My assigned pages for this post are 260-270, but I  take a slightly broader approach to the analysis where necessary; the book is packed with allusions, and to dissect meaning I am going to divide my analysis into three character groups: those representing King’s family, those representing First Nations culture, and those representing Western culture.

The characters that I felt were meant to reference King’s family struck me immediately, and I was surprised to see Flick’s guide in disagreement with my impression. Eli Stand Alone, to me, is the figure of Thomas King, and there are multiple reasons for this connection. First, there is no mention of Eli’s father, and we learn in The Truth About Stories that King’s father left him at a young age. Along the same line is Eli’s name itself; I think Stand Alone references King’s lack of a father figure and his need to ‘stand up’ for himself as a young man. Eli also notes how “his mother had built the[ir] house. Log by log” (113). If we think back to earlier in this class about the connection many of us have between house, home, and family, I think we can read this as a description of King’s mother single-handedly raising her two children. If we read Eli as King then we must necessarily read those around him as other family members. I think reading Karen as Helen (King’s partner) is very possible; if you switch UofToronto with UofLethbridge their first encounter (161) is entirely plausible, and the fact that Karen and Eli make many references to her parents being progressive supports this view as well given that Helen and King have not been married.  Eli is also called a teacher by Norma (264), and the wild chase I went on to back up this connection started during my close reading of the assigned section. This allusion may seem thin to some, and I have found it incredibly difficult to find any kind of biographical information about King online, but I thought I would share.

Happily, I also had Coyote pop up in my section, and I could not possibly leave this little guy out of my analysis. As you can find in my link (which is not at all an attempt to generate comments), Coyote can transcend cultural boundaries, but I want to look at him here as a representative of First Nations orature. On page 266 we find Coyote playing the role of trickster as Bursum gets his store ready for opening one morning. This trickster role is a one that Coyote classically plays, as we are told by Flick in her notes (15),  and we can also find this in Harry Robinson’s stories from previous weeks. GGRW uses Coyote as a classic First Nations representative intermittently throughout the story, especially when the narrator is attempting to finish his or her creation story. If we go back to he beginning of the book we realize that this entire story by King is framed as Coyote’s doing, which firmly place the narrative into a First Nations setting. At the beginning there was nothing but some water and Coyote, then Coyote allows dog to be GOD which gets the narrator going about the creation story, and, quickly flipping now to the last page of the novel, we see that the narrator has not quite gotten his point across even at the end of the story. Bookmarking the tale with Coyote is important in two ways, First, it reminds the reader at both the outset and the end that this was a story centered around First Nations culture. This is why we have to read out loud sometimes (like when Ray, Louie, and Al show up), and why the narrative is made up of a collection of narratives. We have learned how stories are constantly changing and interacting with their environment, and King deftly slides in and out of the multiple narratives in GGRW (sometimes bringing the characters with him) to create the book. Second, the bookmarking leaves the story unsettled, representative of First Nations issues in Canada. Many dishonored treaties, disregarded land claims, and a general misunderstanding of First Nations culture still exist throughout our great nation. After 400 pages the narrator seemingly has been unable to get through to Coyote. But perhaps Coyote knows something about First Nations history that the narrator does not, and their dialogue must continue before the story can be sealed as complete.

This section also gives us A.A. Gabriel, or Archangel Gabriel from the Bible. Along with other Western characters in the text, such as GOD, Gabriel provides us with an example of white people misunderstanding or ignoring what they are told about First Nations people by those people themselves. The first connection between A.A. and the society more generally is when he improperly displays his card, showing Thought Woman the CSIS side instead of the side that presents him as a “heavenly host” (270-271). Shortly thereafter he asks Thought Woman for her name, ignores her response (or simply doesn’t hear/care enough for it to register, I’m not entirely sure what King is getting at here [although all three points in unison is a possibility for this book]) and then writes down Mary. There is a clear disconnect between Thought Woman and A.A., which leads to Thought Woman eventually fleeing as A.A. tries to convince her to sign the newly formed paper that would make her the virgin mother. This scene perfectly embodies the classic dialogue between Western and First Nations cultures, and shows how this dialogue needs to change to be efficient. Thought Woman is not what A.A. had in mind, so he uses his ‘knowledge’ to incorrectly fill the gaps  instead of actively engaging in a dialogue with her and finding the true answer.

