ENGL 585

Studies in Canadian Literature: Area Course

Units: 1.5

This year: Indigenous and Diasporic Literatures in Canada

Juxtaposition of two bodies of contemporary literature in Canada: indigenous and diasporic. Critical friction created by studying autochthonous (“originating where found”) alongside diasporic (“scattered or spread”) literary imaginations. Transnational versus infra-national migrations and histories of dislocation; nostalgia or melancholy for lost homelands; struggles for cultural and political identity, territory, citizenship and sovereignty, but also for possibility of deterritorialized or rootless states. Exposure to diaspora theory and indigenous critical perspectives alongside study of novels, poetry, short fiction.

Graduate course in the English program administered by the Faculty of Graduate Studies.