Hi, my name is Jocelyn and this class is one of the last two I am taking before graduating with a degree in International Relations. I enjoy spending my time eating carbohydrates and making home videos. This blog is for ENGL 470A, “Canadian Studies”. After reading other people’s blogs, I am beginning to really look forward to the conversations and learning that will take place; and very excited to get to know my peers on the inter web.
While I’ve only taken a handful of English Lit courses, the themes, topics and critical nature of this course seem to be right up my alley and I look forward to learning from a literary perspective. In my International Relations theory (and in life), I identify as feminist–an identity that has shaped a huge amount of my university learning and something that I think this course will feed and nurture. I am particularly interested in anger as a discourse: the language that shapes it, how notions of time understand it and how it can be a relevant way of knowing in academia. Glen Coulthard is a professor at UBC who teaches in the First Nations Studies program and wrote Red Skin White Masks, his discussion around anger coming from an Indigenous and Canadian History/policy perspective. I mention him now because UBC has some amazing indigenous voices–voices I look forward to reading throughout the course. Additionally, it was in Coulthard’s class that I first read The Edward Curtis Project, a play by Marie Clements that some other students mentioned in their blogs/discussion (holla!). What I love about The Edward Curtis Project is that, in print, it uses multiple mediums (photography and words)–I absolutely love combining creative forms of communication, word and image, food, movement whatever in learning and self expression, and I think it is such a vital part of holistic learning (that is what is kind of nice about writing a blog for this course: there is such potential for audiovisually funky posts)! I’m excited for the literature in this class, because Indigenous stories can simultaneously be both historical and super urban, young and experimental. I guess all stories can be, but you know what I mean (for example, some of the slam poetry posted on a fellow student’s blog; or First Nations hip hop artists). ~~side thought, are Tezuka’s Princess Knight and Woolf’s Orlando the same story?~~
(same same?)
Now, back to Coulthard. I am white, like seventh (?) generation Canadian and have loads of privilege. I understand that the notion of checking privilege is not necessarily brand new information for anyone in this course or reading this blog, but it is something that I feel necessary to do when engaging with literature. As an angry feminist (I am very intentional in this self-identification), I often have a whole bunch to say and don’t want to waste time taking bullshit from anyone. But the thing is, my voice cannot speak for everyone. And when it is speaking, it is often speaking over people. I am here to learn tenderly, to listen and to check myself. This class should provide me with a large amount of new and valuable, valuable perspectives; perspectives that I don’t so much intend to appropriate but can learn so much from.
I am excited for some story time where I listen (in the form of reading) quietly to the really awesome voices of classmates and writers.
cheers
Works Cited
Clements, Marie, and Rita Leistner. The Edward Curtis Project: A Modern Picture Story. Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2010.
Glen Sean Coulthard. Red Skin, White Masks: Rejecting the Colonial Politics of Recognition. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2014.
Ahh please excuse the following repost but I realized I wasn’t signed into my blogs account when I posted my previous comment! I have inserted it again here, sorry everyone!
Hi Jocelyn!
I think its really interesting you brought up your identity as a feminist in relation to this course! It is definitely something that came up in my own introduction blog when I discussed how various courses in other subjects, most prominently of gender studies (GRSJ) and critical studies in sexuality (CSIS), opened my eyes to the significance of First Nations issues. I think that often, individuals like to section off and isolate issues in society and focus only on what they assume pertains to their own lives. The apathy and unconcern towards the issues of First Nations mistreatment can be linked to this…many Canadians feel like it doesn’t concern them. I think that part of the way we can approach this issue and open up new areas for discussion within this semester of ENGL 470 is to bring in other intersections that collide, and see the threads that run through all of them that will allow us to understand on a more personal level.
The privileging of certain narratives, stories, ideas of home, ideas of culture is something that can be understood by many other minorities including feminists. I’m so glad you brought that up because I think it opens the door for so many more discussions and deeper understandings of how the issues that face First Nations and their stories are issues that face all of us.
Definitely looking forward to further discussions throughout the semester!
Hi Freda,
Thanks for your response! I definitely dig how you also draw on connections between critical studies in gender and this course. I agree that it is very easy to isolate ways of thinking and knowing, in trying to relate situations back to the self. Striking that balance between assured theoretical orientation and willingness to stretch this orientation into different realms of thought is difficult and exciting. I also look forward to more conversation!
Hi Jocelyn!
Thanks for providing the link to Red Skin White Masks. Hopefully I will have some time to read some of it before I get swallowed in my readings this semester. I completely agree with you in feeling the need to acknowledge your privilege in approaching this course and the study of literature more generally. I too think that the implicit assumptions which we harbour (even subconsciously) as a result of normalized privilege come to bear on the ways in which engage as students of literature and particularly when it comes to studying elements of indigenous culture as a non-indigenous person. I also feel acknowledgement of privilege is crucial in situating oneself as a participant within the institution of the university itself, and to understand how such institutionalization of knowledge entails a hierarchy of power. Following up on Freda’s comment, I too feel that feminist concerns and a commitment to indigenous rights and sovereignty intersect, seeing as systems of oppression operate along the intersecting lines of gender, race, class, and sexual orientation. Looking forward to reading more from you!
(Ps- I’m not familiar with Tezuka— but Woolf’s Orlando is one of my all time faves. It totally blew me away. Also really digging the avocados. YES to healthy fats.)
