About the Course
ENGL 470 Canadian Studies: Canadian Literary Genres aims to provide a historical context of Canada through stories extracted from it’s eclectic cultures, people and places. Unlike many nations who began with a unified narrative (for the most part), Canada’s identity is stitched together from stories of the indigenous people and it’s visitors who come from wide span of cultures. Their stories individually and intertwined together create unique “blending pot” of Canada. Over the years, defining voices of the past that made Canada what it is today have been muffled or disarranged, and it’s part of this course’s objective to – once again – re-discover them for a few reasons: 1) To learn the stories of our predecessors, 2) To find befitting places for their stories in today’s context and, 3) Accordingly add new discourse and stories of our own into the conversation
About the Author
My name is Lucas, I am a 3rd year English Literature student. As someone who often views the world through the lens of “stories” I’m very excited to take this course. To me, stories can be extracted from just about anything, from people, to places, to objects. Two main personal objectives I have for this course are acquiring new stories I’ve yet to hear so that I become richer in knowledge and understanding about Canada, and how stories are told so that I become not only a better writer in literal terms, but also an individual that can create my own ideal stories.
Aside from this blog, I also have one of my own which I use to document my growth as a student, son, artist, writer… and all the other identities that are me. Another passion of mine is fashion. I graduated in Fashion Merchandising at Blanche Macdonald in 2015 and plan to have a serious career in the industry. Literature and power of stories have played a huge role on how I approach fashion, as I see stories in clothing as well, whether it’s new street-wear trends or old couture. Feel free to check out my Lookbook for those of you who are interested 🙂
Looking forward to conversing with you,
Cheers,
Lucas
Hi Lucas, excellent first post! Like you, I am also interested in the stories and storytelling aspect of this course, and I aspire to develop a better understanding about Canadian and First Nations history in a unique and personal way. I followed the link to your personal blog, which looks amazing, by the way, and I am astounded by your many talents, including fashion, blogging, photography, and of course, writing. I found most interesting your latest blog post from August 2016, which coincidentally, is also about finding stories in new and different individuals. I hope that through this course we will be able to uncover the stories told by the individuals in Canadian and First Nations cultures whose voices we may never have heard before, but also that through this learning process, we will also be able to find unique and interesting stories in each other. Thanks for your post, and I very much look forward to all of our conversations to come!
Thanks Audrey for your welcoming yet still analytical response! I also appreciate you checking out my portfolios. I look forward to hearing both personal and academic stories from you as well. Talk soon, cheers 🙂
Hello Lucus, and welcome to our course. You do indeed have an interesting and wide reaching appreciate for ‘story.’ I am looking forward to working with you. enjoy!
Thank you Dr. Paterson. Hope to learn much from your course. I’ve also seen “stories” as a very fluid element that we use to construct what we call, civilizations, societies, cultures and communities. With your course in particular, I’m learning the effects and influences stories have in particular states, such as oral and literature. And the fact that I’m consuming literature and interacting with classmates in a very new type of learning format has made the experience meta, adding a new layer of sense.