So after reading King’s story, what kind of Indian do you have in mind?

Works Cited

King, Thomas. Green Grass, Running Water. Toronto: HarperPerennial Canada, 1999. Print.

King, Thomas. The Truth about Stories: A Native Narrative. Toronto, ON: House of Anansi, 2003. Print.

Meiszner, Peter. “City of Vancouver Formally Declares City Is on Unceded Aboriginal Territory.” Global News 1 Jan. 2014. Print.

Coyote pedagogy, astutely described by Fee and Flick in Canadian Literature, is a fantastic way of interpreting the writing of Thomas King. Fee and Flick pick up on how King forces his reader to transcend cultural boundaries by mixing both First Nations and Western tropes into jokes and dialogue; thus the reader must engage and appreciate symbols from a multiplicity of cultures if they want to be part of the ‘in-group’ of King’s novel (in this case, Green Grass Running Water). This need to understand numerous cultural symbols of both ‘white’ and ‘Aboriginal’ origins is the basis of Coyote pedagogy, and Fee and Flick argue that this “requires training in illegal border crossing” to fully enjoy King’s work (131). They had me at illegal.

The first instance of Coyote pedagogy is immediate in Green Grass, and there should be no surprise that Coyote is front and center in the story as well.

“In the beginning, there was nothing. Just Water.” (1)

Don’t worry, Coyote was there too. Not God, as we may have expected based off of Judeo-Christian stories, although GOD does show up once Dog Dream gets himself sorted out (with some help from Coyote). To understand these opening pages one must be attuned to First Nations creation stories as well as Western ones. The reader needs to appreciate the presence of both Coyote and God, but to add another fun little twist he throws himself in there too (or the narrator, if he and it are not duplicates). But if he is the narrator, then what we really have here is the creation story of Green Grass, with Coyote, God, and King, all playing roles. Our Coyote pedagogy now has three levels in this book; hope your passport is empty (just kidding, this is illegal border crossing so we don’t need those).

Coyote’s importance in the book is to facilitate the cultural transcendence that King wants his readers to achieve, and he does this by adding Coyote to the creation story as a representative of First Nations cultures. GOD serves as the representation of Judeo-Christian culture, and the narrator (whether King or not) brings both of these representatives together for the reader. One instance of this is when the narrator is trying to recount his creation story, and is continually interrupted by both Coyote and GOD (38-41). To assuage GOD’s worries about the presence of a garden the narrator assures him that “the garden will be here soon” (40), and aside from telling Coyote “we’re going to have to sit on that mouth of yours” (147) he is fairly patient with Coyote’s constant interjections. The narrator is to Coyote and GOD as King is to us, the reader. During the interspersed bits of creation story the narrator recounts his creation story to the two representatives (Coyote and GOD), explaining as he goes, and during the rest of the novel King is priming the reader to make these same connections with the various characters. Coyote, then, is not only an important figure during the creation story, but he serves as a symbol to help readers make broader connections throughout the text as a whole.

Works Cited

Flick, Jane, and Margery Fee. “Coyote Pedagogy: Knowing Where the Borders Are in Thomas King’s Green Grass, Running Water.” Canadian Literature 161/162 (1999): 131-39. Web.

King, Thomas. Green Grass, Running Water. Toronto: HarperPerennial Canada, 1999. Print.

As we have heard from Dr. Paterson, nationalism and the notion of a national identity is inherently imbued with ideas of race. This should not come as a huge surprise, as we have not scene very much cross-cultural marrying until recent history as many countries tried to achieve the ‘perfect’ nation-state. Daniel Coleman talks about how this played out in Canada; the British connection for many early settlers tended to dominate their notion of what our nation should look like, giving the term Canadian a specific whiteness that was (and remains) a misnomer. Recently the government has tried to make reparations for the damage it did to non-white communities, and the Canadian Multiculturalism Act (The Act) serves as one of those ventures. It is an attempt to cast away the whiteness of being Canadian that was previously propounded, but it still retains many elements of race and ethnicity which may hamper the effort it is intended to make.

