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In his 2008 book on Canada and the development of a Canadian national identity, John Ralston Saul suggested that—whether realised or not by its dominant society—Canada constituted a Métis civilisation. In A Fair Country: Telling Truths about Canada, Saul suggests that Canada’s distinctive value as a unique society has derived from a process of métissage which has combined First Nations sources with French and English immigrant experience. Saul is undoubtedly correct in emphasising the historical fact of Canada’s hybrid ancestry in both indigenous and European cultural traditions. Canada has always been Métis and the Métis always a presence in Canada.
It is also true, however, that the record of Canadian acknowledgement of the presence and specificity of the Métis contribution to Canada has been erratic. For much of their history within Canada, the Métis have been absent in plain sight. This Hauptseminar proposes to provide an overview of the literary representation of the Métis people within Anglophone Canadian literature. This survey of a selection of key texts in prose, poetry and drama will offer the opportunity to review the history of Canadian (mis)recognition of the Métis, an overview of the historical experience of the Métis and some of their most important representatives (Louis Riel), and depictions by Métis authors of their self-identity as a nation and as a national minority within Canada.
The course will be arranged as a block seminar presented over the course of a month beginning on June 8, 2015 (cf tentative schedule below).
Tentative List of Required Reading:
Selected Poems and Short Stories (provided by the instructor)
Wiebe, Rudy, The Scorched-Wood People, 1977
Brown, Chester, Louis Riel: A Comic-Strip Biography, 2003
Clements, Marie, Unnatural and Accidental Women, 2005
Campbell, Maria, Halfbreed, 1973
N.B. Course Requirements: Presentation on a text of their choice
Final essay of approximately 15-18 pp.
Monday, June 8, 2015 2 hrs
Tuesday, June 9 4 hrs
Wednesday, June 10 4 hrs
Friday, June 12 4 hrs
Monday, June 15 4 hrs
Tuesday, June 16 4 hrs
Wednesday, June 17 4 hrs
Friday, June 19 4 hrs |
