ENGL 4313 X1 Special Topics
Fall 2017 English Honours Course
4313 X1 Special Topics 1 Fall 2017 English Honours Course
Updated July 20, 2017
“Turtle Island, Reading to Discover”:
Re-cognition via Uneasy VisualVerbal Texts & Other Inter-Relations
Wednesdays 13:30-16:00
Andrea Schwenke Wyile
Playing on the problematic tourism phrase “Canada, Yours to Discover,” and in response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s calls to action to educational institutions and citizens to recognize our country’s collective need for Indigenous knowledge in order to move from cognitive imperialism to cognitive justice, this course will challenge the participants to come together in a cooperative exploration of visualverbal texts by Indigenous artists. While the course texts are all books, we will also consider related multimedia collaborations where relevant. Such works often require readers, particularly those outside the culture, to step outside their comfort zones in all kinds of ways, so being uncomfortable/unsettled/uneasy is a key element of this course. Through creative participation and research, we will work through our initial responses toward some form of greater understanding of the “uneasy” texts and our process of transformative re-cognition. Most of the stories relate to colonization and its wide-ranging effects, and deal with a variety of issues relating to visualverbal representation.
Our goal will be a meaningful and deep engagement with the art, language, and teachings in these works to consider how they can lead toward the Wolastoqi concept of piliwitahasuwawsuwakon (learned from Evie Place at the ‘Ktuhkelokepan’ Awakening of our Indigeneity panel at Peace & Friendship Treaty Days 2016), transformation, of our minds, our places of learning, and our country. As the professor teaching this course is a first generation Canadian of European descent who specializes in children’s literature, the class will obviously need to draw on additional knowledge keepers and teachers. Patti LaBoucane-Benson, Kelly Mellings, Rebecca Thomas, and Gord Hill will be part of the fall Authors@Acadia series. Attendance at the Peace and Friendship Treaty Days Colloquium on Resilience at UNB Fredericton on Monday and Tuesday October 23-24 will be encouraged and other opportunities for learning and exchange will be sought. We will also consider a variety of related matters, including art as a pathway to healing, books as art form, means for engaging with polysystemic texts, and the largely censorious culture the creators of these works and their purveyors seek to challenge through multimodal texts, innovative design, and small press publications.
In keeping with the spirit of this course, assignments will likely include reading and research response journals; a colloquium, open to the public, in which students give presentations and/or possibly some form of reading groups/workshops with others on/off campus. Such an activity has a two-fold purpose: one, to raise awareness of these books on campus and two, to serve as research regarding issues of response. Additionally, or alternatively, we may decide to produce some kind of web resource that could be added to the Vaughan library’s Indigenous Resources libguide. All this to say that the course will be somewhat experimental and the final decisions on at least some of the books to cover and assignments to complete will be made by the class as a whole.
Space will be made for exchanges with other individuals or groups interested in joining the class in the reading and discussion of these books, likely once per month September through November, so university and valley community members are encouraged to join in the reading and discovery of the books on our reading list and related ones of their choice. A few additional books will be available at The Box of Delights Bookstore, but more can be ordered upon request—just ask at the store! The Indigenous Resource Centre on campus will be provided with one copy of each book on this list, and many of them will also be on reserve at the Vaughan Memorial Library.
READING LIST
Theory/Crit/Context:
Drew Hayden Taylor: Me Artsy (recommended) http://www.drewhaydentaylor.com/
Chelsea Vowel: Indigenous Writes : a guide to First Nations, Métis, and Inuit issues in
Canada, Highwater Press 2016 978-1553796800 http://apihtawikosisan.com/
Lowman, Emma Battell and Adam Barker. Settler: Identity and Colonialism in 21stentury Canada. Halifax: Fernwood Publishing, 2015. https://fernwoodpublishing.ca/book/settler
Gord Hill: 500 Years of Indigenous Resistance. Fernwood. https://fernwoodpublishing.ca/authors/view/gord-hill
Primary Texts:
Lisa Charleyboy and Mary Beth Leatherdale, Eds. Dreaming in Indian (pbk): Contemporary Native American Voices, Annick Urban Tribes : Native Americans in the City, Annick
Thomas King & Kent Monkman A Coyote Columbus Story, Groundwood
Patti LaBoucane-Benson and Kelly Mellings’s The Outside Circle, Groundwood
Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas Red: A Haida Manga (2009) 2 edition (April 11 2014)
Douglas & McIntyre; 978-1771620222, $17.96 See also: http://www.douglas-mcintyre.com/book/red
Gord Hill The 500 Years of Indigenous Resistance Comic Book, Arsenal Pulp Press 978-1551523606
David A Robertson &Scott B. Henderson: 7 Generations: A Plains Cree Saga, Highwater Press SKU: 978-1-55379-355-7 34.00
Charles Alexander Eastman (Author), Zitkala-Sa (Author), Alex Posey (Author), & 24 more Graphic Classics Volume 24: Native American Classics. ISBN: 978-0982563069 Publisher: Eureka Productions (March 26 2013)
If this comic book is not available, we will likely go with Leanne Simpson’s This Accident of Being Lost, and the related videos of stories available online. We will likely work in at least one or two stories from Simpson’s book. https://www.leannesimpson.ca /
David A. Robertson & GMB Chomichuk Will I See? Highwater Press, SKU: 978-1-55379-674-9 $18.95
Jordan Abel The Place of Scraps. Talon, 2013. 978-0889227880 $24.70