123044 PS PS Literary Studies (2025S)

This course takes a lens on anglophone Canadian literature that specifically focuses on its diasporas. Diaspora literature refers to works by writers from communities that have left their place of origin and is thus marked by migration and displacement. Canada in the past has gained a reputation as a “multicultural” nation and has been recognized for its cultural diversity. Its history of settlement and colonization, however, requires us to critically reflect on received benevolent understandings of nation-states. We will engage with the term “diaspora” and understand it as embedded in histories of displacement and dispossession, intricately linked to power relations. This course thus invites us to reflect on questions of voluntary and involuntary im/mobility, home and belonging, citizenship and migration in the context of Canada. We will examine texts of different experiences of displacement, including by African, Asian, Caribbean, and Middle Eastern diasporas. Our readings will also consider texts by Indigenous writers who have been forcefully removed from their traditional homelands on Turtle Island, or what is today called Canada. We will look at different genres (e.g. poetry, short stories, novels) and investigate how diasporic literature tackles, complicates and challenges Canadian multiculturalism. The course thereby aims to offer a wide and nuanced understanding on Canadian diasporic literatures.

Besides reading texts and discussions in class and in small groups, we will engage in academic writings tasks. Students will learn how to come up with a research question, develop and support convincing arguments, integrate secondary literature, as well as conceptualize and write a proseminar paper. Smaller assignments will help students work on their academic writing skills.

There will be a guest lecture by Michael A. Bucknor on June 12.

Course outcomes
- Students will develop a critical understanding of discourses related to the nation-state, multicultural citizenship, settler colonialism and diaspora in the Canadian context.
- Students will be able to identify and analyze common literary tropes of diasporic literatures across different genres.
- Students will be able to seek appropriate theoretical concepts and apply them as tools for their literary analysis.
- Students will be able to formulate a research question, structure a research paper and draw on their academic skills to write a proseminar paper.