Eng470

Write a blog that hyper-links your research on the characters in GGRW according to the pages assigned to you (288-299). Be sure to make use of Jane Flick’s reference guide on your reading list.

I have a newer edition of Thomas King’s Green Grass Running Water and my pages probably don’t match up too well with the assigned numbers but bear with me because there is still so much to talk about! This novel is packed with what seems like endless allusions and references to stories, historical events, literature and influential or significant people of the past. Jane Flick’s article is dense in decoded information for this novel and will be of some assistance. I would love to share what I discovered to be most interesting.

Thought Woman: The third of four mythical women in GGRW, coming after First Woman and Changing Woman and before Old Woman, that falls from the sky and creates the world by thinking it into being. She appears in Leslie Silko’s novel Ceremony which emphasizes her role as a creator of the universe. This is a version of the creation myth as seen in Peublo/Navajo mythology.

Ts’ its’ tsi’ nako, Thought-Woman, is sitting in her room and what ever she thinks about
appears. She thought of her sisters, Nau’ ts’ ity’ i and I’ tcs’ i, and together they created the Universe
this world and the four worlds below. Thought-Woman, the spider, named things and
as she named them they appeared. She is sitting in her room thinking of a story now
I’m telling you the story she is thinking.

The four women correspond with the four life cycles – birth, youth, parent, elder – where Thought Woman is representative of ‘parent’, a giver of life. As Eli looks through his blurry, water covered windshield he makes out “four figures” while near them a “scraggly dog” is running in circles (King, 289). The number four is rich in native significance, relating to the medicine wheel, the four directions, the four season, and the four elements. And as Flick notes, “a dog (Canis familiaris) is, of course, a ‘lesser’ form of coyote (Canis latranis)—and a god is a backward kind of dog.” (Flick, 143). Right before the mention of the four figures, Eli has a conversation with Karen that abruptly ends with the mutual recognition of her impending death. These figures represent the cyclical dimension of life and death being a natural part of it.

Robinson Crusoe: A novel by Daniel Defoe, first published in 1719. Crusoe is the protagonist of the novel who is shipwrecked and winds up a castaway who spends years on a remote island, encountering many hardships before being rescued. The tale is perceived as being based upon the experience of Alexander Selkirk who lived four years as a castaway. We learn that Crusoe is a famous shipwrecked writer, though he doesn’t write novels, “He writes lists” (King, 293). These lists seem to be the pros and cons of Crusoe’s various situations. He lands upon a con saying “it has been difficult not having someone of color around whom I could educate and protect”, then right after landing upon the pro saying “now, you’re here” (King, 294) to Thought Woman. Here we have an insinuation that under “British civility” there is a responsibility to correct the way of life around them to their standards. It is interesting that the elder should say “You’re getting him [Crusoe] mixed up with Caliban” (King, 294), a beastly and mutated Shakespearean creature from The Tempest. Caliban is a character who welcomes the castaway, Prospero, and teaches him all there is to offer about the island and how to survive. In turn, Prospero makes Caliban his servant and treats him harshly because he is unable and unwilling to conform to Prospero’s way of life. Crusoe to me seems more like the character of Prospero but perhaps King is insinuating the beastliness of white supremacy.

Grey Owl:  An Englishman Archie Belaney who was fascinated by Indian culture as a boy. He grew up devoting himself to learning about Natives and later became the famous Cree-Ojibwa writer and conservationist Grey Owl. Eli compares his life to Grey Owl because he wonders what he wants to become, he feels “trapped between two world” (King, 286), neither quite accepted as Indian or white. King segways this into an awkwardly placed line, “Ten little Indians“ (King 287). A reference to a famous children’s poem and to Agatha Christie’s novel, also known as And Then There Were None. I saw this as a way of King bringing awareness to the endangerment of Native culture, slowly dwindling in numbers.

