canlit – missing canada

nation myths

“in order for criticism to arise naturally from within our culture, discourse must serve the same function it has always served. in euro-society, literary criticism heightens the competition between writers and limits entry of new writers to preserve the original canon. what will its function be in our societies? (maracle, 85)

in the following paragraphs in her essay, maracle answers her question describing what she sees to be the function of literary criticism in salish society. summarize her answer and then make some comparisons between maracle and frye’s analysis of the role of myth in nation building.
– assignment given by erika paterson

Maclean's. — Maclean’s. “Justin Bieber’s fabricated nationalism”. November 25 2015.

in her essay “toward a national literature: a body of writing” lee maracle highlights the use of literary canon as a gate keeper that “limits entry of new writers to preserve the original canon” (84).

maracle draws attention to the fact that a real theorist is someone who has an expansive “foundation in their own society’s knowledge, who exercise[s] unique brilliance and apply clear analysis and imagination to the existing base to devise structurally sound hypotheses for the development, advancement, and augmentation of the existing foundation” (83). In short, developing literary criticism within a society takes a lot of time, knowledge and a strong self identity to build up, things that the first people have had stolen from them in the last century, as maracle outlines, through the cultural genocide that was endured after the colonization of canada (80). in this way maracle underscores the strength and intelligence of her people that has been misconstrued as colonizers both stole the ability for the first people to function as a society and also taught that they were a dysfunctional society.

maracle states that the role of old story criticism in the salish community “is first to understand it; second, to see oneself in the story; and then to see the nation, the community, and our common humanity through the story and to assess it’s value to continued growth and transformation of the community and the nation.” (85) the storyteller bears a responsibility in maintaining the origins of the old stories, while the community bears a responsibility to respond to the story and use “healthy communal doubt” to inspire the salish to “face [themselves], to grow and transform [themselves].” (85) the old stories are faced with communal reflection, “gathering together to see what is new and being born” and reinterpretation builds new transformation stories that resonate with current events. (85)

maracle suggests that the role of myth-making for the salish is to develop healthy community values and determine the best way for everyone moving forward. it is for grounding the people in both their history and present, to interpret how the past has formed their present, and how their present will transform their future. this observation of myth making is much the same as the onenorthrop frye suggests in his “conclusion to a literary history of canada” – that myth-making of all societies comes from “the vision of a social ideal.” (240) He notes that many such myths in canadian literature are centered around childhood, innocence or simpler times that focus on the pioneer’s relationship with the land. he calls it the “sentimental or nostalgic pastoral myth”. (244) he suggests that the focus on nature mythologies leads in two directions – the human conquering nature, and the human being defeated by the elements of nature. (248) he also notes how older literature plays into the creation of newer peaces, old themes being revisited but with new roles to meet the current times. (252).

with so much similarity in how nation story making is developed, it seems a tragedy that so much of the first people’s stories have been interrupted by the focus on the euro-canadian stories.

it’s halloween this weekend and i dressed up as alice in wonderland. i am privileged to be able to dress up and celebrate my favourite euro childhood story growing up, and my lovely boyfriend happily humoured me by sharing this with me, even though he is french canadian and it is not part of his literary history. i think of those whose oral histories have been immensely disrupted and who are bombarded by our euro-canadian stories, films and culture 365 days a year while still suffering the repression of their own. thinking of those at standing rock too. i guess i feel guilty. and probably should. for the first time i am learning about some of the salish histories. i should’ve taken the initiative to learn them long ago. to learn about coyote and raven and other shape shifters and transformers and charm. they should be histories that are just as common to me as my own because they are histories of the land that i am living on.

what does it say about it us by the histories we relate to?

works cited

Frye, Northrop. “Conclusion to a Literary History of Canada.” The Bush Garden; Essays on the Canadian Imagination. 2011 Toronto: Anansi. Print.

Horgan, Colin. “Justin Bieber’s fabricated nationalism” Mclean’s Politics. 25 Nov. 2012. http://www.macleans.ca/politics/justin-biebers-fabricated-nationalism/. Accessed 28 Oct. 2016.