The Act explicitly sets out to “recognize and promote the understanding that multiculturalism reflects the cultural and racial diversity of Canadian society”. This is a great step, as it definitively rejects the white focus of previous attempts at nation building and acknowledges the multiplicity of people that call Canada home. The Act also acknowledges “that multiculturalism is a fundamental characteristic of the Canadian heritage and identity and that it provides an invaluable resource in the shaping of Canada’s future”. This point is especially important in that it acknowledges the Aboriginal and French influences that were just as important as the British ones as Canada was growing up. The Act goes on to propound ideas that counter racism, promote inclusion, and most importantly suggest that the governments intends to educate the populace on what multiculturalism really is, why it is important, and how we currently misunderstand it.

Rosy picture. So things are looking good then. Right?

Not really. Godlewska et al. find that Canadian are still ignorant as to what First Nations’ cultures entail, let alone how the history of those cultures has been misrepresented in many instances. On top of that, Campolieti et al. find that recent immigrants to Canada are, economically speaking, the furthest behind any other immigrant cohort over the last forty years, yet they are assimilating faster than ever. What happened to the celebration of multiple cultures? One reason (among many) The Act has failed to make an impression on the Canadian culturescape is its emphasis on differences in race and culture. It does not suggest that Canadians share a heritage or culture, but rather, as noted above, that our nation exists in the form of a collection diverse cultures and races. I think it may be difficult to convince a group of people that they are the same through their otherness. Given that our past initiatives have failed, where do we turn to bridge the gaps between immigrant, First Nations, and ‘white’ cultures? Is it imperative to move away from a collections of others and towards defining what exactly a ‘Canadian’, or can this group of otherness effectively, happily, and willingly conglomerate into a distinct and cohesive nation?

P.S. While this blog does not explicitly deal with issues surrounding Canadian canon building it certainly could be of use, especially if we can find a way to answer the ending questions.

Works Cited

“Canadian Multiculturalism Act (R.S.C., 1985, C. 24 (4th Supp.)).” Legislative Services Branch. Web. 2 Mar. 2015. <http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/C-18.7/FullText.html>.

“Population by Selected Ethnic Origins, by Province and Territory (2006 Census) (Canada).” Government of Canada, Statistics Canada. Web. 2 Mar. 2015. <http://www.statcan.gc.ca/tables-tableaux/sum-som/l01/cst01/demo26a-eng.htm>.

Anne M. C. Godlewska, Laura Schaefli, Paul Chaput. “First Nations assimilation through neoliberal educational reform”. The Canadian Geogrpaher. 57.3 (2013) 271-279.

Michele Campolieti, Morley Gunderson, Olga Timofeeva, Evguenia Tsiroulnitchenko. “Immigrant Assimilation, Canada 1971-2006: Has the tide turned?”. Journal of Labour Research. 34.4 (2013) 455-475.

Keith Carlson presents us with an interesting suggestion: “the very act of transforming … [is] an act of literacy” (62). This may seems incongruous on the surface, but when we dig deeper we can see that it really is quite simple. What do we do when we write? We transform a blank page into something meaningful through the use of symbols, and if anybody thinks this demonstrates white supremacy they should give Mandarin a shot. It is interesting to hear the symbols have not historically been included in accounts of ‘literacy’. Perhaps as academics we become caught up in literariness, and think exclusively of words as conveying deep meaning, but certainly we need to consider other symbols to be literary as well. Totem Poles are a great example of this, and this video describes how the symbols on a pole can represent the events of a story.

In the video, Mr. Hoyt also notes that there is a set of rules, or conventions, that limit that dictate what an artist/writer must do to convey the message he/she desires. Ravens have long beaks, and Eagles have curved ones. Proper nouns are capitalized, and i comes before e, except after c, except in feign… and science. Shit, even totem poles have clearer ‘rules’ than languages do. How can we not consider them to have adequate literariness?