Works Cited:

Austgen, Suzanne M.. “Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony and the Effects of White Contact on Pueblo Myth and Ritual.” N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Mar. 2015. <<http://history.hanover.edu/hhr/hhr93_2.html>>

Flick, Jane. “Reading Notes for Thomas King’s Green Grass, Running Water.”Canadian Literature 161-62 (1999): 140-172.  <<http://canlit.ca/pdfs/articles/canlit161-162-Reading(Flick).pdf>>

King, Thomas. Green Grass Running Water. Harper Perennial. Toronto. 2007. Print

Grey Owl, White Indian

What are the major differences or similarities between the ethos of the creation story you are familiar with and the story King tells in The Truth About Stories ?

Like many students in this class I’m sure, I was raised to know the Genesis creation story. Where there is a God who came out of nothing and created our universe in seven days. Light, Darkness, planets, earth, water, plants, animals and humans. Everything came about simply because God willed it. So when I read Thomas King’s The Truth About Stories and the variations of his creation story in Green Grass Running Water, it is easy to see how the stories may differ from Genesis, but perhaps harder to see how they are similar. I would like to point out a few things that grabbed my attention while reading the story about the woman who falls from the sky and try to tie together the story King tells us to the one that I know.

While reading the story of the woman who fell from the sky I was particularly interested in the part about where Charm and the animals are waiting for Otter to surface and, “finally, on the morning of the fourth day, just as the sun was rising, Otter’s body floated up out of the depths” (King, 17). The reason I was intrigued by this passage was because of the number four. After reading Professor Paterson’s blog about the medicine wheel, I figured that this number must be of significance in this story. The four directions – North, East, South, West, the life cycle – birth, youth, parents and elders, the seasons – spring, summer, fall, winter and the elements – fire, water, air and Mother earth. The four days Otter spends labouring to get the mud for Charm is representative of a becoming. Just as in Genesis, God spends seven days labouring over his creation, both stories put significance in numbers that we use today in our cultures for symbolic means.

So how else are these stories the same? Well, to point out the obvious, nothing is done without ‘magic’. Our Judeo-Christian God seems to snap his fingers and there we have it, everything occurs from a simple thought. Charm too possesses a magic to create and it too is not elaborate. Her creations come from her simple will to create and by the will of her children and the animals. However, Charms intentions are not singular like the Christian story, it is collaborative and, from what I can tell, seeks no praise or thanks.

So what of the ethos of these stories? King say that “elements in Genesis create a particular universe governed by a series of hierarchies – God, man, animals, plants – that celebrates law, order, and good government, while in our Native story, the universe is governed by a series of co-operations…that celebrate equality and balance” (King, 23-24). I’m starting to feel like the character of our creation stories tell us a lot about the religion or culture we live by. Genesis describes control, careful thinking and a complete power – a very similar description belongs to the way the Christians saw themselves and insisted on a world in their image. King’s version is not all together as organized as Genesis, which I find complements the liberating and unconfrontational tone of the story. In Green Grass Running Water, King provides 4 different versions of the woman who falls out of the sky, which I see as a testament to a diverse and creative culture.

We can see these stories as different, because they undeniably are, in which case we must discount one as being less true than the other (or less likely). Or we can try to see how they are similar and meet these two stories somewhere in the middle. Not that anyone is asking us to choose… are they? I never know for sure.

Work Cited:

King, Thomas. The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative. Peterbough: Anansi Press. 2003. Print

Paterson, Erika. “Lesson 3:1.” ENGL 470A Canadian Studies Canadian Literary Genres 99C Jan 2015. 8 March. 2015. Web. <https://blogs.ubc.ca/courseblogsis_ubc_engl_470a_99c_2014wc_44216-sis_ubc_engl_470a_99c_2014wc_44216_2517104_1/unit-3/lesson-3-2/>

http://christianity.about.com/od/biblestorysummaries/p/creationstory.htm

http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/pubs/abo-aut/spirit-spiritualite-eng.htm

For this blog assignment, I would like you to research and summarize one of the state or governing activities, such as The Royal Proclamation 1763, the Indian Act 1876, Immigration Act 1910, or the Multiculturalism Act 1989 – you choose the legislation or policy or commission you find most interesting. Write a blog about your findings and in your conclusion comment on whether or not your findings support Coleman’s argument about the project of white civility.