Maracle, Lee. “Toward a National Literature: A Body of Writing.” Across Cultures/Across Borders: Canadian Aboriginal and Native American Literature. Ed. Paul DePasquale, Renate Eigenbrod, and Emma LaRocque. Toronto: Broadview, 2010. Print.

Paterson, Erika. “Lesson 3.1”. ENGL 4710 Canadian Literary Genres: Canadian Studies. University of British Columbia. Nov. 2013. https://blogs.ubc.ca/courseblogsis_ubc_engl_470a_99c_2014wc_44216-sis_ubc_engl_470a_99c_2014wc_44216_2517104_1/unit-3/lesson-3-1/. Accessed 28 Oct. 2016.

whose story is it to tell

“to raise the question of ‘authenticity’ is to challenge not only the narrative but also the ‘truth’ behind salish ways of knowing“ (carlson 59). explain why this is so according to carlson, and explain why it is important to recognize this point.

– assignment given by erika paterson

Paramount. The Vanishing American. 1925.

carlson’s article, “orality about literacy” touches on the important concept of narratives made for and by oneself, and narratives that are made for oneself by others. he references brian dippie’s comparison between nazi germany’s normalization of the slaughter of millions of jews and “american policy makers’ justification of the physical, social, and economic marginalization of aboriginal people” (58). the first people of canada were written off as a “vanishing race” because the narrative that was being produced about them inferred that they were “inferior and incapable of advancement. once they had been classified as a historically vanishing people, policies were enacted that actually promoted their political, economic, and cultural disappearance” (58). a self-fulfilling prophecy was created to both justify the damage being done and to perpetuate it so that it became an even greater manifestation. where diverse methods of record keeping, such as oral histories, or histories including content that could be perceived as fantastical occurrences, have had their authenticity questioned, carlson makes the point that the oral histories of the salish have always had their own code of authenticity and verification in a tribal and social context, just the same as any written history. people were kept accountable by the others around them, even if the stories were not written down (59).

transformation stories hold an important place in the currently studied salish oral histories. they document important powerful beings and influencers of the salish history who change back and forth form animal and human form. carlson discusses how the transformation stories of the salish people are just “as much, if not more, about creating permanency or stability as they are about documenting the change from one state to another”. transformation means more than just changing forms. the salish root word of the name for the transformers means not just transform, but “‘marking’. – the transformers leave their mark on the world through transformations that in turn are then understood and known through the stories describing that act” (61). even language is a tool that can take or give power to others’ narratives. relying solely on one simple english translation of the salish roots of a word, one misses out on the complexity of meaning behind the salish created words that embody their culture. that a word could mean both “transformation” and “marking” seems paradoxical in our english language and limits the narrative of the salish people that is more complex and diverse then the ability of a different culture to perceive.

the danger of relying on methods and language of documentation that modern america has become accustomed to is that even in trying to study the first people and rectify the wrongs that have occurred over the years, white america still continues to try and maintain being the authority on the the american aboriginal narrative. thomas king writes in his article “godzilla vs. post-colonial” – “i cannot let post-colonial stand – particularly as a term- for, at its heart, it is an act of imagination and and act of imperialism that demands that i imagine myself as something i did not choose to be, as something i would not choose to become” (190).

how many ways do we daily define others according to our own understanding of what it means to be human? how many hundreds of thousands of experiences do we miss out on because we experience life in the way we have learned to understand it? more importantly, how do we challenge our own understanding and open ourselves up to greater depth in our comprehension of human experience?

works cited

Carlson, Keith Thor. “Orality and Literacy: The ‘Black and White’ of Salish History.” Orality & Literacy: Reflections Across Disciplines. Ed. Carlson, Kristina Fagna, & Natalia Khamemko-Frieson. Toronto: Uof Toronto P, 2011. Print. 43-72.

King, Thomas. “Godzilla vs. Post-Colonial.” Unhomely States: Theorizing English-Canadian Postcolonialism. Mississauga, ON: Broadview, 2004. Print. 183- 190.

