Author: Joey Levesque

I’ll try not to miss anything:

Sun Dance – this is particularly interesting given the Hollywood context. We’re looking at two concurrent scenes – the Sun Dance of plains cultures (many of whom do not allow ‘non-native’ people to attend, to my chagrin) and the Sundance film festival in Utah. Check out this documentary (NFB) on Canada’s Kainai Nation – or Blood Tribe – and their sun dance. As far as I know this is some of the only documentation (outside orality) of these ceremonies. There is some information available (not sure how good it is) from students / participants. This seems like something that would vary locally. Notably, the Department of Indian Affairs (as it was known at the time) never officially prohibited the Sun Dance – although you might not know it given their behaviour.

The women’s lodge at the Sun Dance (I assume a sweat lodge, or temporary dwelling) is significant and I’m not sure why. It could be an allusion to social housing, or gender segregation (women were not always allowed to dance).

The marque of Eli’s De Soto (by Chrysler) is a reference to Hernando De Soto – a Spanish explorer (Mississippi area) known for his brutal treatment of natives. He died on the banks of that river, which is interesting – the John Wayne movie playing features a battle on the banks of a river. I find it hard to believe it’s not meant to be the Mississippi.

The captive white woman in the movie is representative of the Western trope I’m sure we’re all familiar with. Keep in mind movies aren’t supposed to be representative of reality, and as far as I’m concerned artists aren’t answerable to outside interests (except as fiducially dictated). Not that I seek out racist movies. I’ve never even seen Triumph of the Will. The John Wayne references – for me – function as a sort of referent-adhesive; they act as a sort of common-binding-node-thread between the others. King is being somewhat blatant here, I think.

I did try not to miss anything; I’ll add to this list as significant things pop up.

I’m not sure how to define Coyote in the novel – which may be (one of) the point(s); the best way to evaluate Coyote Pedagogy, I think, is to look at what Coyote does (in all his/her incarnations – I’ll switch between pronouns for fun), and his relationships with the other characters – particularly in the iterative ‘genesis story’ (without the capital G). I don’t mean to imply an ‘order’ or ‘progress’ by my use of ‘iterative’.

Coyote, for me, is a centre of resistance to colonial narratives – the DOG, obviously – yet plays into a sort of ‘binary’ thinking I like to avoid – a demarcation between ‘native’ and ‘colonial’. Coyote runs through the mythic and real – typical of ‘trickster’ figures, I think – and comes across as playful; at the same time, Coyote’s actions are – almost to a fault – deeply significant. There is intent behind her spontaneity and its actions carry substantive import. For me Coyote is not a force for chaos – that implies no direction – but instead a disturber (trickster) or resistor that embodies First Nations mythology especially in the context of dominant (colonial) discourse. Coyote does not just resist the dominant discourse, though – I found him to serve equally well in its criticism of the ‘legitimacy’ of native narratives.

Speaking of pedagogy – Alberta’s students are particularly productive as a locus of interrogation. The one that springs to mind is Mary Rowlandson, named for a woman who wrote an ‘abduction narrative’ (the academic term has vanished from memory) that sold quite well. While Coyote is not present in the scene I’m looking at, she is ever present in the reader’s mind; no scene exists in discretion (in the physical sense) and this character in particular sticks in my vision.

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If you’re interested:

The other students:

Elaine Goodale – another writer who became a Superintendent of Indian Education and supported on-reserve education (as opposed to the boarding-school model we’ve encountered).

Hannah Duston was another writer of a captivity narrative (ah, there it is) and hers is particularly gruesome. She was a mother of nine taken hostage with a newborn girl, and killed (and scalped) ten Native American family members holding her captive. She was also the first American woman turned into a statue. (not literally)

Henry Dawes – a reference to this man, an American legislator who drafted the Dawes Act – meant to assimilate native Americans by conversion to the private-property model of landownership. (A process return readers are familiar with). In the novel, Henry’s asleep in the back of class.

John Collier – a reference to this advocate for native American rights who was responsible to a large extent for the 1934 Indian Reorganization Act.

