English 521D/IGS 530C
Indigenous Literature in the Age of Public Inquiry:
Colonial Injustice and Commissions of Inquiry in Canada’s Contemporary Culture of Redress
Instructor: Allison Hargreaves
Email:
Office: Arts Building, Art 147
Telephone: 250-807-8446
COURSE CONTENT:
In September 2010, a public commission of inquiry was called into the missing women investigation which led to the eventual arrest and conviction of serial killer Robert Pickton. Pursuant to the Public Inquiries Act, this commission’s terms of reference provide for a fact-finding mission expected to result in recommended changes for the conduct of police investigations into missing women and cases of suspected multiple homicides in British Columbia. In response to the inquiry’s official mandate, however, First Nations leaders as well as community activists and the families of missing womenargue that these narrow terms of reference are far from “commensurate with the serious magnitude of the issues” (Atleo and Kelly)—including the specific colonial circumstances of social suffering that put Indigenous women at greater risk of violence in the first place. At stake, then, are the considerable tensions between the systemic and ongoing reality of colonial violence, and the tellingly narrow and temporally-bound terms on which official, government-sponsored forms of inquiry and intervention are sometimes conceived.
In this course we will considerthe possibilities and limits of commissions of inquiry as a means of public knowledge-making, and as a way recommending meaningful policy change. We will also considerthe work of Indigenous literature and theory in asserting alternative terms of reference through which to understand colonial injustice and its resistance, while accounting for public commissions of inquiry within the broader context of what Jennifer Henderson and Pauline Wakeham term Canada’s “culture of redress.”Seekingto open out different ways in which to conceive of our colonial legacy and thedominant contemporary efforts to reckon with it, we will investigate issues in redress, apology, reparation, and reconciliation within and across different commissions of inquiry, while attending to Indigenous cultural production as itself a vital site of protest and healing.
REQUIRED TEXTS:
The Unnatural and Accidental Women, Marie Clements
Where the Blood Mixes, Kevin Loring
Blade, Yvette Nolan
The Life of Helen Betty Osborne, David Robertson
Custom Course Reader
All required texts are available in the bookstore. Copies will also be placed on reserve in the library. In addition to the assigned texts, course materials include films, as well as supplementary online documents. These materials will either be viewed together in class, or alternative viewing arrangements will be made.
EVALUATION CRITERIA AND GRADING:
Regular Class Participation10%
Short Critical Response Papers (2 x 10%)20%
Research Essay Proposal15%
Seminar Presentation20%
Final Research Essay35%
Class Participation and Meaningful Engagement : Regular class participation is essential to your experience of this course, and to the experience of your colleagues. In order to participate meaningfully in our class discussions, you are expected to:
• arrive to class on time
• come prepared, having read all the assigned material carefully in advance
• arrive to class equipped with questionsand contributionsthat reflect the level of care and
rigor expected of graduate-level study
• engagerespectfully with the material and our collaborative discussion of it
Assignments:In addition to the short critical response papers, the assignments in this class include: an essay proposal, a seminar presentation (with a written component in addition to an oral, conference-style paper presentation), and a final research essay. Each assignment is designed to build upon the last, such that students will have multiple opportunities to workshop their research with each other, and with me.Details, expectations, and alternatives pertaining to each of the assignments will be distributed and further discussed in class, ahead of the deadline. Please note that written assignments will be accepted in class, on the due date only. Late assignments will be docked 2% per day, including weekend days.
ACADEMIC INTEGRITY
Please note the University policy on academic integrity:
The academic enterprise is founded on honesty, civility, and integrity.As members of this enterprise, all students are expected to know, understand, and follow the codes of conduct regarding academic integrity.At the most basic level, this means submitting only original work done by you and acknowledging all sources of information or ideas and attributing them to others as required.This also means you should not cheat, copy, or mislead others about what is your work.A more detailed description of academic integrity, including the policies and procedures, may be found at:
WHAT YOU CAN EXPECT FROM ME:
• Like you, I will arrive to class on-time, prepared, and ready to engage.