Paterson, Erika. “Lesson 2.3”. ENGL 4710 Canadian Literary Genres: Canadian Studies. University of British Columbia. Nov. 2013. blogs.ubc.ca/courseblogsis_ubc_engl_470a_99c_2014wc_44216-sis_ubc_engl_470a_99c_2014wc_44216_2517104_1/unit-2/lesson-2-3. Accessed 18 Oct. 2016.

“Vanishing American”. 1925. Paramount. Dr. Macro`s High Quality Movie Scans. www.doctormacro.com/Movie%20Summaries/V/Vanishing%20American,%20The%20%281925%29.htm. Accessed 18 Oct. 2016.

paper thin

“if Europeans were not from the land of the dead, or the sky, alternative explanations which were consistent with indigenous cosmologies quickly developed” (“first contact” 43). robinson gives us one of those alternative explanations in his stories about how coyote’s twin brother stole the “written document” and when he denied stealing the paper, he was “banished to a distant land across a large body of water” (9). we are going to return to this story, but for now – what is your first response to this story? in context with our course theme of investigating intersections where story and literature meet, what do you make of this stolen piece of paper?

– assignment given by erika paterson.

ProfessorArthur Edward Waite. The High Priestess. The Rider-Waite Tarot Deck.

my first consideration is to wonder what the written piece of paper means or symbolizes. is it symbolic of the white people stealing the skill of being able to write and keeping it to themselves? does this mean the document was valuable, or evil, or both, like how the forbidden fruit adam and eve eat in the garden gives them the “skill” to judge between evil and good but the action is considered evil overall because god hates them for it and it creates a rift between them.

did the white people choose the path of the written story (literature) leaving the first people the path of the oral story? the paper document represents permanence and law for the white people. but what does it represent for the first people of canada? it more than likely represents greed and trickery and inaccessibility after their first experiences with important community written documents written on paper.

if this was in fact the way written works were viewed, perhaps they were not perceived as something that could contain the power and vibrancy of stories, the way in which the oral traditions were perceived. perhaps they were perceived as something more akin to insanity or greed. something very anti-social and damaging. i don’t think that the first people would have found many, if any, positive examples of white people using paper documents in the first contact years.

works cited

“Indian Land“ First Nations – Land Rights and Environmentalism in British Columbia. www.firstnations.de/indian_land.ht. Accessed 7 Oct. 2016.

Paterson, Erika. “Lesson 2:2”. ENGL 4710 Canadian Literary Genres: Canadian Studies. University of British Columbia. Nov. 2013. blogs.ubc.ca/courseblogsis_ubc_engl_470a_99c_2014wc_44216-sis_ubc_engl_470a_99c_2014wc_44216_2517104_1/unit-2/lesson-2-2/ Accessed 7 Oct. 2016.

Robinson, Harry. Living by Stories: a Journey of Landscape and Memory. Compiled and edited by Wendy Wickwire. Vancouver: Talon Books 2005. Print. (1-30)

Waite, Arthur Edward. “The High Priestess“. Trusted Tarot. 2010. www.trustedtarot.com/cards/the-high-priestess/. Accessed 7 Oct. 2016.

if there is evil in the world, this is how it came into it

take the story about how evil comes into the world, the story king tells about the witches’ convention in chapter one of the truth about stories, and change it any way you want, except the ending. your story must have the same moral – it must tell us how evil came into the world and how once a story is told, it cannot be taken back. learn your story by heart, and then tell the story to your friends and family. after you have told the story a few times, post a blog with your version of the story and some commentary on what you discovered about story telling.

– question posed by erika paterson.

"moloch" by stephanie lines — “moloch” by stephanie lines. 2014. inspired by allen ginsberg’s “howl”.

a long time ago there were two children. they were wandering together and scouring the earth in search of wondrous things. they swam through lakes so clear and blue that they shone in the sun like glass. they climbed through the deep cool trees of forests that smelled rich like wet earth and rotting wood. they wandered into cold caves that dripped damp and grew slick, towering rock spires. and they kept on looking for more wondrous things because that’s what the human heart desires above all else – to search for more. so they climbed mountains and gazed on breathtaking views, and visited dry deserts where the earth spread out in miles of dry earth and shimmering sand. and still they kept on searching.

