Africa from Latvia, Lithuania, Israel and Hungary. While I am born and raised in Canada, my historical ties to this land is rather tenuous. In fact , based on my families active migration patterns, my only genetic claim to physical land is through my ancient tribal, Jewish roots (which is complex highly controversial topic). All this said, most of my formative years were spent above the 49th parallel and so, to that degree, I am Canadian.

I have always been a lover of stories and the act of telling them. .I am a professional performer , director and educator ad have worked in the theatre for over a decade. My father is a storyteller and has toured many a stage, living room, park bench sharing tales that weave together lived experiences, memories, myths and dreams. Some of them he wrote himself and others come from great African and Jewish storytelling traditions. I therefore approach this class with great personal interest in the subject of stories. Even academically, storytelling features strongly in my interests. I am currently working on a Master’s degree specializing in the field of Research Based Theatre (RBT) , a form of dramatized storytelling, where researchers (from across disciplines) are creatively supported in turning data (often times hundreds of interviews) into dramatic performances that can reach broader audiences and communities. One of the main projects I am involved in is based on a major inter-university study which discusses ongoing ,intergenrational effects of student to student violence in the Indian Residential School System (IRSS). In this project over 400 survivors have been interviewed and researchers are currently analyzing these individual stories to isolate themes and key concepts that will be integrated in the performance. The article by Charles and DeGagne (see the links) offers a more thorough description of this topic.

I am drawn to this class (and my RBT work) because I see stories as an important space for reconciliation between Indigenous and Non-indigenous Canadians. I believe the great potential of stories is that it contains a generative space of contradiction. On the one hand,   it is something shared by all human cultures, yet, on the other hand, the stories we tell and the way we tell them also determines greatly how we experience the world. As the Coast Salish writer, Qwul’sih’yah’maht (Robina Anne Thomas) says ,”stories are cultural, traditional, educational, spiritual, and political” (Qwul’sih’yah’maht, 240) . I am  extremely interested in understanding better the role of stories in Canadian (Indigenous) culture and as  I venture forth, I acknowledge the comfort and distance I am afforded through both economic, cultural and social privilege but also recognize my personal investment  and implication at many layers of the course material.

LINKS

1. Charles, G., & DeGagne, M. (2013). Student-to-student abuse in the indian residential schools in canada: Setting the stage for further understanding. Child and Youth Services, 34(4), 343-359. doi:10.1080/0145935X.2013.859903
   URL link to article:
   https://www-tandfonline com.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/doi/abs/10.1080/0145935X.2013.859903
2. Qwul’sih’yah’maht (Thomas, Robina Anne) “Honouring the oral traditions of my ancestors through storytelling” in Research as Resistance: Critical, Indigenous, and Anti-Oppressive Approaches, edited by Brown, Leslie A., and Susan Strega, Canadian Scholars’ Press, Toronto, 2005.

URL for the Online Book:

https://books.google.co.za/books?hl=en&lr=&id=Nbf300AIjbEC&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=storytelling+and+epistemology&ots=U6V0Pvuxe3&sig=uGlohmDJj3gXjcvHMPhcx4uHRWM#v=onepage&q=storytelling%20and%20epistemology&f=false

Reference for image:  Marc Chagall, Over Vitebsk, 1914. (Cropped) Oil on canvas, 23.7 x 36.4 in (73 x 92.5 cm). Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images