English 470: Fictions of Canadian Culture

Prof. Kevin McNeilly



This course will focus on recent Canadian writing in English that has confronted the problem of cultural identity. These writers investigate the production of boundaries, borders, territories and definitions, and work through the implications of language and translation, culture and multiculturalism, nationalism and cosmopolitanism, the local and the global, the situated and the diasporic in their texts. We will look at some of the forms and strategies that Canadian fiction and non-fiction have embraced -- from polyphony to postmodernism -- in order to address the complex and often contradictory relationships of culture and self.

Lecture Schedule
Lectures are Mondays and Wednesdays from 7:00 pm to 10:00 pm in Buchanan B314.
Monday, June 17
Introduction: Culture as Fiction
Wednesday, June 19
Please read Alice Munro, Selected Stories (1): "Walker Brothers Cowboy," "Something I've Been Meaning to Tell You," "Material," "Dulse," and "Chaddleys and Flemings."
Click here for a web page "dedicated" to Munro, with links.
Click here for an entry from The Canadian & World Encyclopedia on Munro.
Click here for a recent interview with Munro.
Click here for "Alice Munro, a Biocritical Essay" by Thomas E. Tausky.
Click here for texts by and about Munro from The New York Times.
Click here for a biography and chronology of Munro.
Click here for a profile and bibliography on Munro.
Click here for "Alice Munro: The Short Answer" by Alex Keegan.
Click here for "Imaginary Evidence: The Historical Fiction of Alice Munro" by Reid Mitchell.
Click here for a page on Munro at the "Women's Stories" site.
Click here for a review of Munro's stories from Time magazine (1994).
Click here for "A Quiet Genius," an interview with Munro from The Atlantic (December 2001).
Click here for a review of Munro's work from The Boston Herald.
Monday, June 24
Please read George Elliott Clarke, Execution Poems; we will also finish discussing Munro tonight, with a close reading of one of her stories.
Click here or here or here or here for a brief bio on Clarke.
Click here for "An Unimpoverished Style: The Poetry of George Elliott Clarke" by M. Travis Lane.
Click here for "Must All Blackness Be American?: Locating Canada in Borden's 'Tightrope Time,' or Nationalizing Gilroy's The Black Atlantic" by George Elliott Clarke.
Click here for "Word Jazz 2," a review article by me on, among other things, Clarke's Beatrice Chancy.
Click here for a "*.pdf" file of George Elliott Clarke's "Open Letter" to Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott, from the journal Open Letter.
Click here for a review of Execution Poems by Geoffrey Cook.
Click here for a review of Execution Poems by Tom Bowden.
Click here for "Cool Politics: Styles of Honour in Malcolm X and Miles Davis" by George Elliott Clarke.
Wednesday, June 26
Please read Carol Shields, The Stone Diaries.
Click here for a 1997 interview with Carol Shields.
Click here or here or here for a profile of Shields.
Click here for a "Reading Group Guide" to The Stone Diaries.
Click here for a set of annotations to The Stone Diaries.
Click here for a recent article on Shields from The Guardian.
Click here for a 1999 interview with Shields by Eleanor Wachtel.
Click here for a review of Shields's recent novel Unless, from The Boston Herald.
Monday, July 1
CANADA DAY -- No Class
Wednesday, July 3
Please read Thomas King, Green Grass, Running Water.
Click here to find a web page on the Fort Marion drawings (which Alberta mentions at the beginning of the novel).
Click here for a profile of Thomas King.
Click here for a description of King's lecture, "A Wasted Hour with Thomas King," with links.
Click here for a paper that describes King's parody of James Fenimore Cooper.
Click here for the home page of The Dead Dog Café Comedy Hour.
Click here for "King Novel Popular in Canadian Literature Courses" by Stacey Curry Gunn.
Click here for a brief profile of King.
Click here for the Table of Contents from Canadian Literature issue 161/162, which focused on Thomas King.
Click here for a transcription of "Godzilla vs. Post-Colonial" by Thomas King.
Monday, July 8
Short essay due in class.
Click here for the essay topic sheet for the short essay.
Please read Robert Bringhurst, A Story as Sharp as a Knife
Click here for information on Robert Bringhurst
Click here for a description of a recent panel on First Nations storytelling, that includes commentary by Robert Bringhurst.
Click here for a bibliography of Robert Bringhurst's works.
Click here for "Cutting Both Ways: Robert Bringhurst and Haida Literature" a review by Kevin McNeilly (yes, that's me) of A Story as Sharp as a Knife.
For an encyclopedia entry on John R. Swanton, click here.
For an example of some of Swanton's anthropological work, click here.
Click here to connect to a site on "North American Indian" history, with numerous useful links.
Click here to connect to a First Nations/ First Peoples site, principally containing links to other sites. (This site can be very useful for getting research started in the area of First Nations Studies.)
Click here for a brief description of Bringhurst's translation of Ghandl, Nine Visits to the Mythworld.
Wednesday, July 10
First hour: Classroom visit and reading by George Elliott Clarke.
King and Bringhurst continued.
Monday, July 15
Please read Michael Ondaatje, The English Patient
Click here for a set of suggestions for reading groups on The English Patient.
Click here for MICHAEL ONDAATJE INFORMATION, an excellent page of bibliographies and links.
Click here for a profile of Ondaatje.
Click here for an "overview" of Ondaatje, with links.
Click here for a profile (with bibliography) of Ondaatje.
Click here for an interview with Ondaatje.
Click here for a brief article on Ondaatje, with links.
Click here for a 1996 interview with Ondaatje, from Salon.
Click here for another interview with Ondaatje.
Wednesday, July 17
Please read Fred Wah, Diamond Grill
Click here for a profile of Fred Wah.
Click here for a student review of Diamond Grill.
Click here for a review of Diamond Grill, by Ruth Raymond.
Click here for Fred Wah's homepage at the Department of English of the University of Calgary.
Click here for an excellent set of pages on Fred Wah from the University of Toronto Library.
Click here for an e-mail interview conducted between Fred Wah and Ashok Mathur in January, 1997, about Diamond Grill.
Monday, July 22
Please read Alice Munro, Selected Stories (2): "The Progress of Love" (Because of time constraints, we will use this one story to review the course. You may read these others, if you wish: "Friend of My Youth," "Carried Away," and "A Wilderness Station.")
Wednesday, July 24
Final Examination, in class
Monday, July 29
Term paper due.
Click here for the essay topic sheet for the term paper.
Please note that the due date for this paper has been changed, and extended one week. The essay should be submitted to the receptionist in BuTo 397, the main English Department office, by 4:30 pm.