If I had to describe the Canada that I was raised in I would say that it is a nation of nations. I never really knew just one governing body or race growing up, and I probably wouldn’t have known the difference between races had I not been taught to recognize them and their stereotypes. But this nation that I know, or should I say knew, is not what it always intended to be.

The Canadian Immigration act of 1910 states in this article, “Racism in Canadian Immigration Policy”, that the act “quite boldly gave Cabinet power to prohibit immigrants belonging to any race” (Matas, 8). Though it specifies “any race”, the act was very selective with which races they chose to exclude. Europeans were the favoured immigrants due to their ‘white’ status, while Asians were highly discriminated against. Up until the act’s abolition in 1962, several laws were made that prohibited and discriminated against different races, including head taxes and entry fees for Asians and the exclusion, deportation or containment of certain races around and during the time of the two World Wars for “political” reasons. In the Court of Appeal, J. A. McPhillips stated about unwanted immigrants that:

“In their own interests their proper place of residence is within the confines of their respective countries in the continent of Asia, not in Canada, where their customs are not in vogue and their adherence to them here only gives rise to disturbances destructive to the well being of society…” (Matas, 8).

To comprehend that a statement like this came from a law within Canada seems unfathomable to me, but probably only because I have been ignorant to the history and racism of our country. I have been fortunate enough to have grown up in a safe, supportive and fair community, but that experience had perhaps sheltered me from the facts of where we came from. Out of this statement I was particularly struck by the word “destructive”. At one time, this country generalized entire races as dangerous to our way of life. It took years for them to recognize the hypocrisy of their own actions.

Professor Paterson’s blog notes Daniel Coleman’s opinion that claims that a specific form of whiteness emerged in Canada that was developed by the influence of the British. Furthermore, that Coleman displays a lineage of Canadian whiteness that remains influential in Canadian thinking and literature to this day. I feel that Coleman’s argument is largely supported, not just by the example of the Immigration Act, but also by the Indian Act of 1876 and various other racial laws of the past century. So the question is, is white civility still a concept that society still supports and follows? Though I feel we may not see it as blatantly as we once did, I think that Coleman’s argument is still supported. Racism is still very much apparent whether or not we truly recognize it. Every single day I hear people labeled as brown, Asian, Native, black, but I never catch someone saying “look at that white girl over there”. My point is, we still put a label on people who are not white whether or not they are Canadians. So before I said that I saw Canada as a nation of nations, I still stand by that and I believe many would agree that we are a very multicultural country, however, I will add that though the presence of many cultures are welcome, “white people” are still favoured by this country.

Work Cited:

Matas, David. “Racism in Canadian immigration policy.” Refuge: Canada’s Journal on Refugees 5.2 (1985). http://pi.library.yorku.ca/ojs/index.php/refuge/article/viewFile/21485/20160

Paterson, Erika. “Lesson 3:1.” ENGL 470A Canadian Studies Canadian Literary Genres 99C Jan 2015. 1 March. 2015. Web. <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/>

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/racism-still-an-uncomfortable-truth-in-canada-duncan-mccue-1.2831066

“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.

Right after this quote by Keith Thor Carlson, his article says that outsiders should not be afraid to ask about Salish authenticity, but that we should be diligent and educated in our questionings toward Aboriginal people (Carlson, 59). Much of Carlson’s article explains why this is so and why it important for people of any race to understand this concept.

For Salish people, stories are history, and sacred at that. They are life within culture and taken very seriously. Carlson notes that if the teller of a story were to forget a piece of it “it was better not to tell it at all for it was dangerous to omit scenes and to shorten myths” (Carlson, 59), not only for the teller but also the listener. So comes this point of “authenticity”. If one is to challenge the authenticity of story in Salish culture, they are challenging the history and entire being of that culture. Challenging authenticity it as if to say one is lying and therefore making up the past. Carlson rightly addresses that authenticity is a notion that should be handled with caution and sensitivity because the ‘truth’ of Salish culture sits at the core of their ways of knowing.