one day one of the children noticed a bright shiny object in the ground. the children circled around it and began to dig to uncover the object. they kept digging and digging and they found that the more they dug, the more of the object was uncovered. it was so shiny and hard, it was unlike any of the other rocks they had seen before. the children began to get very excited as they realized how deep they could dig with their own hands. they began to uproot plants nearby in order to uncover more of the brilliant rock below. they began to chase animals away in order to focus undisturbed on their digging. they started working late into the night and lost concern for the other things going on in the land around them. when other children wandered across them, the digging children hid their holes and shiny rock treasure. the other children did not understand, but this was the beginning of evil in the world.

soon the digging children became old and yet they still dug away at the earth searching for more. the land around them was bare and dead and empty. one of the children, now old, lied down and died because he was too tired to dig anymore.

the other child, now also old, spoke aloud to the empty land around him. “i have dug the greatest hole in the world,” he said.

i’m not sure if he knew it, but once a story has been told, it can never be taken it back.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – — – – – – – – – – –

Yuxweluptun, Lawrence Paul. “Fucking Creeps They’re Environmental Terrorists”, 2013, Acrylic on canvas, 84” x 72”.

this a story i formulated over a few days, mostly with my boyfriend as a listener. we both found it hard to pin “evilness” as being something human or created by humans. the idea of evil brings up ideas surrounding religious morality immediately. after much thought however, i realized i did see a great destructive evil in greed and money. my boyfriend and i both agreed on this and i began to formulate the story of how our human innocence of searching and living can very quickly and easily get caught into greed and selfishness that is harmful to others and the world. sharing the story with people around me meant that i got a lot of input and encouragement, and also inspiration. it wasn’t a story that i wrote. it was a story that i was a part of, just as much as my professor was a part of for giving me the assignment, and the writer thomas king was a part of it for sharing his version of how evil came into the world, and my boyfriend was a part of it for getting excited with me about our ideas and giving me input into his version of what goes wrong in the world.

works cited

Busby, Brian John. “Thomas King”. The Canadian Enyclopedia. April 2008. www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/thomas-king. Accessed 25 Sept 2016.

King, Thomas. The Truth about Stories. New York : House of Anansi Press, 2011. Print.

Lines, Stephanie. Molech. 2014.

Paterson, Erika. “Lesson 1.3 – Introduction to Thomas King and Story”. ENGL 4710 Canadian Literary Genres: Canadian Studies. University of British Columbia. Nov. 2013. blogs.ubc.ca/courseblogsis_ubc_engl_470a_99c_2014wc_44216-sis_ubc_engl_470a_99c_2014wc_44216_2517104_1/unit-1/lesson-13/. 25. Accessed 25 Sept. 2016.

Yuxweluptun, Lawrence Paul. Fucking Creeps They’re Environmental Terrorists. 2013. Mcauley and Co. Fine Art. mfineart.ca/macaulay-co-fine-art/artists/lawrence-paul-yuxweluptun/. Accessed 25 Sept. 2016.

literal anarchy

technological advances in communication tools have been part of the impetus to rethink the divisive and hierarchical categorizing of literature and orality, and [i’ve] suggested that this is happening for a number of reasons. I’d like you to consider two aspects of digital literature: 1) social media tools that enable widespread publication, without publishers, and 2) hypertext, which is the name for the text that lies beyond the text you are reading, until you click. how do you think these capabilities might be impacting literature and story?

– question posed by erika paterson.

Soyer, Erwan. "Tahiti". 2011. — Soyer, Erwan. “Tahiti”. 2011.

in her article on orality, courtney macneil suggests that the ways in which the technological advance of the worldwide web have obscured the differences between oral and literal communication have been a catalyst for re-envisioning the capabilities and limitations of both.

erika paterson in her lecture on story and literature explains how the capabilities of social media tools that enable widespread publication without the need for any middle man publisher and access to hypertext, “text that lies beyond the text being read”, have both played a part in expanding the communicator’s power while diminishing restrictions of how the information is being communicated. the result of this greater power for the communicator and wider realm of mediums has resulted in changes for how the modern world relates to and forms literature and story-telling.