• With you, I will do my best to make the classroom a respectful, fun, and intellectually
stimulating place for all of us.
• I will treat each of you, as well as your questions, contributions, and concerns, with respect.
• I will be available outside of regular classroom hours to discuss anything pertaining to the
course, whether during my office hours or by appointment.
• I will respond quickly to brief email queries—within 24 hours during the work week.
• I will grade and return assignments to you promptly (within two weeks, if possible).
*Please note that readings and schedule are subject to minor changes prior to September, 2011*
SCHEDULE:
Week 1Aboriginal Policy and Social Injustice in Canada
Jo-Ann Episkenew, from Taking Back Our Spirits:“Policies of Devastation”
Andrew Woolford, from Between Justice and Certainty: “Introduction”; “Between the
Procedure and Substance of Justice”; “The Imposition of Colonial Visions of Justice”
Stephanie Irlbacher-Fox, from Finding Dahshaa: Self Government, Social Suffering, and
Aboriginal Policy in Canada:“Introduction”;“Context and Concepts”
Eden Robinson, “Terminal Avenue”
Week 2Recognition and Restitution: Canada’s ‘Culture of Redress’ in Context
Marilyn Dumont, “It Crosses My Mind” and “A Really Good Brown Girl”
TaiaiakeAlfred, “Restitution is the Real Pathway to Justice for Indigenous Peoples”
Glen Coulthard, “Subjects of Empire: Indigenous Peoples and the ‘Politics’ of Recognition in
Canada”
Jennifer Henderson and Pauline Wakeham, “Colonial Reckoning, National Reconciliation?:
Aboriginal Peoples and the Culture of Redress in Canada”
Scott Morgensen, “The Biopolitics of Settler Colonialism: Right Here, Right Now”
Nancy Fraser, “Rethinking Recognition”
Week 3Theorizing Guilt, Apology, and Forgiveness in the West
Jacques Derrida, “On Forgiveness”
Rhoda E. Howard-Hassmann, and Mark Gibney, “Introduction: Apologies and the West”
Matt James, “Wrestling with the Past:Apologies, Quasi-Apologies, andNon-Apologies in
Canada”
Elazar Barkan, from The Guilt of Nations: Restitution and Negotiating Historical Injustices: “Amending Historical Injustices in International Morality”
Deena Rymhs, “Appropriating Guilt: Reconciliation in an Aboriginal Canadian Context”
Week 4Commissions of Inquiry, Commissions of Truth
Teresa GodwinPhelps, from Shattered Voices: Language, Violence, and the Work of Truth
Commissions:“Language, Violence, and Oppression”;“What Can Stories Do?”
Priscilla B. Hayner, from Unspeakable Truths: Transitional Justice and the Challenge of
Truth Commissions:“Confronting Past Crimes: Transitional Justice and the Phenomenon of Truth Commissions”
Kim Stanton, from Truth Commissions and Public Inquiries: Addressing Historical Injustices
in Established Democracies:“Truth Commissions in Established Democracies”
Philip Stenning and Carol LaPrairie, “‘Politics by Other Means’: The Role of Commissions of
Inquiry in Establishing the ‘Truth’ About ‘Aboriginal Justice’ in Canada”
John Pratt and George Gilligan, “Introduction: Crime, Truth and Justice—Official Inquiry and
the Production of Knowledge”
Commissions of Inquiry: Praise or Reappraise?: Allan Manson and David Mullan,
“Introduction”; Thomas Berger, “Canadian Commissions of Inquiry: An Insider's Perspectives”
Week 5Canada’s Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples
Aboriginal Rights Coalition, fromBlind Spots: An Examination of the Federal Government’s
Response to the Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples:Lorraine Y.Land, “Gathering Dust of Gathering Strength: What Should Canada Do With the Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples?”; Marlene Brant Castellano, “Renewing the Relationship: A Perspective on the Impact of the RoyalCommissiononAboriginalPeoples”
Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, from Bridging the Cultural Divide andGathering
Strength(selections)
Week 6Commissions of Inquiry: Donald Marshall and Wrongful Conviction