“Authenticity” brings us back to the conflict between orality and literacy. Is orality credible in contrast to literature? Again and again the question is asked “how can you prove it if it is not on paper?”. Carlson attempts to draw this question to a close by noting stories by Bertha Peters and Harry Robinson, both of whom “inject literacy (and therefore history) into the Aboriginal past in a way that they probably believed non-Native listeners would understand” (Carlson, 63).  Robinson’s story tells of Coyote and his twin brother and the paper given to them by God, while Bertha Peter’s story tells of the three chiefs who failed in their obligation to teach the people how to write when a God like being instructed them to. There is an understanding in these stories that literacy was indeed a part of Salish culture, and that the impending loss of that literacy consequently ended in “alienated lands and governing authority” (Carlson 48). Carlson highlights these stories to prove that European perception is not completely accurate in their views of Aboriginal culture being without literacy, but rather literacy existed within Salish culture and was taken or lost from them.

Works Cited:

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

Struckman, Robert. “The Sounds of Salish” Project Word. 16-18. Web. http://projectword.org/sites/default/files/Struckman-Blueprint-MayJun04.pdf

http://www.native-languages.org/salish-legends.htm

We began this unit by discussing assumptions and differences that we carry into our class. In “First Contact as Spiritual Performance,” Lutz makes an assumption about his readers (Lutz, “First Contact” 32). He asks us to begin with the assumption that comprehending the performances of the Indigenous participants is “one of the most obvious difficulties.” He explains that this is so because “one must of necessity enter a world that is distant in time and alien in culture, attempting to perceive indigenous performance through their eyes as well as those of the Europeans.” Here, Lutz is assuming either that his readers belong to the European tradition, or he is assuming that it is more difficult for a European to understand Indigenous performances – than the other way around. What do you make of this reading? Am I being fair when I point to this assumption? If so, is Lutz being fair when he makes this assumption?

Ever since reading Chamberlin I have been quite wary of taking sides on questions regarding Indigenous and European culture. The Assumption in John Lutz article “First Contact and Spiritual Performance” is that it is more difficult for Europeans to understand Indigenous performances than the other way around. Do I see this as an accurate and fair assumption? First I need to put myself in the shoes of each side and consider the perspectives I might experience at first contact for each side. After considering different elements I think that I would have to agree with Lutz’s assumption based on a few area of contemplation as well that my thoughts on the first contact story provided on pages 33-35 of “First Contact”.

• Culture: European’s possessed a more developed way of life. For example, tools and food have been developed to make life easier.
• Language: Perhaps less complicated to learn a European language than a Native language? More structure?
• Motives: Perhaps more intriguing for indigenous cultures to learn European lifestyle because of the aspects that Europeans could add to their way of life. On the flip side, Europeans did not have so much the idea of learning Indigenous way of life as they did to settle their way of life in a new land.

To put it in simple terms (and perhaps this is a biased point of view), European way of life was less complicated and more refined in the standards we would base it on today in terms of advanced technology. Therefore, it would be easier for Indigenous cultures to understand European performances rather than the other way around, as Lutz suggests.

The 1787 story about first contact on the northern coast of British Columbia (Lutz, 33-35) helped me to pinpoint the elements that I noted above. In that story, the way the “Gitrhala used to protect themselves from monsters and supernatural beings and ghosts, by rubbing themselves with their urine” (Lutz, 35) stuck out to me as being a very defining characteristic that shows the vast difference between cultures and perhaps why is would be harder for Europeans to understand Indigenous performances. The urine would symbolize the unhygienic and “savage” way of indigenous peoples while the Europeans offering the man “soap” represents the civilized man trying to cure and better a lesser civilization in their eyes. Considering the turn of events since first contact I think it is a fair assumption to say that Europeans saw their contact with natives as more a way of fixing rather than adapting. Would you agree that these point have any impact on the way in which Indigenous and European cultures understand each other or am I too involved in the “European tradition” of readers?