Helen Mooney is better known as Nellie McClung, and was every bit the nerd she appears to be in the novel. She’s a quite famous Canadian author and was involved in suffrage and the temperance movement; her attitudes are dated, of course, but that’s what happens when time passes.

 

Keep in mind none of you have to read this (Erika excepted). In fact, maybe it’d be better if you didn’t. (Erika not excepted)

Preamble (feel free to skip)

I refuse to quote Foucault in my analysis of the Indian Act (1876).

“But aren’t you just allowing Foucault to shape your system of knowledge-production-through-discourse per absentiam?!”  Yes, yes, I know, I just don’t care.

Foucault would be particularly useful in analyzing the Act’s creation of racial categories. I’ve just had to deal with it in almost every article in the last year (not an exaggeration) and I’m feeling constrained; I doubt I’ll be able to fully escape, but vive la résistance. On that note – categories don’t spring from nowhere. Someone has to write that legislation, and while they may be produced beforehand by something else, they are anthropogenic. It does us no good to play chicken-and-egg.

Terms I won’t use: knowledge production, discourse, agency, etc., etc..

Also, in my analysis, the ‘state’ is not a governed group of people but instead the (colonial) government. I’d say they held a monopoly over the legitimate use of force in a territory (Weber, I think) but ‘legitimate’ is a bit much for me.

With the above (perhaps ridiculous) constraints in mind, let’s press forward.

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“The great aim of our legislation has been to do away with the tribal system and assimilate the Indian people in all respects with the other inhabitants of the Dominion as speedily as they are fit to change.”

– John A. Macdonald, 1887

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Start Reading Here

The Indian Act of 1876 is a unilateral federal policy that defines who is ‘Indian’ under Canadian law, governs the operation of bands and reserves and dictates the manner in which the Canadian government interacts with First Nations. It did away with direct engagement between aboriginal people and the state – inserting itself between them – and forbid ‘status Indians’ from taking others to court (this provision was lifted in 1951, along with the potlatch ban). The Act (consolidating Acts of ‘civilization‘ and ‘enfranchisement‘) was intended to compel the First Nations to renounce the status it assigned and join Confederation as agricultural / sedentary / Christian / propertied (non-communal) citizens. This objective (compulsory for adult males until 1967) was only voided in 1982; only one person voluntarily enfranchised.

The reserves created under the Act are a direct result of the drive for ‘civilization’ and were ostensibly meant to introduce the First Nations to sedentary agriculture, Christianity and a private-property economy. It has been argued that the “underlying motive for setting aside small tracts of land for Aboriginal peoples was to make available to newcomers the vast expanses of land outside reserve borders” (Erin Hanson); I find this argument quite persuasive.

The Act treated the First Nations as children and conferred foreign categories of sex and gender upon them to be used as mechanisms of control. Sexual orientation was not an identitarian marker (unlike dress, occupation, behaviour), but it was useful for colonization. The Act also sought to organize kinship models of relations into familial models, and excluded many people from ‘status’ – notably the Métis, Inuit and ‘non-status Indians’. The patrilineal inheritance of ‘status’ (note the gendered discrimination here) interfered directly with matrilineal systems of culture – inheritance, governance – and these provisions were lifted in 1985 so as to restore status to many who’d lost it under the patriarchal system.

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I still cannot gain status despite two clear matrilineal lines of inheritance (not that I’ve tried). Even given the opportunity I prefer not to take part; I identify as First Nations and Canadian and have never felt a need to seek state acknowledgment of either. (Is this what decolonization feels like?) In fact, sometimes I think Trudeau might have had it right in ’69. Cue outrage.

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The potlatch ban of 1884 was a cultural weapon of massive import. Media come into play here – the potlatch was a transmissive space for oral history, not to mention the redistribution of wealth. When it was challenged, the government instituted Section 141, preventing Indians from hiring counsel and therefore from legal recourse. This did not change until 1951, after the revelations of the Holocaust and WWII (disrupting fictive civility, I think).

