{"id":20,"date":"2015-05-13T21:52:21","date_gmt":"2015-05-14T04:52:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/sarahsteer\/?p=20"},"modified":"2015-05-13T21:52:21","modified_gmt":"2015-05-14T04:52:21","slug":"introduction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/sarahsteer\/2015\/05\/13\/introduction\/","title":{"rendered":"Introduction"},"content":{"rendered":"
Hi everyone and welcome to my blog!<\/strong><\/div>\n
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My name is Sarah, and\u00a0 I am entering my fifth year as\u00a0 a Sociology Major. For the last year I have been lucky enough to escape from the Vancouver rain by living in sunny Orange County, California. I take full advantage of the beautiful weather by running, hiking, and exploring local beaches where I frequently\u00a0see dolphins! When I am not outside I work at elementary and middle\u00a0 schools, where I am constantly teased for \u00a0being Canadian and saying \u201cwashroom\u201d and \u201cpencil crayons\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"Laguna<\/a>

Laguna Beach. February 2015.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"My<\/a>

My dad and I on a hike overlooking the beach<\/p><\/div>\n

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English 470A Canadian Studies also referred to by Dr. Erika Paterson as Oh Canada\u2026.Our Home and Native Land?<\/em> is a Canadian literature course in which we will examine the relationship between Indigenous and European traditions of literature and orature.\u00a0 More specifically, we will be analyzing these stories through a historical lens that challenges colonial narratives and representations. Through this process we will have a better understanding of the connection between nation building, and the development of a Canadian literary canon. Importantly, this course will also work to question whose stories we choose to listen to and whose do we choose not to hear or ignore. The power of stories and national identity has a strong connection to my country of birth, South Africa.<\/p>\n

\"South<\/a>

South African Flag<\/p><\/div>\n

I was born in the busy port city of Durban, KwaZulu-Natal\u00a0South Africa <\/a>and lived there until \u00a0I moved to West Vancouver at the age of 9. (KwaZulu-Natal means \u201cPlace of the Zulu\u201d). \u00a0Many people are unaware that South Africa is a culturally and linguistically diverse nation with 11 official languages, due to the singleness of its literary system where Afrikaaner and English authors are most celebrated. \u00a0During apartheid ( meaning \u201cseperateness\u201d or \u201csegregation\u201d in Afrikaans) racial discrimination was evident with a ban or exile on black writers. \u00a0The writers who received international recognition during apartheid were all white. South African nationalism in the 90\u2019s worked to promote one voice, thus \u00a0with the end of apartheid and the emergence of previous unheard voices<\/a> \u00a0it raised questions of what it meant to be South African. Currently, South Africa\u2019s literary identity is shifting thanks to authors such as Niq Mhlongo <\/a>Mhlongo, who writes about the culture of Soweto states \u00a0that\u00a0 \u201cthere are more black novelists today than there ever were in the history of South Africa\u201d.<\/p>\n

Seeing the transition that the South African literature community has undergone in these past years, has made me interested to learn more about the current state of Canadian literature. I also hope to read contemporary Indigenous pieces of work, and to learn different storytelling techniques that are unique to my knowledge. Lastly, I am looking forward to reading the blogs of other students to gain new perspectives of what Canadian identity means. Hope everyone has a great summer!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Works Cited:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Brownell, Frederick.\u00a0Flag of South Africa<\/em>. 1994. Wikipedia . Web. 13 May 2015. <http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Flag_of_South_Africa>.<\/p>\n

Donadio, Rachel. “Post-Apartheid Fiction .”\u00a0The New York Times\u00a0<\/em>. N.p., 3 Dec. 2006. Web. 13 May 2015. Path: http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2006\/12\/03\/magazine\/03novelists.html<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“History of Durban .”\u00a0Mother Earth Travel\u00a0<\/em>. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 May 2015. <http:\/\/motherearthtravel.com\/south_africa\/durban\/history.html>.<\/p>\n

Paterson, Erika. English 470A: Canadian Studies. <\/em>University of British Columbia, 2015. Web. 13 May 2015<\/p>\n

SA’s story in 12 languages\u00a0<\/em>. LeadSouthAfrica, 2014. Web. 13 May 2015. <https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=thB63W7igMU>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi everyone and welcome to my blog! My name is Sarah, and\u00a0 I am entering my fifth year as\u00a0 a Sociology Major. For the last year I have been lucky enough to escape from the Vancouver rain by living in sunny Orange County, California. I take full advantage of the beautiful weather by running, hiking, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20807,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/sarahsteer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/sarahsteer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/sarahsteer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/sarahsteer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20807"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/sarahsteer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/sarahsteer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/sarahsteer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20\/revisions\/21"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/sarahsteer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/sarahsteer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/sarahsteer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}