Wayne Keon, “For Donald Marshall”
Report of the Royal Commission on the Donald Marshall Jr. Prosecution(selections)
Joy Mannette, Ed., from Elusive Justice: Beyond the Marshall Inquiry:James (Sa'ke'j)
Youngblood Henderson, “The Marshall Inquiry: AView of the Legal Consciousness”; M.E. Turpel/ Aki-Kwe, “Further Travails of Canada’s Human Rights Record: The Marshall Case”
Week 7Commissions of Inquiry: Helen Betty Osborne and J.J. Harper
Yvette Nolan, Blade
Marilyn Dumont, “Helen Betty Osborne”
David Robertson, The Life of Helen Betty Osborne: A Graphic Novel
Report of the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry of Manitoba:“The Deaths of Helen Betty Osborne
and John Joseph Harper”
Helen Betty Osborne Memorial Foundation Act, Chapter H38.1 of the Continuing
Consolidation of the Statutes of Manitoba
Week 8Commissions of Inquiry: The Death of Neil Stonechild
Report of the Commission of Inquiry into Matters Relating to the Death of Neil Stonechild
(selections)
Tasha Hubbard, Two Worlds Colliding
Joyce Green, “From Stonechild to Social Cohesion: Anti-Racist Challenges for Saskatchewan”
Sabina Kim, “Starlight Tours (Three Linked Poems)”
Week 9The Missing Women Commission of Inquiry
Missing Women Commission of Inquiry, “Terms of Reference”
Christine Welsh, Finding Dawn
Mercedes Eng, Knuckle Sandwich
Dara Culhane, “Their Spirits Live within Us: Aboriginal Women in Downtown Eastside
Vancouver Emerging into Visibility”
Doug LePard (Deputy Chief Constable of the Vancouver Police Department), from the
Missing Women Investigation Review(selections)
Week 10Theorizing Gendered Colonial Violence in Canada
Marie Clements, The Unnatural and Accidental Women
Andrea Smith, Conquest: Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide:“Sexual Violence
as a Tool of Genocide”; “Anticolonial Responses to Gender Violence”
Sherene Razack, “Gendered Racial Violence and Spatialized Justice: The Murder of Pamela
George”
Beverley Jacobs and Andrea J. Williams. “Legacy of Residential Schools: Missing and
Murdered Aboriginal Women”
Week 11Residential Schools: A Legacy of Colonial Violence
Robert Arthur Alexie, from Porcupines and China Dolls
Morningstar Mercredi, fromMorningstar: A Warrior’s Spirit
Keavy Martin, “Truth, Reconciliation, and Amnesia: Porcupines and China Dolls and the
Canadian Conscience”
Andrea Smith, “Boarding Schools and the Global Struggle for Reparations”
John Milloy, “The Founding Vision of Residential School Education, 1879 to 1920”
Gregory Younging, “Inherited History, International Law, and the UN Declaration”
Week 12TheTruth and Reconciliation Commission
Kevin Loring, Where the Blood Mixes
Rita Joe, “I Lost My Talk”
Government of Canada, Apology to Former Students of Indian Residential Schools
“Schedule N —Mandate for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission,” Indian Residential
Schools Settlement Agreement
Roland Chrisjohn and Tanya Wasacase, “Half-Truths and Whole Lies: Rhetoric in the
‘Apology’ and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission”
Jeff Corntassel, Chaw-win-is, and T’lakwadzi, “Indigenous Storytelling, Truth-telling, and
Community Approaches to Reconciliation”
Week 13Sovereignty and Resistance; Survivance and Freedom
TaiaiakeAlfred, selections from Wasáse: Indigenous Pathways of Action and Freedomand
“Sovereignty”
Joanne Barker, “Gender, Sovereignty, Rights: Native Women’s Activism against Social Inequality and Violence
in Canada” and “For Whom Sovereignty Matters”
Patricia Monture, “Women’s Words: Power, Identity, and Indigenous Sovereignty”
Gerald Vizenor, “Aesthetics of Survivance: Literary Theory and Practice”
BIBLIOGRAPHY (of select assigned and supplementary readings):
Aboriginal Rights Coalition. Blind Spots: An Examination of the Federal Government’s
Response to the Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. Ottawa: Aboriginal Rights Coalition, 2001.