I submit that the Indian Act and its amendments have been a cultural weapon, a tool of colonization and that even today they amount to apartheid. I would further submit that the Act should be kept in place (as it does enshrine certain rights and gives First Nations some political capital) until such time as legislation agreeable to all parties can be designed. While the Indian Act was meant to produce a ‘civil’ nation (Coleman’s fictive nation-building) it serves today to remind us of the brutality the Canadian state (and church – they were fairly synonymous, especially in Québec until the 70s) exerted on the First Nations.

not mentioned: residential schools (probably deserves its own blog), native identity, gender (to the substantive extent it deserves. just read Lawrence)

Worth taking a look at:

The Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, 1996

The Act itself

Bonita Lawrence’s 2003 article (especially for the insights on American practices). For that matter, any of us unfamiliar with Manifest Destiny, Andrew Jackson and the Trail of Tears should have a look at those immediately. I found Canadian high schools to be pretty lacking in terms of American history, which is really quite embarrassing.

This (extremely helpful) UBC resource by Erin Hanson

“We’ll call this the map that roared.”

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Despite Don Monet’s position, Mr. McEachern’s remark indeed seems derisory to me – especially given the decision of the court (reviewed below); I do agree that the Chief Justice’s statement evokes the ‘roaring’ resistance of the First Nations’ cartography.

The decision in question resulted in a clear refusal to define the nature of aboriginal title in Canada. This decision legitimated the constitutional question of a First Nation’s territorial sovereignty overriding the Crown’s (and Court’s) jurisdiction and (notably) featured the use of oral histories as evidence – which Justice McEachern did not accept as sufficient ‘historically’, but the Supreme Court of Canada ruled was just as legitimate as written testimony. These histories, however, were not recognized as relevant in the process of defining First Nations’ constitutional interests (see s. 109 of the Constitution Act, 1867).

Notably (Per Lamer C.J. and Cory, McLachlin and Major JJ.):

Aboriginal title at common law was recognized well before 1982 and is accordingly protected in its full form by s. 35(1). […] Under common law, the act of occupation or possession is sufficient to ground aboriginal title and it is not necessary to prove that the land was a distinctive or integral part of the aboriginal society before the arrival of Europeans.

I thought it might be interesting to get the opinion of a former Justice and spoke with her at some length about the case and land claims in general; I will not be including that discussion here, although I’d be happy to discuss it in a less-public setting.

I will be extending this section after I look at a few more land-claim cases and have a more substantive opinion.

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Sparke uses musical metaphor to interpret the Atlas as binary / contrapuntal; he infers subversion of a colonist origin narrative, invites Canadians to re-evaluate what he calls the ‘proleptic’ imposition (here I agree) of a contemporary Canadian template, and raises the question of the location of national discourse. This is of particular interest to me – I’d like to digress completely and explore ‘locating’ electronic discourse (for brevity’s sake).

The first consideration that springs to mind is network infrastructure – despite post-territorial inclinations those ‘cables’ – and therefore the traffic passing through – are subject to the governing body of the territory in which they exist. Surveillance! Privacy! Rights! Expression! You (expressed in information) are subject to examination when you enter sovereign territory.

Another consideration – I’ve been thinking about how virtual space is not ‘finite’ to the same extent a territory might be. This means that traffic – attention – audience – determines the value of networked ‘real estate’. There are myriad factors behind this – relevance (tied to cultures (institutions as well)), accessibility (tied to indexers, Google, etc) and the content itself. Investment, or attraction, or ‘quality’, is part of what drives the value of virtual space.

To bring back the imposition of narratives – the internet (and ‘global’ citizens, an argument I think GREATLY overestimates mediatic power) is not antithetical to the statist paradigm (and I’m not sure it should be). I’m not sure it’s antithetical to anything. I am more and more convinced that networked electronic media are amplifiers rather than differentiators. Nothing within media exists that we have not expressed; media are expressions of ourselves and reflect our desires* (even in the case of a strong A.I. capable of self-alteration). While they do exercise agency in discursive mediation they are not ‘conscious’ (for the moment) and exist according to our agency (for good or ill, and perhaps beyond our intent).

*those of intelligent** actors

**I would say rational, but that’s just wrong. ‘Conscious’ might have been better here

in which I address question 5 of assignment 2:2

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A few elements of the banishment of Coyote’s younger twin particularly interest me. 

The liar is banished across water because he denies theft of the “paper”.