🙂 excellent
Hi Laura,
Thanks for your response! I appreciate your point about acknowledging privilege even within the context of being in the institution of the university. It seems like a bit of a paradox, but even social justice (/feminism) in hyper-intellectual context can be very elitist. Going further to see where we sit as students and how we identify/view our knowledge as objectively legitimate is vital. Thanks for your insights!
Hi Jocelyn,
I love that you mention checking privilege here. It’s such a vital thing and even though it’s something everyone says they know to do, I notice that some people still tend to veer more towards the whole “I know I’m white, but I’m different and here’s why…” rhetoric. I also really love that you mention not appropriating perspectives but listening and learning from them. This is something so important!!! Knowledge doesn’t equal experience and sometimes I forget that, so thanks for reminding me to check myself, too.
Looking forward to reading more from you!
🙂
Hi Melissa!
Thanks for the comment. I really appreciate your insight, “knowledge doesn’t equal experience”–I hadn’t thought of that in those words before, and think it is a pretty important distinction to make. Also being humble in one’s definition of knowledge, not only that it doesn’t equal experience but it is not concrete because at any point a new experience or someone else’s knowledge could challenge one’s own. Thanks for keeping it real 🙂
Hi Jocelyn!
I think its really interesting you brought up your identity as a feminist in relation to this course! It is definitely something that came up in my own introduction blog when I discussed how various courses in other subjects, most prominently of gender studies (GRSJ) and critical studies in sexuality (CSIS), opened my eyes to the significance of First Nations issues. I think that often, individuals like to section off and isolate issues in society and focus only on what they assume pertains to their own lives. The apathy and unconcern towards the issues of First Nations mistreatment can be linked to this…many Canadians feel like it doesn’t concern them. I think that part of the way we can approach this issue and open up new areas for discussion within this semester of ENGL 470 is to bring in other intersections that collide, and see the threads that run through all of them that will allow us to understand on a more personal level.
The privileging of certain narratives, stories, ideas of home, ideas of culture is something that can be understood by many other minorities including feminists. I’m so glad you brought that up because I think it opens the door for so many more discussions and deeper understandings of how the issues that face First Nations and their stories are issues that face all of us.
Definitely looking forward to further discussions throughout the semester!
🙂
Hi Joyce, welcome to our course of studies – and thanks for a most interesting read: I am very much looking forward to some ‘audiovisually funky posts’ coming from you way. I think you will indeed enjoy this course of studies. Erika
Thanks Erika!
Holla!
There seem to be a couple of us fans of Clements here. Also Holla! ~ https://blogs.ubc.ca/hvaartnou/2015/05/15/my-home-and-native-land-1-1/
Although I saw ECP when it was at presentation house in 2010 – it was Jerry Wasserman’s contemporary Canadian drama class that made me value it in a whole new light. For part of his class we looked at agency for indigenous characters through a dramatic lens. Starting with the lack of agency in George Ryga’s The Ecstasy of Rita Joe, to Thompson Highway’s The Rez Sisters, and concluding with The Edward Curtis Project. I would also recommend Monique Mojica’s Chocolate Woman Dreams the Milky Way ~ she is a pretty phenomenal performer/playwright, here’s her notes on that play:
“Molas are the layered, embroidered, appliquéd, and reverse-appliquéd blouses that are worn by Guna women. I’ve never sewn a mola, but I grew up living with them, touching them, tracing their texture and designs, smelling them, sleeping on them and wearing them. It is this thickness, this multi-dimensional knowing applied from the principles of Guna women’s art that I believe is the centre pole of my dramatic writing and the heart of my theatrical form. The theatre I create from them is my offering, my prayer, my healing chant, my history, my identity— my mola.
Intuitively, unconsciously, I have made molas out of theatre. I have spent years building on this intuitive process. Now, I conceive my artistic practice as a conscious dislodging of colonialism from the body through performance as intervention that gives agency to our identities through artistic practices. The collaborators of Chocolate Woman Collective are deconstructing the “house of colonization,” the House of Balu Wala through practice-based research that deliberately privileges Indigenous aesthetic and performance principles, creating art that returns to the site of cultural origin much as our healers deconstruct illness through ceremony.”
See more: http://chocolatewomancollective.blogspot.ca/p/projects.html
I love how Mojica describes her art as both an attempt to heal as much as it is also her paying hommage to her ancestors traditions (I wish I could think of a better word then hommage here, but one isn’t coming to mind).
Also, respect for acknowledging that part of your voice is also knowing when to listen, and I’m also pretty stoked to ‘listen’ to these authors share their stories. 🙂
Excited to see more of your writing as the class moves along!
Best,
-J
I am with you Jamie – what an inspiring perspective:
“Now, I conceive my artistic practice as a conscious dislodging of colonialism from the body through performance as intervention that gives agency to our identities through artistic practices.”
Thank so much for the link 🙂
Hi Jamie!
Thank you so much for your very thoughtful response; I apologize for being so late on the response (to response), I actually got a bit of heart swell reading what you had to say and then was all overwhelmed and self-conscious because you had so many lovely lovely insights. So, thank you for opening my eyes to some great ways of looking at things. I would have to say that theatre is probably the art form I am least familiar with, so I am very much looking forward to learning from you from that perspective. What I really appreciate is how you (in your words and in quoting Mojica) speak to this kind of tangibility of knowledge, art and personal history. This kind of physical feeling of history and story–it has a certain urgency to it. An urgency for one’s identity. Thanks again!