Alexie, Robert Arthur. Porcupines and China Dolls. Penticton: Theytus Books, 2009.
Alfred,Taiaiake. “Sovereignty.” Sovereignty Matters: Locations of Contestation and
Possibility in Indigenous Strategies for Self-Determination.Ed. Joanne Barker. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2005.
---. Wasáse: Indigenous Pathways of Action and Freedom. Peterborough: Broadview, 2005.
Amnesty International. Stolen Sisters: A Human Rights Response to Discrimination and
Violence Against Indigenous Women in Canada.October,2004. 1 Aug. 2008 <
“Apology to the Family, Legislation to Honour Osborne.” Manitoba Government News
Release. Winnipeg: 14 Jul. 2000.
Atleo, Shawn A-in-chut and Doug Kelly. “Real Inquiry Needed into Pickton Killings.”
Victoria Times Colonist [Victoria] 28 Oct. 2011.
Barkan, Elazar. The Guilt of Nations: Restitution and Negotiating Historical Injustices. New
York: Norton, 2000.
Barker, Joanne. “For Whom Sovereignty Matters.”Sovereignty Matters: Locations
of Contestation and Possibility in Indigenous Strategies for Self-Determination. Ed.Joanne Barker. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2005.
---. “Gender, Sovereignty, Rights: Native Women’s Activism against Social Inequality and
Violence in Canada.” American Quarterly 60.2 (2008): 259-266.
Brant, Beth. “Telling.” Food and Spirits: Stories. Vancouver: Press Gang Publishers, 1991.
Calliou, Sharilyn. “Peacekeeping Actions at Home: A Medicine Wheel Model for a
Peacekeeping Pedagogy.” First Nations Education in Canada: The Circle Unfolds. Ed. Marie Battiste and Jean Barman. Vancouver: UBC Press, 1995.
Canada. House of Commons. Apology to Former Students of Indian Residential Schools June
11, 2008.39th Parliament, 2nd Session, No 110. Ottawa: Public Works and Government Services of Canada, 2008.
Chrisjohn, Roland, and Sherri Young. The Circle Game: Shadows and Substance in the
Indian Residential School Experience in Canada. Penticton: Theytus Books, 2006.
Chrisjohn, Roland, and Tanya Wasacase. “Half-Truths and Whole Lies: Rhetoric in the
‘Apology’ and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.” Response, Responsibility, and Renewal: Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Journey. Ed. Gregory Younging, Jonathan Dewar, and Mike DeGagné. Ottawa: Aboriginal Healing Foundation, 2009. 219-29.
Clements, Marie. Burning Vision. Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2003.
---. The Unnatural and Accidental Women.Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2005.
Corntassel, Jeff, Chaw-win-is, and T’lakwadzi. “Indigenous Storytelling, Truth-telling, and
Community Approaches to Reconciliation.”English Studies in Canada 35.1 (2009):
137-159.
Coulthard, Glen. “Subjects of Empire: Indigenous Peoples and the ‘Politics’ of Recognition in
Canada.” Contemporary Political Theory 6 (2007): 437–460.
Culhane, Dara. “Their Spirits Live within Us: Aboriginal Women in Downtown Eastside
Vancouver Emerging into Visibility.” American Indian Quarterly 27.3/4 (2003): 593-606.
Deiter, Connie, and Darlene Rude. “Human Security and Aboriginal Women in Canada.”
Ottawa: Status of Women Canada, 2005. 9 Jul. 2008.
<
Derrida, Jacques. On Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness. New York: Routledge, 2001.
Dumont, Marilyn. “Helen Betty Osborne.” A Really Good Brown Girl. London: Brick Books,
1996.
