Ethnic Writing in the U.S and Canada

This class addresses the literature and culture of ethnic minorities in Canada and the U.S. Ethnic literature is a highly productive, innovative, and politically challenging field of writing. We will investigate the ways in which ethnic literature transforms traditional narrative and plot structures in order to rewrite cultural history and politics, thereby reshaping the canon of Canadian and US American literature. While the focus of this course is on First Nations / Native American literature, we will read a variety of texts from different ethnic affiliations, including literary works by writers of Asian, Caribbean, and/or African background. In addition to the discussion of novels, plays, and short stories, this class introduces students to theoretical concepts pertinent to the study of ethnic literature. Ethnicity will, for example, be discussed as a connective for community-building and as an invented or imagined construct, as Werner Sollors and Benedict Anderson proposed. Ethnic literature also tells stories of colonialism and post-colonialism, it explores issues of nation and nationalism, investigates strategies of resistance to dominant culture, and probes into problems of diaspora and writing diasporic lives. These issues become even more pressing in ethnic women's writing which often takes issue with the so-called double-marginalization of ethnic women in dominant society. A tentative list of authors to be discussed includes Gerald Vizenor, Leslie Marmon Silko, Drew Hayden Taylor, Dionne Brand, M.G. Vassanji, Bharati Mukherjee, Rohinton Mistry, Thomas King, Hisaye Yamamoto, Lorena Gale, and several others. Seminar für Anglistik 2-3 LP Studienleistung: active participation in class (includes weekly reading assignments), occasional preparation of discussion questions or responses to texts (on moodle or in class), and oral presentation with handout. 5 LP: active participation in class (includes weekly reading assignments), occasional preparation of discussion questions or responses to texts (on moodle or in class), oral presentation with handout, and written term paper (max. 10 pages) 7 LP: active participation in class (includes reading the texts), occasional preparation of discussion questions or responses to texts (on moodle or in class), oral presentation with handout, and written term paper (max. 15 pages) 3 LP Prüfungsleistung: written term paper (max. 15 pages) Universität Siegen WiSe 2012/13 Univ.-Prof. Dr. Schmidt Kerstin