Case 5: From Nationalism to Global Society: Indigenous Voices

Les Monkman also offers a comparatist reading of Canadian literature in “Horses and canoes”, “kangaroos and beavers”: comparing Australian and Canadian Literatures in English in 1990. However, his wide-ranging work explores two other important strands of criticism: Indigenous Studies and the place of Canadian Literature in the curriculum. He has published A Native Heritage: Images of the Indian in English-Canadian Literature (1981) and with Douglas Daymond has co-edited several volumes that interrogate the category “Canadian Literature,” including Towards a Canadian Literature: Essays, Editorials, and Manifestos (2 vols. 1984-5) and Literature in Canada (2 vols. 1978).

Current faculty member Sam McKegney focuses on intersections of literature and Indigenous experience his Magic weapons: Aboriginal writers remaking community after residential school (2007) and his most recent project MASCULINDIANS : Conversations about Indigenous Manhood (2013).