Chimamanda Adichie: The danger of a single story
Author Chimamanda Adichie makes a compelling claim that the single story is dependent on power, and power is “the ability to not just tell a story about another person, but to make it the definitive story of that person.” According to Adichie, stories gain their power from how they are told, who tells them, how many times they are told, and when they are told. If Thomas King’s claim that we are only our stories is true, than the identity of entire cultural groups, such as the First Nations in Canada are at the mercy of the one hierarchic and hegemonic based European colonial story. Within this Conference Presentation Blog, our group (Rabia, Julia, Bobby, and Milica) strives to explore the different ways technological interventions aid literary balance in Canada, and promote equal opportunity for national identity construction among all Canadian groups.
On behalf of our group members, we would like to welcome you to our blog site for our English 470: Canadian Literary Genre: Canadian Studies course at the University of British Columbia, located on the traditional, ancestral, unceded territory of the Musqueam People. As mentioned by professor Erika Patterson, English 470 “provides a scholarly study of Canadian literature in a historical context with a focus on the intersections and departures between European and Indigenous traditions of literature and orature”. Our hope is that the wide ranging sources we have provided will create an atmosphere for dialogue, and a space where innovative ways to intervene in the future direction of Canadian Literature can be explored.