There are a few aspects of this I’d like to examine:

1. Denial as justification of exile,

2. Positive relationship of land and truth, [misconception]

3. The nature of the “paper”,

4. The “water”; postcolonial information (I assume) integrated into native stories,

5. The twins themselves.

1. The story as I read it justifies the exile of the white first ancestor by citing his denial of theft. It is not the crime itself but the refusal of admission that warrants exile. From this I attempt to infer the storyteller’s ethos, at least in part; honesty is clearly of high value to Harry’s “Indian”, while theft (not ‘property’) is of lesser import. It might be worthwhile to compare this (assumed) ethos to those typical of primitivist/colonial justification – the characters of ‘noble’ and ‘ignoble savage’ .

2. Initially I read Wickwire’s text as assigning positive correlation to truth and land; I thought Harry had said “the white man can tell a lie more than the Indian” because the “the Indians [were] here first before the white.” (edit from Wickwire). This piqued my interest, especially given the dissociation of race in favour of ‘presence on the land’, a relationship between property and stories and the assertion that native peoples ‘belong to the land’ – not the other way ‘round. I now believe this to be my own misconception and that Harry does indeed correlate race (constructed here by ancestry) and character (or criminal tendencies at the very least).

3. I am curious as to the stolen paper and its echo (the “Black and White”). My reading (I am a literature major raised in a predominantly ‘written’ culture*) is that the forbidden paper might represent technology (by medium and content) or ‘science’ (knowledge and methodology) – an apple of Eden that provides power to the descendants of the thief; this knowledge is meant to be shared (as is the “Black and White”) but is rendered inaccessible to Coyote’s descendants (again as with the “Black and White”). Why was it forbidden in the first place? What assumptions about all people underlie that decision – and what values are attached to obedience?

4. I write now from several intersections (colonial/postcolonial, oral/literary/digital, Canadian (European/Métis/Ojibwa) and took note of an intersection in this narrative. The integration of what I assume to be chronologically ‘postcolonial’ information (the ‘distant land across water’, the ‘white’, the King of England) with one of a series of Similkameen creation stories reinforced my recognition of an assumption I think once typical of anthropological inquiry: the assumption of ‘authenticity’, a search for oral histories representative of a perspective particular to a historical group. This, for me, is predicated on a fundamental misunderstanding of oral history and presupposition. The colonizing scholar looks for stories that fit his narrative instead of asking for a narrative (itself an imposition). Inquisition and adaptation in place of dialogue and listening. Predetermined conclusions (through theoretical structure) are just as dangerous to cultural inquiry as they are in the sciences (which have themselves been co-opted [1] [2] to justify manifest destiny – a sort of ‘divine right’ in itself). 

5. Finally, I am interested in the twins themselves, and the water, and the King. These are symbols that ‘break’ assumptions – told as they are happening. I would very much like to further explore stories that defy imposition – stories that roar. **

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*A dichotomy of ‘oral’ and ‘written’ cultures is much too simple for serious thought, never mind the danger of value judgments. Media are (not just) technologies of communication and digital media have allowed for the remediation of many others; we are reading a picture of a written transcription of an oral narrative. I only mean to denote influences on this perspective. Also note my use of the term ‘reading’.

**This was included after I’d read the next post.

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Please consider this my (ritualistic) disavowal of any generalization predicated on characteristics, socially constructed or otherwise. I never spoke with Harry Robinson and my understanding of this story is my own; namely, it’s likely flawed and probably spends too much time on Netflix. I do not profess to understand even my ‘own’ First Nation or Métis background, let alone those of others. I also do not mean to appeal to my background to justify flawed analyses. Please let me know if there are glaring errors (in content or judgment) and they will be addressed.

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Works Cited:

– a book review

– Wikipedia

– myself

– Wickwire’s Robinson text

in short, I surrender all academic pretensions. this blog is firmly in the ‘reflections’ camp.

as always I intend to be as difficult as possible

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I want to write about home as inextricable from identity, as a mechanism of delineation, as an alterable [space/state of mind] reflective of self-expression.