To take this notion of transformation one level deeper, lets think about what happens to our brains when we tell a story (or speak in general). When we tell a story, or even simply listen to a story, our brains are being transformed (or marked) as the stimuli are processed by our minds. Studies in neuroplasticity, such as those quoted in the hyperlink, have shown that our brains are noticeably changed by our environments, including the words we hear and things we see. Hopefully this clears up the question of whether we should consider transformations to be literary, and it also explains why we did not consider their equality sooner. Much of the literature in neuroplasticity is recent, and academics could not have made such a connection in previous generations of First Nations studies. Clearly though, it is high time we consider transformations or markings, such as those of the Salish people, to be a form of literacy. It is ridiculous to assume that another cultures markings cannot convey meaning as ours do because they look different or exist on a different medium, especially when we now know they can affect our brains in similar ways. Whether a story is written on a piece of paper, told by a dancer, or carved on a pole, we are forging connections in our minds to allow us to interpret the story, and the possibilities inherent in all three mediums (and undoubtedly many more) should be embraced and explored.

End-note: Anyone who watched RoadRunner as a kid should be able to see what I’m getting at here.

Works Cited

Carlson, Keith Thor. “Orality and Literacy: The ‘Black and White’ of Salish History.” Orality & Literacy: Reflections Across Disciplines. 43-72. Print.

Hoyt, Randy. “Art & Story in Totem Poles / Ignite Dallas.” YouTube. 2011. Web. 11 Feb. 2015. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Lht4XGkk0k>.<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Lht4XGkk0k>.

Widrich, Leo. ” The Science of Storytelling: Why Telling a Story is the Most Powerful Way to Activate Our Brains” Lifehacker 2012. Web.  11 Feb. 2015. <http://lifehacker.com/5965703/the-science-of-storytelling-why-telling-a-story-is-the-most-powerful-way-to-activate-our-brains?action_type_map=%7B%2210151358961859747%22%3A%22og.likes%22%7D&action_object_map=%7B%2210151358961859747%22%3A133605103460290%7D>

As Dr. Paterson alludes to in here second prompt this week, there exist some difficulties when trying to understand or trying to ascribe meaningfulness to First Nations stories. These difficulties arise from the First Nations’ storytelling process and from sanctions against the First Nations, as described by Dr. Paterson, but they also arise from a failed academic approach that looked at myths instead of modern stories.

O.K. Nick, then tell me about the storytelling process. 

While Western histories are understandable by way of close reading alone, First Nations histories are much more complex and elaborate because of the oral tradition of storytelling. When I call it an oral tradition it is almost a misnomer, since it so much more than that, but it is the best English word I can find to describe the First Nations story. Performance makes it sound to informal and dramatic, calling it an oral tradition gives it more authority. Yet beyond the oral aspect of First Nations storytelling is the visual, historical, and temporal aspects that give it a constantly evolving significance. Previous units have shown us that only certain people can tell stories at certain times, and if the conditions are not right these stories may not be told. That is because First Nations stories are more than just words, they have meaning in their delivery, their time, and their place, permitting the storyteller to adjust the tale but keep the meaning intact. This allows the story to grow and evolve over time, and multiple hearings are necessary for one to truly understand the meaning (Robinson, 19).

So why can’t we just watch First Nations ceremonies and understand them now?

This is where the sanction of the previous century weigh heavy on our ability to understand First Nations histories. The Federal government was determined to assimilate the various First Nations across the country, and in doing so they took children away from their families and disconnected generations of First Nations people. Many First Nations celebrations and ceremonies where stories were told, such as the potlatch, were banned by the government as part of the attempted assimilation. Now that we know how important the ceremony of storytelling was it is not hard to see why many histories have been lost. The chain of storytelling was broken, the stories were unable to grow and evolve, and many never had a chance to be retold once bans were overturned. In unison with the potlatch ban was the opening of residential schools that took First Nations children away from their families and placed into Western boarding schools. These children were denied any knowledge of their ancestors existence and where taught Western-Christian value systems that eroded much of the connection to their past. The potlatch ban and the residential school system combined to inhibit an entire generation of storytelling, killing many histories that were never retold.

