Term 1: September 2021-December 2021
CENS 202 – 005: Indigenous Survivance and (Mis)Representation in Central, Eastern, and Northern European Studies
(MonWedFri: 1:00 PM to 2:00 PM in BUCH-D221)
This course explores Indigenous self-representation and narratives of Indigenous presence and agency (survivance) alongside the misrepresentation and cultural appropriation of Indigenous identities in what is now called Central, Eastern, and Northern Europe. Framed through the work and theory of Indigenous studies while also engaging the Indigenous culture and history of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) people, students will read Chukchi literature from the shores of the Chukchi Sea region of the Arctic Ocean and Sami poetry and folktales from what is now known as Fenno-Scandinavia. We will also explore examples of digital survivance in the games to emerge out of the 2018 Sami Game Jam and consider the role of social media in global Indigenous activism. Lastly, we will explore issues of Indigeneity in Disney’s Frozen franchise and the problematic cultural appropriation and misrepresentation of North America’s Aboriginal peoples in German popular culture. Ultimately, this course seeks to engage literature, new media, and other platforms for digital and traditional forms of storytelling to unsettle European settler colonialism, privileging the voices of Indigenous authors and artists from other parts of the world, while drawing connections between the experience and consequences of settler colonialism abroad and within Canada.
In addition to course readings, class discussion, group work, short response assignments, and a final creative project and reflective essay, students will attend several virtual events with Indigenous speakers. I’ve organized this speakers series in order to foreground Indigenous experience and Indigenous voices in our conversations on Indigenous literature and new media, since I am conscious of how my own subject position as a white settler might otherwise problematically dominate the perspectives shared in our class discussion, reiterating the politics and power relations of settler colonialism even while I am trying to destabilize them. Moreover, by intellectually (and financially) supporting the work of Indigenous scholars, activists, and entrepreneurs, I am finding new ways to be an ally to members of Indigenous communities. The first event will feature Dr. Renae Watchman (McMaster University), who will talk about diasporic Indigenous presence from Turtle Island in Europe. The second virtual event will be a documentary film screening of Searching For Winnetou (2018), Ojibway author and humourist Drew Hayden Taylor’s quest to understand the roots of the German obsession with Native North Americans, which will conclude with a virtual conversation with the director. A third event will feature Indigenous entrepreneurs and board game experts, David Plamondon and Jayde Gravel, who will introduce students to issues around representation in transnational board game cultures. Finally, the course will conclude with virtual visits from Sami game studies scholar and Sami Game Jam co-organizer Dr. Outi Laiti (University of Helsinki) and Indigenous researcher Keeta Gladue (University of Calgary), who will present her work on Decolonizing Disney.
As a non-Indigenous white settler, I approach the work of Indigenous studies and my teaching of its materials humbly, acknowledging outright that I am still in the process of learning how to be an ally to the Indigenous peoples of what is now called Canada and around the world. Moreover, I am cautious in my teaching of this content, knowing that my approach to teaching about global Indigenous cultures has the potential to reinscribe the problematic power relations that have existed around the world since the onset of settle colonialism in the classroom environment. However, I am committed to striving to meet the goals of truth and reconciliation through my research and teaching (and #62 of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s Calls to Action, in particular). I therefore see it as my duty as a settler to work towards unsettling settler colonialism in all aspects of my personal and professional life.
GERM301 – 001: German Literature 1900-1945 (in English)
(MonWedFri: 3:00 PM to 4:00 PM in BUCH-D301)
This class provides an overview of the literary and art historical epochs of German modernism, the interwar avantgarde, and exile art and literature during and immediately after WW2 in English translation. Exploring German culture, society, and politics simultaneously, this course looks at the artistic production of Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider) and Die Brücke (The Bridge) artist groups, German Expressionism, Dada, Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity) and the Bauhaus movements alongside the literary works of Franz Kafka, Irmgard Keun, Else Lasker-Schüler, Bertold Brecht, and Anna Seghers.
We will read Dadaist sound poetry, examine the repercussions of WWI on German art as well as the impact of Weimar’s emerging consumer culture on literature and culture, while contemplating form and function in modernist architecture and design. Students will also read Kafka’s Die Verwandlung (The Metamorphosis, 1915), Keun’s Das kunstseidene Mädchen (The Artificial Silk Girl, 1932) and Bertolt Brecht’s Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder (Mother Courage and Her Children, 1939), discussing the roles of gender, political engagement, consumerism, and formal innovations in modernist literature.
GERM121 – 001: German Fairy Tales and Popular Culture (in English)
(MonWedFri: 4:00 PM to 5:00 PM in BUCH-B141)
This course examines selected folk and fairy tales from the German-speaking tradition, primarily those collected by the Brothers Grimm. We will locate the texts in the 18th– and 19th-century cultural contexts of their origins and then follow how they have evolved into perennial favourites in international popular culture. In particular, this course follows the story of Cinderella as it has been adapted in various media, including film, video games, board games, and comics, around the world. Using this one narrative and its adaptation as a case study to model the course’s critical inquiry, this course will explore how fairy tale have changed over the centuries to meet new political, cultural, and social demands, while adopting innovative formal and narrative strategies with the emergence of digital technologies.
Course readings will be supplemented by short introductory lectures on a variety of disciplinary approaches to fairy tales, such as semiotic analysis, feminist and disability studies perspectives, and media studies theory.
Term 2: January 2022-April 2022
CENS202 – 002 (MonWedFri: 1:00 PM to 2:00 PM in BUCH-D322)
GERM100 – 015 (MonWedFri: 2:00 PM to 3:00 PM in BUCH-D207)
GERM121 – 002 (MonWedFri: 4:00 PM to 5:00 PM in BUCH-B141)