Home is comfort (or whatever value you like), home is autopoietic (genetic from the self), home is dynamic – and as such it is not absolute. Home shifts alongside its constructor.

Home can be a place, time, set of preferences. Home can be a person or people; home can be perceived and projected. A house is not necessary for a home.

I don’t have much in the way of stories about home. I have always felt particularly at home in airports, driving, with my grandmother. [Read: I like control, variety and older women]. Some of this is romantic egotism – some is just trite – but I always feel more ‘at home’ away from home. It may be the break in routine, I’m not sure, but there you have it.

My relative works internationally and (while he owns an apartment) he is rarely ‘home’. My idea of his home is in my company or in Canada, while I’m sure he thinks of his location as ‘home’ (he certainly doesn’t see his institution as such). My mom, for her part, often asks me when I’ll be home to visit; I reply “I’m at home now” to her consternation. I’m curious as to your experiences with others’ perceptions of your home – feel free to post below.

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Here are some of my homes:

bookmarks

 preferences

that carpet is supremely comfortable to lie on

for the traditionalists

dog

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Let’s see what Wikipedia has to say.

A home is a dwelling-place used as a permanent or semi-permanent residence for an individual, family, household or several families in a tribe. […] Where more secure dwellings are not available, people may live in the informal and sometimes illegal shacks. […] More generally, “home” may be considered to be a geographic area, such as a town, village,suburb, city, or country. […]  Transitory accommodation, such as a hospital, prison, boarding school, college or university is not normally considered permanent enough to replace a more stable location as ‘home’.^{[citation needed]}

So their criteria are clearly visible. Permanence, security, geography, company (why do they include the inhabitants in this definition? Don’t other animals have ‘homes’?) I used to live on campus and felt ‘at home’ – how about you?

A home is generally a place that is close to the heart of the owner, and can become a prized possession. It has been argued that psychologically “The strongest sense of home commonly coincides geographically with a dwelling. Usually the sense of home attenuates as one moves away from that point, but it does not do so in a fixed or regular way.” […] Places like homes can trigger self-reflection, thoughts about who someone is or used to be or who they might become.

I think the editors enjoy reading themselves talk.

Here’s their list of sayings about home (some of which I’m sure will end up as titles for blog assignments)

“a man’s home is his castle“, “there’s no place like home“, “home sweet home“, “to be at home“, “home away from home“, “make yourself at home“, “home is where the heart is” and “home is where you hang your hat“.

I’ve curated this list a bit (I left in “hang your hat” because it’s adorably out of fashion). I’d like to know why this list was published on the “Home” page – and in fact I think it’d be quite funny if that page led here.

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Works Cited:

“Home.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 22 July 2004. Web.

(I will add another on revision)

All images are original, and I have the consent of the sleeping man and dog to post their likenesses.

I have a great story to tell you. It is a story about our story, untold but lived, before good and evil. There was no other, yet we were indivisibly different.

Then there were Others. The Others were not as we were (yet were of our number) and in gathering they sought differentation – heterogeny – tribe. Each strove to diverge from us by distinguishing themselves as Other – they sought to change through change, and the Others exhausted themselves in this manner, inversion, perversion, difference into coalescence. There was an Other – formless – who was not yet agent; not lateral, mesial, it chose to create, it chose to be.

The Other spoke and came into being, delineating self, delineating tribe. The Others saw what they had wrought, knew secession, knew irrevocability. They begged that the last call back its story, that creation be undone, but it was done, and the story was told, and the Others were apart from us; genesis over alteration.

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“L’enfer, c’est les Autres.”

Garcin, No Exit (Jean-Paul Sartre).

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I found this assignment somewhat difficult. Consistency and fluency were challenges – and I found it trying to ‘take’ a story, especially one predicated on ‘othering’ (a term borrowed from Edward Saïd) – but I’m glad to have done it – I think it was valuable. I do feel that I wasn’t able to make the story as long as I would have liked.

