In the Fall of 2013 students in the Huron University College course “Representing Aboriginality: Aboriginal Literature and Film from the Post-Settler Colonies” participated in an experiment in research learning. This fourth-year seminar course in English focused on writing and filmmaking by aboriginal people located in such places as Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the U.S., all of which were once colonies of the British Empire and which today continue to be the home of numerous indigenous communities whose ancestors have lived on these lands for millennia. The native peoples in these diverse regions have had to negotiate with the others who have come to populate them – namely, the descendants of settlers and new immigrants – to secure cultural, political, and legal rights equivalent to those granted to citizens who inhabit more mainstream places in their civil societies. Seeking to draw attention to the amazing array of artistic output by global native peoples, the students in “Representing Aboriginality” conducted their own primary and secondary research, locating poems, short films, and short stories by aboriginal authors that had never been subject to scholarly analysis and developing the first interpretations of these literary and filmic texts. Below you’ll find insightful and original essays by some of the students who took the course.

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Submissions from 2013

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Resisting a Colonialist Reading: Examining the Strength and Superiority of Native Women in Joseph Boyden's "Men Don't Ask", Victoria Fraser

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"A track is a story teller": Narratives of Colonialism, Native Art and the City and the Bush in Marvin Francis's Bush Camp, Katya Heckendom

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Mainstream perspectives in "Indian Prince" by Trevino Brings Plenty, Angela Holmes

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Problems of Identity and Authenticity in Winona Linn's "Knock Off Native", Rachel Hunt

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Deconstructing History: An analysis of Rita Bouvier's poem "Riel is dead and I am alive", Kate Osborne

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Taking Back Stolen Voices: Mahlikah Awe:ri's poetry as resistance for more than 500 missing girls, Kate Richards

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Education, Culture and Identity in Rita Joe's "Keskmsi", Kathleen Sumpton