Work Cited:

Lutz, John. “Contact Over and Over Again.” Myth and Memory: Rethinking Stories ofIndignenous- European Contact. Ed. Lutz. Vancouver: U of British Columbia P, 2007. 1-15. Web.

http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/aboriginal-people-languages/

“Where are you off to, son?”

August lowered the newspaper he was reading and focused his gaze on the spot where the voice had come from. A husky old man with a white beard and rosy cheeks was waiting patiently in the train seat across from August. He wore a soft smile and his eyes were bright and sincere.

August folded the paper in his lap and cleared his throat. “Home. I got my leave yesterday.”

The old man nodded and looked out the window.

August looked at the old man warily. He seemed to lose some of the brightness that first welcomed him.

“What’s that like?” The old man did not look at August when as he asked this. His eyes flickered back and forth as he watched the passing landscape. The dim light of dusk was casting dancing shadows on his face as the train rolled along.

August furrowed his eyebrows unsure about the question. “The war? Well, it’s rough all around, but it seems to be-”

“No. Home. What is your home like?” He turned to look at August now. He did not mean to ask his question unkindly, but his tone was sharp. Almost desperate.

“Oh. I’m sorry.” August mumbled. He cleared his throat again. He gazed longingly out at the blurry sunset and spoke softly. “My home is beautiful. At this time of spring the orchard tree’s are just starting to blossom and the morning dew is heavy on the grass when dad gets up to feed the pigs. Ma will be baking in the kitchen. Clara will be skipping home from a play date at her friends house with a basket of wild flowers swinging from her arm. I’ll walk up the dirt road and the dogs will bark and sprint towards me.” August paused to look at the old man who seemed to be listening intently. “It’s a simple place, really. About what you would expect of a farmers home. But it’s perfect.”

The old man gave August a warm smile and his face returned to the kind man that first greeted him. “How long have you been away, son?”

“Nearly a year.” August replied solemnly. “Where might your home be?”

“Agh, very far away indeed. No train could take me to it. But I’ll make it there one day.”

August didn’t know what to make of this response. Surely an old man like himself would not be able to travel much longer. Why not do it while he still had his mobility? But August said nothing about it. Instead he responded “Well, good luck to you.”

Moments later the train began to screech and slow down. “Well, young man. This is where I get off.”  Both men stood up and shook hands. “Enjoy your time at home. Cherish it.” August helped him grab his shabby suitcase from an overhead compartment. The old man walked slowly to the exit supporting himself with a worn wooden cane. Right before getting off he turned to give August a weak wave and then vanished.

“Thank you.” said August quietly.

The next day August arrived at his stop. He hopped on a wagon that took him most of the way home. When he got at close as he could he got off to walk the rest of the way. His family didn’t know he was coming back and he longed to see the excitement on their faces when they saw him.

As he approached the long driveway, thick trees lined the border of the road and were covered in full buds ready to pop. The air was fresh and misty but a peculiar smell also filled his nose. As he continued down the road he could see in the distance a faint glow and flash of red lights. That peculiar smell. He quickened his pace and squinted to see a bit better. There were trucks. That smell. Smoke.

August dropped his bags and broke into a full sprint down the dirt road towards his house. He could see the ruin now. The fire was out but and the damage was done. Almost nothing left to salvage. He looked around panicked but finally saw, to his relief and intense emotion, his family huddled in blankets beside an emergency vehicle. He ran towards them and embraced them tightly, bursting with sobs.

His mother smiled and cried and kissed August, clearly overjoyed at the sight of her son but still devastated by the wreckage .

“Is everyone alright? I was so worried!” August spoke frantically.

“Yes we are all fine. But oh August, our home is gone! I am so sorry.” She held him tightly and cried.

“No, Ma. Our home is right here. We’re all alright.”