I was really interested in the Witch People in King’s retelling of Silko’s story and the way in which he characterized them as non-coloured and non-gendered.  I’m not sure who to attribute this to as I haven’t read Ceremony but I felt like this was ‘sweeping differences under the rug’, so to speak. The story was of course not written/told in the context in which I read it and as such I do not expect it to resolve contemporary issues; I did feel that it wasn’t the ‘right’ approach to take. This is a purely emotional reaction; I felt like the story absolved the teller/listener of responsibility for evil, or of their obligation to explain ‘evil’, and I prefer resolution to absolution. This made it a bit more difficult for me, and I fully recognize that it’s a bit of a ridiculous hang-up to have (and hang-ups seem inappropriate anyway). I also found the source material a bit inconsistent, which might be a product of my interpretation; yet that is my interpretation.

Some intersections I can’t revisit; I had thought of taking my classmates’ stories and assembling a sort of metanarrative but there were a few obstacles there. I might have liked to redo the creation stories in King (I’ve always wanted to rewrite Genesis), or something a bit longer. I also would have liked to integrate something about ritual, or at least drawn on a more anthropological background in processes of ‘othering’. I have found my anthropology books from first year and will catch up as soon as possible.

I was only able to perform the story for my brother, as he’s the only family member within range, and I’m not sure if he heard me or not. It was quite a performance, though – I was reciting while driving and had to compete with traffic to be heard. I also considered working in video format but (to be forthright) I’ve just had a haircut and I’m not sure about it; I’ll be keeping that under wraps for as long as possible.

Thanks for reading!

Joey Levesque

Works Cited:

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

Said, Edward W. Orientalism. New York: Vintage, 1979. Print.

Sartre, Jean. No Exit, and Three Other Plays. Vintage International ed. New York: Vintage International, 1989. Print.

Silko, Leslie Marmon. Ceremony. New York, N.Y.: Penguin, 1986. Print.

Please note that I’ve linked to listings on Wikipedia and Google Books in place of sources in print. If this is inappropriate please let me know and I’ll find alternatives and/or ameliorate my citation.

Prelude: Please also forgive ‘manifesto’.

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Second Prelude: I hesitate to use the term ‘digital’ as I am feeling pedantic and the term is often used to connote or replace ‘computer’. Digital refers to discrete, discontinuous data. The alphabet is digital. ‘Binary’ might be better, but quantification in my view is not sufficient to justify that term – especially as digital electronics rely on discrete bands of analog levels. Anyways, 

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In response to question 7:

Computers remediate literacy, orality and other media in and of themselves.

The networked machine expands this space. As medium of expression it:

• Removes barriers to entry (publishers, prestige) – visible in social media
• Connects like-minded reader/listener/writers (e.g. this class)
• Widens (and empowers) audiences
• Redraws boundaries (geographic, statist, social) 
• Allows for (more) collaborative observation and review of (not necessarily dialogical) expression (even when such is not transcribed – “Have you seen the YouTube comments lately?” – Ben Haggerty)
• Exponentially increases the speed of communication
• Reduces – better, re-creates – through [digital, binary, fixed] representation (to an extent. It also makes available multiple perspectives to those who (are capable of) seek[ing] them, despite what Walter Benjamin might have thought)
• Reinforces binary concepts of truth (this is tenuous)
• Encourages undergraduates to write in short sentences and use bullet points?
• Decentralizes/disseminates knowledge
• Centralizes knowledge (encryption; barriers to entry are still present)
• Serves as a medium for power (or society, really)
• Makes generally available tools for the production of knowledge (beyond information and the obvious mathematics / exponential force; social media could fit this definition) and in doing so shapes the knowledge generally produced
• Represents – and replaces – the user
• Mitigates the human (genitor)
• Crystallizes and actualizes language – empowerment through codification (code-ification, har har)

I am not so arrogant as to attempt even heuristic science of the computer. The advantage of this platform in this medium is that I can revisit this blog – a ‘living’ document – and add / retract.

It’s vital to distinguish between networks and the Internet. Barriers are no longer erected but elected; networks do not have to connect to the network.

It is important to note, I think, that the networked computer is not passive. Behaviours are modelled and exist independently in algorithms and programs and computers communicate amongst themselves (of their own volition?).

I am inclined to accept Dr. Paterson’s position that “the reader on the www is also a listener and a writer and the reader is also a listener”.  I like the idea that “stories change depending on where and when and to whom they are told”; this to me seems predicated on a listener who engages in dialogue with the storyteller and I would posit that dialogue is present in literature as well – albeit at a much less visible pace.

