Choose one of the following topics for an essay of no more then 2500 words (8 typed, double-spaced pages).

Remember to present a focused, critical argument. What is the main point that you want to prove in your essay about how to interpret the texts you have chosen? How exactly does the language and form of each writer's work foster his or her engagement with these themes or concepts? Remember to build your argument around direct analysis of the language of the texts themselves.

1. Discuss the relationships between the visual and the visionary in the work of two writers on the course syllabus. How do these texts encourage us to see differently?

2. Northrop Frye has claimed that the question of Canadian identity is closely concerned with place; we ask not so much "Who am I?" as "Where is here?" Investigate the relationships between self and place, or self and space, in the work of two writers on the course syllabus. In what sense do the writers you choose address the idea of displaced persons?

3. In Glenn Gould's The Idea of North, Wally McLean speaks of being a "Northern listener." Discuss the ways in which listening, or voice, or recording, or performance, or song is presented in the work of two writers on the course syllabus.

4. Investigate the challenges posed by cultural difference or otherness in the work of two writers on the course syllabus.

5. Examine the depictions of indigeneity in the work of two writers on the course syllabus.

6. Margaret Atwood writes of victimization and survival, while Don McKay's poetry often focuses on what he calls "wilderness." Discuss what has become of human encounters with nature in the work of any two writers on the course syllabus.

7. Examine the ways in which history is addressed and put at issue in the work of two writers on the course syllabus. What constitutes history? Why is it significant for these writers?

8. Discuss the multilingual nature of the writing of two writers on the course syllabus. How and why do these writers employ translation? What does it mean to speak more than one language? How does this polyglossia inform their work? Can languages be hybridized in poetry or fiction?

9. Investigate the use of (or engagement with) popular culture (musical, audiovisual, textual) in the work of two writers on the course syllabus. Why would literary texts want to encroach on a popular readership? Can (English) Canada have a popular literature? How?

10. Discuss the cultural politics of gender and sexuality in the work of two writers on the course syllabus.

11. A topic of your own devising. Make sure that you discuss your idea with me before you begin to write.

Due IN CLASS on Friday, December 4, 2015.