And how was this compounded by a failed academic approach?

As we see in Wickwire’s book, the historians and anthropologists studying First Nations stories focused more on the classic mythical tales and less on more recent retellings of the classics. Perhaps this was a function of the sanctions as well; the disconnect in the First Nations communities between generations meant that very few stories were retold in the early and mid 20th century and academics glossed over the 19th century retellings because there was no recent evidence that this had occurred. In any regard the academics took the mythological/historical approach they did, as described by Wickwire (22-23), and this left many modern First Nations stories unknown in the literature. Wickwire argues that this “raises questions about the messages that collectors gleaned from their narrators’ stories” (23). Wickwire has made an effort to reconcile this by purposefully seeking out stories with historical ‘impurities’, but the old approach remains a large burden on our ability to truly understand First Nations first stories.

Works Cited

Posluns, Michael. Speaking with Authority: The Emergence of the Vocabulary of First Nations’ Self-government. New York: Routledge, 2007. Print.

Robinson, Harry. Compiled by Wendy C. Wickwire. Living by Stories: A Journey of Landscape and Memory. Vancouver: Talon, 2005. Print.

Paterson, Erika. “Lesson 1.2 Story & Literature.” University of British Columbia , Vancouver. 5 Feb. 2015. Lecture.

As I alluded to in my first post for this class, I feel that we all share many cross-cultural similarities that often get swallowed up by investigations of our differences. There are many examples of common values and beliefs between people which may not be immediately evident, as I’m sure as we have come to realize now after reading the stories of home written by our fellow classmates. Our sense of home is undoubtedly something shared across nations and cultures, and below are some examples of similarities that were immediately evident to me as I read through a handful of your blogs.

•  One obvious connection we have is that home must contain our families; Sarah’s story shows us that our families are what make ‘home’ so special, and Christie says that her home needs to be full of people and live or it isn’t a home at all.
• Along this notion of a visceral but not quite physical home we can see that the concept of home is capricious for many people and it evolves as we grow. Heather tells us a story of a girl who is tragically unable to find a home, and the tale explores the importance of finding home and the harrowing search for one who struggles to do so. Florence and Lauren’s stories also show us how our sense of home can move spatially, without losing its importance.
• Home is also something we cherish, something we consider very valuable to who we are as people. Leana describes her “sabotage” attempts, with her brother as co-conspirator, when her parents considered selling their house. Jasmine similarly has a very emotional connection with home, and her story describes the tough transition from a warm family home to a strange dorm building (ultimately opening new opportunities, but nonetheless a difficult transition).

While not all of these values are ubiquitous we can certainly find many of them shared between ourselves. I encourage you to go to the stories I linked if you feel that your sense of home matches what our fellow classmates have written about because the connections we make with others allow us to grow, not just as students but as people too. This was something I learned from travelling, but thanks to this exercise I learned that I really didn’t have to look too far. All around us are people who share many of our beliefs, and it seems that story-telling is a great medium to realize this fact.

I once met a young man named Josh; we were sitting at a cafe in Rome discussing the Euro crisis, and I remember it well. We discussed the economic impact the crisis was having on Italy, and Josh began to tell me about Italian family structure. He said that the Italians were a close knit bunch at home, and often took time out of their workday to come home for lunch with their families. This did not bode well for Italian GDP, but Josh was fine that fact. “Life is about more than endless production” he told me. “Why should we work all day if we cannot enjoy the fruit of our labors”, he implored. Josh had found peace in the Italian lifestyle, and Josh was at home. 

I once met a student named Sofie; we were sitting at a cafe in Vancouver discussing the Euro crisis, and I remember it well. Sofie was studying ECON at UBC and was frustrated that she was unable to ski as often as she would like. She was so swamped with work she could barely find time for anything else, and when she finally had a break there was no snow on the mountains! But Sofie quickly told me it was quite all right; she would have some time off in the summer to travel, hike, and kayak. There was no place in the world she world she would rather live, and the sacrifices she made to enjoy her surroundings were worth it. Sofie had found peace in Vancouver’s beautiful outdoors, and Sofie was at home. 