I would also like to ask your opinion (dear reader) on the place of mixed-media – specifically comics – ‘comix‘ in the word of Art Spiegelman (Maus). Are these literature? Does a dialogue exist between the narratives – stories – superimposed upon one another? What about form – Maus is a story told through text, drawing, photograph – all of which have their own implications / connotations, especially historically what with the Holocaust as subject material. Who owns that story?

I use this as a segue into a question of ownership. Does the published author retain ownership over his story? If I interpret that information in a way other than that intended (which is almost certain) have I not created my own story in that interpretation – and therefore engaged in a dialogical process?

I’d also like to point out that this blogging platform has two editors – a “Visual” which is in my case traditionally ‘literate’ and a “Text” which reveals some of the underlying code (not to machine-code level, of course).

I do hope that this blog post has retained some academic integrity (despite my apparent effort to the contrary) and am curious to hear your thoughts, corrections and admonitions.

Best,

Joey Levesque

Works Cited:

Benjamin, Walter. “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” Illuminations. Ed. Hannah Arendt. London: Fontana, 1968. 214-218. Print.

Haggerty, Ben. “Macklemore and Ryan Lewis (Ft. Macklemore & Mary Lambert) – Same Love.” Genius. Web. 16 Jan. 2015. <http://genius.com/Macklemore-and-ryan-lewis-same-love-lyrics>.

Paterson, Erika. “Lesson 1:2.” ENGL 470A Canadian Studies Canadian Literary Genres 99C Jan 2014. 16 Jan. 2015. Web. 16 Jan. 2015. <https://blogs.ubc.ca/engl470/unit-1/lesson-12/>.

Spiegelman, Art. “Art Gallery of Ontario.” Art Spiegelman’s CO-MIX: A Retrospective. 20 Dec. 2014. Web. 16 Jan. 2015. <http://www.ago.net/art-spiegelmans-co-mix-a-retrospective>.

Hi there and welcome – bonjour et bienvenue! *

I’m going to start – in ‘Canadian’ fashion – with an apology; the name JOE CANADA! seems a bit contrived. It would have been easier if my name was Anna (I could have gone with Canadianna). It is, however, the first and therefore best thing I came up with and will remain until a better title presents itself.

This blog is part of English 470 at UBC – a course in Canadian Studies taught by Dr. Erika Paterson who can be found here (you’ll need CWL access). We’ll be looking at Canadian stories and interrogating these; we’ll investigate storytelling as an act and question the internet’s role. The course will culminate in a conference around intervention in Canadian literature, where students will collaborate to strategize means of shaping literary narratives on and in Canada.

Beyond the obvious material, I do expect that we’ll be looking at First Nations narratives (I’m not sure if these will be transcribed oral stories or more recent writings). I also would not be surprised if we were to look at some French-Canadian stuff. Both of these tie into concepts of home, of land and ownership, and of Canadian identity; fertile ground for exploration. I do hope that we look at some Canadian history to put the works into context – a particularly good Canadian cartoonist (Kate Beaton) often looks at that sort of thing in her work.

I’m interested in exploring the dominant narratives in Canadian lit, and uncovering some alternative viewpoints. The Canadian mythos is a young (and troubled) one, and I think it’s vital that our literary canon – a major constituent of our cultural identity (or identities) – reflects sensitivity to the ever-present racism that led to land seizures, residential schools, internment camps and race riots.

Say hi in the comments if you want. Nice to meet you!

– Joey Levesque

*Ce blog sera en Anglais, parce que le cours tombe sous les auspices d’un département d’Anglais. Je n’ai pas l’intention d’ignorer les Canadiens francophones ou quelqu’un d’autre!

 

Works Cited:

Beaton, Kate. “Various.” Hark! A Vagrant! 1 Jan. 2006. Web. 6 Jan. 2015.

Paterson, Erika. “Instructor’s Bio.” ENGL 470A Canadian Studies: Canadian Literary Genres – 99C Jan 2014. Web. 6 Jan. 2015.