{"id":2,"date":"2015-05-14T21:54:17","date_gmt":"2015-05-14T21:54:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/maxm470\/?page_id=2"},"modified":"2015-05-15T18:50:59","modified_gmt":"2015-05-16T01:50:59","slug":"sample-page","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/maxm470\/","title":{"rendered":"1:1 – Introduction"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hi! My name is Max, and I\u2019m a Literature major \/ History minor entering into the fourth year of my undergrad (of five, alas). This is my blog for English 470, a class which will explore Canadian Literature through a lens of postcolonial criticism, focusing on the influence of European and Aboriginal traditions.<\/p>\n

Despite living in Vancouver for all of my 21 years, I\u2019m still nebulous about what CanLit actually is. I\u2019ve worked at Vancouver Public Library for a number of years and find myself surrounded by CanLit on a daily basis. It\u2019s easy to tell because we announce a book\u2019s Canadian authorship by sticking a maple leaf on its spine:<\/p>\n

\"IMAG0044_1\"<\/a>
\nOne book that always catches my attention is The Sisters Brothers<\/em> by Patrick DeWitt. I haven\u2019t read it personally, but by most accounts it\u2019s a fine book. It was awarded<\/a> the Governor General\u2019s Award and the Rogers Writer\u2019s Trust Prize for being the best example of CanLit in 2011. It\u2019s a Western set in California, and its author lives in Portland.<\/p>\n

I think this is a problem, although my issue is not whether or not it is a good novel, but whether or not it is a good Canadian<\/em> novel. It has no interest in Canadian heritage and does not engage with the country\u2019s history; it is being celebrated simply because its author was born on Vancouver Island.<\/p>\n

Writing this blog, I\u2019ve realized most of the Canadian Literature I\u2019ve studied could be more properly called \u201cliterature by Canadians.\u201d Margaret Atwood, Michael Ondaajte, Yann Martel, and yes, Patrick DeWitt – the subjects of their stories are varied, and while some of them may be set in Canada, the setting does little to inform the tales.<\/p>\n

My argument is not that these books don\u2019t have value \u2013 it is just that they do not distinguish themselves as Canadian<\/em> literature. Including these authors under the Canadian Literature umbrella makes it a category rather than a genre, and branding their books with maple-leaf stickers seems to be little more than an empty nationalistic gesture. This is especially a problem as \u201cliterature by Canadians\u201d seems to be more popular and generally win more awards than books that engage with Canadian heritage and traditions: Paul Yee\u2019s stories of Chinese immigrants arriving in Canada, Joseph Boyden\u2019s use of Aboriginal myth, The Hockey Sweater.<\/p>\n

I want to stress that I am not criticizing any of these authors for writing what they write \u2013 my concern is with the way our culture classifies and celebrates CanLit. By presenting \u201cCanLit\u201d as simply literature with a different place of origin I feel like we risk homogenizing Canadian literature, and as a result losing touch with the roots and history of our nation. Considering the current political climate, and the continued mistreatment of Aboriginal people by our government<\/a>, I feel like lack of representation could be a real issue.<\/p>\n

Since I\u2019m already well over my word count here\u2019s the tl;dr version \u2013 I find the approach this course is taking incredibly refreshing and I can\u2019t wait to get started!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi! My name is Max, and I\u2019m a Literature major \/ History minor entering into the fourth year of my undergrad (of five, alas). This is my blog for English 470, a class which will explore Canadian Literature through a lens of postcolonial criticism, focusing on the influence of European and Aboriginal traditions. Despite living […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27639,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/maxm470\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/maxm470\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/maxm470\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/maxm470\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27639"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/maxm470\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/maxm470\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/maxm470\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2\/revisions\/14"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/maxm470\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}