Kommentar |
Canada, a continent-spanning country occupying the northern half of North America, has an intriguing relationship with the north – as a space and as an idea. The north is central to the perception of Canada – both by Canadians and by non-Canadians – and yet the precise contours of an idea that is at once geographical and cultural remains fraught. In the following course, we will undertake a review of central texts about the Canadian north. We will consider the fascinating ways in which the north exercises a powerful, and at times contradictory, pull on the Canadian imagination as a place of concrete historical and geo-physical reality, but also of mythic power.
Tentative List of Required Reading: Samuel Hearne, A Journey from Prince of Wales’s Fort, in Hudson Bay, to the Northern Ocean (excerpts provided by course instructor), 1795 Robert Service ”The Cremation of Sam McGee,” 1907 Rudy Wiebe, A Discovery of Strangers, 1994 Tomson Highway, The Kiss of the Fur Queen, 1998 Keith Ross Leckie, Coppermine, 2010 Possible work of secondary literature: Margaret Atwood, Strange Things: The Malevolent North in Canadian Literature, 1995
N.B. Course Requirements: Course readings Presentation on a relevant topic of the student’s choice Final essay of approximately 15 - 20 pp.
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