Society calls home a place. Does “place” mean a location? I don’t have a secret or original view on my sense of home because I think many people share the same view. For me, I know that if my house were to be destroyed, sure I might be pretty devastated, but in the greater perspective all I really care about is my family. My whole life I have stood behind the concept that the “people make the place” and that view will never change. My idea of home inspired this story, hope you liked it!

Sarah C.

I decided to take a big spin on Leslie Silko’s myth of how evil came into the world, and by big, I mean that I changed the whole thing and only kept the ending. Hope you enjoy it! I certainly learned a few things from the feedback that has allowed me to reflect more sincerely on the impact of words and stories. Here it is…

This is a story about the crowding of the world. But perhaps it’s not what you think. It was words, you see. In the beginning, there was only one who could speak words. Her name was Grace. She would sing and laugh and talk to the trees, but the trees could not speak her language. So, she got lonely. She needed another with whom she could share her words. So she created one. His name was Passion, and he loved to shout and bellow his words deeply. He was different than her, but Grace admired it. They had many children who loved to speak as well, but each were unique in their speech. And the family grew and grew and some moved away, over the sea and across the world. Their language started to change and take new forms, new words and accents. As the words grew, so did the people. More and more until the world was stuffed with them. And the more words we learned the more we had to share, and the peoples continued to grow because of it.

One day, someone said, “There are too many of us, mother earth can’t possibly support us much longer. We must call back the words that have been the cause of this unending growth.”

One man replied, “But the words cannot stop. They run the world. But we might be careful about the words we use. Surely that will count for something, or words will be the end of us.”

So, be careful about the stories you tell AND the stories you listen to because once a story is told it can never be taken back.

This story resonated well with the people I told it to and I got many insightful responses. Here were my favorites…

• Be careful what you say
• We are all interconnected in some way, through words, regardless of ethnicity or beliefs.
• People determine that words have power and that the power of words have created problems
• Words/stories are permanent.
• Words can mean different things to different people based on time and culture. As they spread they grow and change like a game of telephone.

I was curious to see what response I would get from Silko’s original tale, and if those responses would correlate with my version, so I told her story to a separate group of people. What I discovered was that people did not really understand the premise of Silko’s myth. They were more worried about the witched and the contest and when it finally got down to the theme of “be careful about the stories you tell” it came across a though it were a riddle. Like, what came first, the chicken or the egg? Was it the evil words that caused evil actions, or evil actions that inspired the words? I myself felt like I was caught in a circle with her story. How can somebody speak about evil unless evil has been seen? But then, where would someone think to do an evil action unless they had heard about it and the rewards of the wrongdoing? I believe a good story forces the reader to ask questions. In a way, it is how we discover meaning for ourselves that may not have been intended in the text.

This article puts Leslie Silko’s story into a little bit of a better perspective. It provides some background on her myth if anyone is interested!

Work Cited:

Austgen, Suzanne M.. “Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony and the Effects of White Contact on Pueblo Myth and Ritual.” N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Jan. 2015. http://history.hanover.edu/hhr/hhr93_2.html

“Chicken or the Egg.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 23 Jan. 2015. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_or_the_egg

King, Thomas. The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative. Peterbough:Anansi Press. 2003. Print

I think it is safe to say, in general terms, that we live in a superficial society. Where it is easy to label people and cultures based on the customs or habits that we see most often in a community. We also live in a society that likes to organize and categorize, therefore, to distinguish the the notion of a culture being either “oral” or “written” is a matter of some dispute. Chamberlin’s work “If This is Your Land, Where Are Your Stories?” suggests that that culture is both sides of the coin, rather than two split faces.

First and foremost, what do these terms “oral culture” and “written culture” mean?

Oral culture passes down information and stories through word of mouth. This process involves more than just the the verbal communication of information, there is a “rhythm or the melody of one’s voice or the variations in diction [that] emphasize different points or feelings” (Oral Traditions). But we should not limit the term oral culture to aboriginals communities who may use it as a way of passing along stories and bonding. We, us, them – do it every day. We tell our children stories. We reenact last nights dinner mishap. We tell jokes. We are equivalently, though perhaps less significantly, always submersed in an oral culture.