I once met a Forex trader named Franz; we were sitting at a cafe in Beijing discussing the Euro crisis, and I remember it well. Franz loved currencies, and we had a lively discussion about where the Canadian dollar was going in the wake of recent economic events. Franz had grown up in Winnipeg but moved abroad after school in search of work. He never lost touch with his roots, but he had made a new life for himself in China. He worked during the week at a bank, but he was able to spend time his family on the weekends. He loved playing mahjong with his friends, and it wasn’t unlikely that you would find him at a Party World testing out his vocal cords. Franz had found peace in a foreign land, and Franz was at home. 

A quick note about the story: I find it difficult to write about myself, as I feel most people do, so I came up with a few characters to demonstrate my sense of self through the story. I typically don’t think of stories when I connect myself to home, but I certainly think of the values that my family has, and continues to, instill in me. As such, my characters told their own stories (histories) in way that centered around their values, the choices they made, and what they sacrifice to attain what they want. The key to each of their stories is that they are all different, but that does not change the ultimate sense of home they find. Home is more than the four walls that surround us most of the time, it is a sense of belonging that can exist anywhere and at any time. The reason I chose to use multiple characters because I feel that identity (or at the very least my own identity) is constructed with a variety of variables, and no single connection to the world accounts for the entirety of who we are. I think this notion meshes well with the dialogue we are being asked to explore between native and settler cultures, as a multiplicitous sense of identity leaves more room for expansion and acceptance.

Works Cited

“Family Karaoke.” Party World KTV. Web. 27 Jan. 2015. <http://www.partyworldktv.com.sg/>.

Jarvis, Johnathan. “The Crisis of Credit Visualized.” YouTube. Web. 22 Jan. 2011. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bx_LWm6_6tA>.

Evil was first brought into this world by students. Not witches or warlocks,  not ghouls or ghosts, nor vampires or even Voldemort. Students. Students from all kinds of backgrounds, way back on January fifth, and they all came together for an English class. On the interwebs. A bona fide collection of students, interested in engaging with scholarly material and pursuing knowledge through discussion in a strange online setting. Well, not discussion, more dialogue actually. It was a dialogue to discover the crucial component of a Canadian literary canon. Some of the students suggested Margaret Atwood, others suggested Farley Mowat. It must have been exciting for the professor to hear all these great ideas! But as the class drew on, there was one student who had not suggested anything. Nobody was even sure if this student went to UBC. Having nothing else to share, this student told a story. It was a story full of long assignments and complex theories, of late Friday nights in the library and a dwindling social life; pure evil. This student had no input for the Canadian canon, and won no prize, so consequently the other students demanded a redaction in fear of the horrors of such a tale. “But, of course, it was too late. For once a story is told, it cannot be called back. Once told, it is loose in the world” (King, 10). 

The process of approaching storytelling in this class has been incredibly difficult for me; as a prospective law student the idea of dialogue without debate is incredibly conflicting. However it is clear that this is the rule of law for stories, where previous events only influence (and do not shape) the stories that come after. I decided to play with the story and put our class in a cave having a party, an attempt to make a novel connection between our class and storytelling. But it has a serious implication; it does not suggest the existence of evil, but it does suggest the possibility of evil that can arise from a story. One of the most important details from this story is the fact that stories cannot be taken back; no give-backs or tradesies, redoes or re-spawns. We forgive but we don’t forget. With this in mind I want to turn to the residential schools of not long ago, and think about how there is a meta-narrative within the history of these schools. The attempts at assimilation are now part of the historical narrative between settlers and Aboriginals, and no matter what we do these events cannot be reversed. But on a deeper level, the settlers in fact changed the narrative that the Aboriginal students were learning, and they took those kids out of a native culture and taught them ‘white’ stories in an attempt to bridge the gap between Them and US. But this gap, which I will call the ‘otherness gap’, cannot be changed by dismantling the distinctions between Them and Us. Try as they might, the settlers could not reshape the Aboriginal communities but could only influence them, because the Aboriginal story had already been told and can never been swept away now that it exists. I think this is a crucial reason that dialogue rather than debate is essential in bridging the ‘otherness gap’ that currently exists between Western and Aboriginal cultures, because there is no debate to be had. There is no empirical right or wrong answer to the question of cultural superiority (if such a thing even exists), and our job is to understand this fact and to appreciate Them rather than preach about Us. Along this vein we see the importance on irreversible stories; a story can profoundly damage the relationship between Them and Us which will lengthen the ‘otherness gap’, making it imperative for us to attune ourselves to the consequences of the stories we tell.