published literature has been the authority on storytelling in the colonial western world for centuries. ever since the beginning of imperial civilziations, only text that was meticulously edited, printed, published and distributed was considered literary. frank kermode ascertains in his book “the classic” that classic literature is entirely dependent on imperial qualities – he pointed out that it was countries such as spain, britain, france, italy, russia and germany that had the most influential classic writers. this observation implies not only that it was imperial powers that had the most access to means of preserving documentation, but also that imperial powers only valued their own works, as conquerors, and that documentation by smaller or conquered nations were more prone to be lost, destroyed and/or not given credence. this also ties into how the oral traditions of many cultures have been dismissed as falling beneath literature on the hierarchy of reliable documentation.

the worldwide web has changed our cultural social groupings in that where once we were dependent upon family and social groups who lived in close proximity to us for the communication of information, or various levels of governments and organizations that controlled the media being broadcast or mailed to our homes, we are suddenly part of a global community that has instantaneous access with each other. social media allows the voice of a single person to be heard internationally.

furthermore, as the worldwide web is more available to the public then esteemed publishing opportunities, the power dynamics that social, cultural or monetary capital typically offer for platforms of expression are less overpowering. although having access to a computer and a public following will require some amount of funds, social connection and/or privilege, the computer itself does not distinguish between positions of privilege. anyone who can get access to a computer can type their opinion or story and post it for all to see. not only are people attempting to access wider audiences, but they are actually getting a wider audience because suddenly, through social media, we find millions of people scanning the internet on a daily basis to hear and listen and see other peoples stories.

on one level, we lose the power of being in the presence of a live singer-songwriter, or listening to a poet perform a reading. however what we lose through internet in physical presence of the storyteller, we make up for in the accessibility of stories – in a single week we could listen, read and watch the stories of hundreds of different people all across the globe from the comfort of our own homes or internet cafes.

i would argue that those dedicated to presenting stories with different views within political subcultures and counter cultural circles of our world have always found a way to make it happen. elke zobl reminds us that as early as the first printing presses were running, self-published literature was being created, such as martin luther’s controversial “ninety-five theses”.

yet internet platforms still offer an unprecedented access to varying information and points of views of different peoples from all over the world, one in which poor and wealthy, young and old, black and white all have access to listen and tell stories. we are no longer as subject to our location in the world and to the published written works of the most affluent people of the strongest nation states for the access to and the sharing of stories. but with the influx of information available, what are the stories that are actually being heard through the worldwide web?

works cited

Borrows, John. “Listening for Change: The Courts and Oral Tradition”. Centre For First Nations Governance. n.d. fngovernance.org/ncfng_research/oralhistory.pdf. Accessed 18 Sept. 2016.

Kermode, Frank. The Classic: Literary Images of Permanence and Change. Boston: Harvard University P, 1983. Print.

Macneil, Courtney. “Orality”. The Chicago School of Media Theory. (2007): n. page. lucian.uchicago.edu/blogs/mediatheory/keywords/orality/. Accessed 18 Sept 2016.

Paterson, Erika. “Lesson 1.2 – Story and Literature”. ENGL 4710 Canadian Literary Genres: Canadian Studies. University of British Columbia. Nov. 2013. blogs.ubc.ca/courseblogsis_ubc_engl_470a_99c_2014wc_44216-sis_ubc_engl_470a_99c_2014wc_44216_2517104_1/unit-1/lesson-12/. Accessed 18 Sept. 2016.

Soyer, Erwan. “Tahiti”. 2011. Erwan Soyer. erwan-soyer.tumblr.com. Accessed 18 Sept 2016.