---. “It Crosses My Mind.” A Really Good Brown Girl. London: Brick Books, 1996.
Episkenew, Jo-Ann.“Policies of Devastation.” Taking Back Our Spirits: Indigenous
Literature, Public Policy, and Healing. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 2009.
---. “Socially Responsible Criticism: Aboriginal Literature, Ideology, and the Literary
Canon.” Creating Community: A Roundtable on Canadian Aboriginal Literature. Ed. Renate Eigenbrod and Jo-Ann Episkenew. Penticton: Theytus Books, 2002.
Ermine, Willie. “Aboriginal Epistemology.” First Nations Education in Canada: The Circle
Unfolds. Ed. Marie Battiste and Jean Barman. Vancouver: UBC Press, 1995.
Finding Dawn. Dir. Christine Welsh. National Film Board of Canada, 2006. DVD.
Francis, Daniel. The Imaginary Indian: The Image of the Indian in Canadian Culture.
Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 1992.
Fraser, Nancy. “Rethinking Recognition.” New Left Review 3.3 (2000): 107-20.
Gibney, Mark, Rhoda E. Howard-Hassmann, Jean-Marc Coicaud, andNiklaus Steiner, eds.
The Age of Apology: Facing Up to the Past. Philadelphia:University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008.
Graveline, Fyre Jean. Circleworks: Transforming Eurocentric Consciousness. Halifax:
Fernwood Publishing, 1998.
Haig-Brown, Celia. Resistance and Renewal: Surviving the Indian Residential School.
Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 1998.
Helen Betty Osborne Memorial Foundation Act. Chapter H38.1 of the Continuing
Consolidation of the Statutes of Manitoba. December 15, 2000.<
Henderson, James (Sa'ke'j)Youngblood. First Nations Jurisprudence and Aboriginal Rights:
Defining the Just Society. Saskatoon: Native Law Centre, University of Saskatchewan, 2006.
---. Indigenous Diplomacy and the Rights of Peoples: Achieving UN Recognition. Saskatoon:
Purich, 2008.
Henderson, Jennifer, and Pauline Wakeham. “Colonial Reckoning, National Reconciliation?:
Aboriginal Peoples and the Culture of Redress in Canada.” English Studies in Canada
35.1 (2009): 1-26.
Hill, Gord. The500 Years of Resistance Comic Book. Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2009.
hooks, bell. “Overcoming White Supremacy: A Comment.” Killing Rage: Ending Racism.
New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1995.
Howard-Hassmann, Rhoda E., and Mark Gibney, “Introduction: Apologiesand the West.”
The Age of Apology: Facing Up to the Past. Ed. Mark Gibney, Rhoda E. Howard-Hassmann, Jean-Marc Coicaud, and Niklaus Steiner. Philadelphia:University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008.
Indian Affairs and Northern Development. Statement of Reconciliation (7 Jan. 1998). 3 Dec.
2010 <
Irlbacher-Fox, Stephanie. Finding Dahshaa: Self Government, Social Suffering, and
Aboriginal Policy in Canada. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2009.
Jacobs, Beverley, and Andrea J. Williams. “Legacy of Residential Schools: Missing and
Murdered Aboriginal Women.” From Truth to Reconciliation: Transforming the Legacy of Residential Schools. Ottawa: Aboriginal Healing Foundation, 2008.
James, Matt. “Do Campaigns for Historical Redress Erode the Canadian Welfare State?”
Multiculturalism and the Welfare State: Recognition and Redistribution in Contemporary Democracies. Ed. Keith Banting and Will Kymlicka. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. 222-246.
---. “Wrestling with the Past: Apologies, Quasi-Apologies, andNon-Apologies in
Canada.” The Age of Apology: Facing Up to the Past. Ed. MarkGibney, Rhoda E. Howard-Hassmann, Jean-Marc Coicaud, and Niklaus Steiner.Philadelphia:University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008.
Johnson, Basil. “The Prophesy.” An Anthology of Canadian Native Literature in English. Ed.