Works Cited

King, Thomas. The Truth about Stories: A Native Narrative. Toronto, ON: House of Anansi, 2003. Print.

Mean Girls. Paramount, 2004. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUFT35S7Jb4

“The Residential School System.” UBC Indigenous Foundation. Web. 24 Jan. 2015. <http://indigenousfoundations.arts.ubc.ca/home/government-policy/the-residential-school-system.html>.

Schrodinger’s cat  is a well known concept for quantum physicists that is used to demonstrate the notion that something can be and not be at the same time. It is a powerful and complicated concept that can help us picture how quantum particles can exist in multiple states at the same time because they are not subject to the same universal rules that other types of matter are.

‘But Nick, this is a literature course, why are you talking about quantum theory? I’m studying arts to avoid math!‘

Ah, but interdisciplinary study can be so powerful in helping us understand the things we love (in this case, literature) as it allows us to gain insight from an angle that we may never have thought possible before. Also, please do not be afraid to click on my link, it is a novel introduction to Schrodinger’s theory written as a short story. And that piece is not the only place we find quantum theory in literature; Chamberlin offers us some troubling thought in If This is Your Land, Where are Your Stories?

As Dr. Paterson has noted in our third prompt, Chamberlin tells us of his childhood learning experience and his insistence that the cat on the classroom board was not actually a cat. The first thing that popped into my mind was Schrodinger’s cat, and the clear connection between Schrodinger’s thought experiment and Chamberlin’s description of language. Dr. Paterson calls it an intersection, Schrodinger calls it entanglement, Chamberlin sees it as a connection between reality and immagination; all of them are picking up on the way that language connects our ideas to the events and feelings of our world. When we interpret the stimuli around us we all have different ways of perceiving the world, no doubt influenced by our unique perspective, our past, our biases, and our desires. What exists in the world exists empirically; a cat is a cat, nothing more and nothing less. But when we interpret the cat it morphs. Maybe it becomes a pet, maybe a nuisance, maybe a companion. Importantly it is all of these things all at once, just to different people, and language allows us to express this.

This can be a troubling thought when we begin to disagree with one another, and I think this is one of the key concepts that Chamberlin is hinting at in his book. We clearly see this issue in colonial narratives. Colonizers, unable “to see what is really there” (italics in original), misunderstand the aboriginal connection to nature and pass it “off as native romanticism” (Chamberlin, 133). Because our words gives us a profound connection with the world around us, allowing us to express feelings that others would otherwise never know, our words become deeply personal. When they become deeply personal any changes to language are not only a threat to our ability to communicate, but a threat to our identity as well. I think this creates huge tension between native populations and colonizers the world over. Adapting to the customs of the primitive natives would have been disastrous, yet simultaneously the villainous invaders were wreaking havoc of their own. As we explore Canadian literature and enter the “world of words” (Chamberlin, 1) we must remember that there are two sides to a story, existing at the same time, existing only in words, but existing as so much more than words.

‘Hmm, that actually makes sense. I guess math isn’t so bad after all! ‘

Works Cited

Chamberlin, J. Edward. If This Is Your Land, Where Are Your Stories?: Finding Common Ground. Toronto: Vintage Canada, 2004. Print.

Jafek, Bev. “Schrödinger’s Cat.” Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art 15 (1990): 216-32. Print.

Nichols, Suzanne. “What Is Quantum Entanglement? SuperConsciousness Magazine.” 2011. Web. 16 Jan. 2015.

Paterson, Erika. “Lesson 1.2 Story & Literature.” University of British Columbia , Vancouver. 15 Jan. 2015. Lecture.