Zobl, Elke. “Zines: zine history, the n\zine network, topics, and teaching zines in classrooms”. grrrl zines. 2004. www.grrrlzines.net/overview.htm. Accessed 18 Sept 2016.

missing pieces

there are many holes in the most well known narratives of canadian identity, many voices that are not being heard because they have been stifled through violence and barriers of poverty, genocide and trauma that most people in canada have not had to face to such staggering degrees. amnesty international reports that there are hundreds of first nation women missing. cbc news and reports for the canadian government reveal that there are people living in extreme poverty, hunger and daily danger, suggesting that their voices have been disregarded and treated with contempt. in both canada and the states we persecute first people who attempt to use their voices, as highlighted by lawrence o’donnell in this news story on the standing rock protests against the pipeline in dakota.

my name is stephanie lines and i am a white english-canadian 30year old mental health worker who has spent the last ten years exploring inclusivity and human rights for vulnerable populations in the unceded first nation territories called british columbia. i am a part-time creative writing and psychology student.

this blog is a personal exploration and study into canadian peoples whose voices have been silenced. it is also a commentary on erika paterson’s ubc course canadian literary genres: an interactive online study of canadian literature made up of four units over a four month period. rather than simply studying prevalent canadian literature, it is a critical study into the missing voices of the first people of canada through the general western-centric understanding of what canadian history and literature is.

one key part of voice is the oral traditions that have been overlooked for centuries due to the empirical colonial powers that value written documents and white voice over other alternative methods, styles and voices of story-telling and documentation, as noted in the essay “listening for change: the courts and oral tradition” by john burrows.

Yuxweluptun, Lawrence Paul. Indian World My Home and Native Land, 2012, Acrylic, 10’ x 7’

i expect that this course will require immense self reflection as well as thoughtful consideration into the material we engage with. neo-colonial racism is ingrained within us all. we white forget and take for granted the comforts that we are afforded. the safety that we expect out of our lives.

i want to in this first post acknowledge the racism that i am a part of by being a white english-canadian. i am privileged to be able to write a blog on canadian literature studies, and i acknowledge fully that i am a white voice. my voice has value, but truly we are at a time when we need to grow quieter and stand behind our canadian first nations and people of color and listen better to their voices that have been silenced for far too long.

works cited

Amnesty International. “Missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls: Understanding the numbers”. Amnesty International Canada. n.d. www.amnesty.ca/blog/missing-and-murdered-indigenous-women-and-girls-understanding-the-numbers. Accessed 12 Sept. 2016.

Borrows, John. “Listening for Change: The Courts and Oral Tradition”. Centre For First Nations Governance. n.d. fngovernance.org/ncfng_research/oralhistory.pdf. Accessed 12 Sept. 2016.

Canada. Department of Justice. Victims of Crime Research Digest No.3. By Kathie Scrim. Ottawa: Department of Justice. Apr. 2010. www.justice.gc.ca/eng/rp-pr/cj-jp/victim/rd3-rr3/p3.html. Accessed 12 Sept. 2016.

Kirkup, Kristy. “60% of First Nation children on reserve live in poverty, institute says”. CBC News: Aboriginal. CBC News, 17 May. 2016. www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/institute-says-60-percent-fn-children-on-reserve-live-in-poverty-1.3585105. Accessed 12 Sept. 2016.

Metta, John. “I, Racist”. Huffington Post: USA. Huffington Post, 10 July. 2015. www.huffingtonpost.com/john-metta/i-racist_b_7770652.html. Accessed 12 Sept. 2016.

Paterson, Erika. “Welcome”. ENGL 4710 Canadian Literary Genres: Canadian Studies. University of British Columbia. Nov. 2013. blogs.ubc.ca/courseblogsis_ubc_engl_470a_99c_2014wc_44216-sis_ubc_engl_470a_99c_2014wc_44216_2517104_1/welcome/. Accessed 12 Sept. 2016.

Stefanovich, Olivia. “‘How can people afford this?’ James Bay communities struggle to eat healthily”. CBC News: Sudbury. CBC News, 12 Sept. 2016. www.cbc.ca/news/canada/sudbury/james-bay-coast-high-food-prices-study-1.3756824?cmp=rss. Accessed 12 Sept. 2016.

“Rewrite: The Protests At Standing Rock”. by Lawrence O’Donnell. MSNBC. Aug. 25.2016. Youtube. www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5uNRqtjdrM. Accessed 12 Sept. 2016.

Yuxweluptun, Lawrence Paul. Indian World My Home And Native Land. 2012. Mcauley and Co. Fine Art. mfineart.ca/macaulay-co-fine-art/artists/lawrence-paul-yuxweluptun. Accessed 12 Sept. 2016.