Written culture is equally important and unique in its process of passing down and storing information. It is durable and long lasting. It is also physical proof of the past. Courtney MacNeil’s article “Orality” suggests that literacy and orality exist in an unequal dichotomy, posing orality as the inferior concept being “primitive” and an “undeveloped medium”. The article notes that “It is the writing down in one authoritative language that gives “written culture” their power. But, as Chamberlain reminds us, this is a false dichotomy, and a dangerous one” (MacNeil). Chamberlin does not believe in the binary model because speech and writing are always intertangled. He also poses a strong argument that supports the notion that oral and written culture being of separate cultures is a misunderstanding.

Culture is a combination of our action but it is not wrapped up in a neat little box labeled this or that. It is ripped and polished, covered in graffiti and carved into a mask, with the words “welcome” written on it surrounded by the image of open hands. My point is, we are both this and that.

So why is it necessary to put oral and written culture in opposition? At what point are they the same? Every culture is a user of orality and of literature. In an interview, Chamberlin says that orality is a catalyst of communication, and communication is a part of both writing and speech. Orality passes in a moment while literature lives in every moment, but between the two is common ground that may not be undone except through a process of something untruthful. By untruthful I mean relaying a false story of the past. Chamberlin says we may not find that common ground until we are willing to take a leap of faith and believe in both sides. The most important thing to keep in mind is that we should not discredit our own stories but give more recognition to the stories of others. Both oral and written strategies for passing on stories are of one culture because they continuously overlap.

Sarah Casorso

Works Cited:

Chamberlin, J. Edward. If This is Your Land, Where Are Your Stories? Toronto: Vintage Canada, 2003. Web. http://writerscafe.ca/book_blogs/writers/j-edward-chamberlin_if-this-is-your-land-where-are-your-stories.php

MacNeil, Courtney. “Orality”. The Chicago School of Media Theory RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Jan. 2015.

“Oral Traditions.” UBC Indigenous Foundation, n.d. Web. 15 Jan. 2015. http://indigenousfoundations.arts.ubc.ca/home/culture/oral-traditions.html

Hello All!

Let me introduce myself, my name is Sarah Casorso and I am a fifth year English Literature major. I have very little experience with blogs and I’m pretty sure it actually took me more time to figure out this site than it took me to write this! It is safe to say that this will be a very large learning curve but I am excited for it and to engage in conversation with you guys.

Besides school, I am also a fifth year UBC varsity athlete playing ice hockey. I mean, what’s more Canadian than that??? (Hopefully I will learn the answer to that question very soon). I grew up in Kelowna on the same orchard that my great-great grandfather settled on in 1883. I have always been extremely proud to be a member of one of the original pioneer families of BC and, because I am a 5th generation Canadian, I considered myself wholeheartedly Canadian. It wasn’t until I moved to Vancouver for school that I realized how sheltered I was to culture and the other aspects of what being a Canadian meant. I would, however, still consider myself a stereotypical Canadian taking part very frequently in the old habits of “sorry”, “eh”, eating poutine and taking my beaver out for walks, but I also think I’m growing into a new understanding of what being a Canadian means through new experiences. My hope is that this course will help me down that path.

A young me playing the sport I love

This course is about stories of our culture and the stories that we tell ourselves about being Canadian. It addresses the relationship between the construction of our nation and literature while also prodding at our understanding of community and our roots. But more importantly where we come from and where we are going. I feel I have been living on the surface of what it means to be Canadian and so I am eager to delve deeper into our history and the stories that tie our nation together.

Work Cited:

Black, Debra. “Passport Canada: In a Word” The Star. 27 June 2014. Web. 6 Jan. 2015.

Maina, Faith. “Culturally relevant pedagogy: First Nations education in Canada.” The Canadian Journal of Native Studies 17.2 (1997): 293-314.