a classroom setting featuring a colorful Indigenous art piece with traditional motifs on a black cylindrical object.

Introduction to Indigenous Literatures in Canada

ENGL 218
Undergraduate
Winter 2027
3 Units
In-person
3
  • Level 2 or above or 6.0 units of ENGL

This settler-scholar-taught course will demonstrate the capacity of literature to confront expectations about Indigenous cultures and experience, and will privilege Indigenous voices through recordings, films and speakers. We will examine novels, traditional stories, poetry, short stories and plays from various time periods, written by Métis, Inuit and First Nations authors, and examine how each uses distinct aesthetics and literary techniques to create art and express culture and politics. With the goal of developing a broader understanding of the powerful anti-colonial sentiment at the core of Indigenous cultural production, the course will also consider the texts in the light of Indigenous-authored criticism. Participants will examine textual and theoretical approaches to topics such as colonialism and resistance, storytelling and orality, traditional and contemporary stories, land and language, residential schools and “reconciliation,” sexuality and gender, spirituality, community and nationhood. The course will also consider the role that Indigenous literatures play in shaping both Indigenous and non-Indigenous perceptions of identity. Texts may include works by Tomson Highway; Louise Halfe; Lee Maracle; Daniel David Moses; Cherie Dimaline; Armand Garnet Ruffo; David Alexander Roberton; Richard Van Camp; and others. Tentative assignments: mid-term test; final exam; 1800-word essay; class participation; land encounter exercise.

Instructor

Heather Macfarlane