Kommentar |
The study of Canadian literature has undergone dramatic changes in the last two decades as new global forces in the 1990s undermined its nation-based critical assumptions. Beginning with an introduction to current debates about multiculturalism, diversity and Canadian literary studies, this class will attempt to rethink those connections by focusing on the tension between the local and the global in selected contemporary Canadian texts. In doing so, we will pay special attention to diasporic literatures, focusing on issues of belonging and evocations of community and nation as they are filtered through the lenses of region, gender, race, class, and sexuality. Specifically, we will look at multiethnic writers, attempting to understand the relationship between literature, nationalism, and cultural identity. We will look at Dionne Brand’s What We All Long For (2005) and Madeleine Thien’s Dogs at the Perimeters (2011), and selected stories from Shani Mootoo’s Out on Main Street: And Other Stories (2002) and Carleigh Baker’s collection of stories Bad Endings (2017). |