About

Our area of interest, and focus for our online class conference, is centered on professor Winfried Siemerling’s thoughts on the future of Canadian Literature that he presents in the CanLit Journal entry entitled Canadian Literatures, Language, “Race”. Siemerling discusses “our ambivalences about “nation” as a critical category” in Canadian literature as he makes suggestions about changing the ways we think about the future of literature in Canada. Focusing on language, race, diasporas, and linguistic differences in Canadian literature, Siemerling highlights the role of the nation state in relation to diasporic thinking, Black Canadian writing, the problems with linguistic borders, and the inherent complications in Canadian publishing.

Linguistic borders, as one point of interest that we will explore, halt the connection between diaspora studies and critical race studies, and are used as barriers to keep these topics from being merged – we intend to research why this is the case. We also anticipate investigating the role of the English language in Canadian Literature and why works written in languages other than English have a more difficult time finding funding or being published. We will look at this issue in relation to the apparent English language dominance over French in Canadian literature and publishing.

We are particularly interested in the topics that Siemerling raises because of their connection to the content of our course, as well as what it means to live in a modern State. The societal facilitation of language is a very much state-run project, where precious resources and institutions are necessary for languages and cultures to break through into mainstream acceptance. Given the important diasporic context of this course, the question of how Indigenous languages, and by extension, their stories and culture, are affected by the actions of the State are crucial. Of course, we all know of the assimilation policies of the Canadian Government throughout history, but we would also like to explore whether there is positive action being taken to reverse these horrible deeds through the usage of literature in the way that Canadian society has applied to the Quebecois Nation. We also intend to research and explore how much colonial legacy remains in Canadian literature today, and how Siemerling’s ideas for the future of Canadian Literature connect us to our past to help explain the future.

The intervention strategies that Seimerling suggests, and that we will research, involve taking a critical view of the above issues and applying them to dispora and critical race studies so as to create a coherent, cross-linguistic dialogue within Canadian literature. We hope to formulate a research plan that addresses the historical background of these ideas as well as the how they might be elaborated and applied towards improving the future of a more inclusive literary frontier in Canada.