Module description
This course offers an introduction to Québécois literature and film through the twin lenses of identity and alienation. Within a federation whose official language policy is now bilingualism (but only since 1969) and whose social policy goes under the name of multiculturalism (since 1988), Quebec has held fast to its distinct francophone character and is Canada's only officially unilingual French-speaking province. And yet despite the strong claims of traditional nationalism, its collective identity - along with the vexed question of who is allowed to participate in it - remains a contested issue.
After a brief historical introduction, the first half of the course will concentrate on works from the tremendously fertile period known as the Quiet Revolution (1960-1970), which saw the rise of a specifically secular form of "Québécois" identity, distinct from the traditionally "French-Canadian" defence of faith and family that had gone before. After Reading Week, we will study works produced in the context of the rise and fall of the nationalist Parti Québécois (first elected in 1976), which engineered two independence referendums, in 1980 and 1995, and was only convincingly relegated in 2018. It is this context that will allow us to investigate the conjoined problems of identity and alienation by taking into account a number of new forces that came to the fore during the same period, notably: Indigenous activism, American neo-liberalism, world-wide immigration, and global culture. Students will be encouraged to consider the works on the syllabus in the light of contemporary political arguments around nationalism and globalization, but also to go beyond those arguments and to look at the means - sometimes radical, sometimes conventional, always interesting - by which authors and filmmakers demonstrate changing imaginative engagements with issues of cultural identity, historical tradition and linguistic difference.
By privileging a selection of shorter texts (stories, films, poems), this course will allow students to discover a broader experience of Québécois literature and culture that would otherwise normally be possible. Each week, students will be expected to read from 50-150 pages of text OR watch 90-150 minutes of film (or a mixture of the two). There is only one extended reading required, Abla Faroud's Le Fou d'Omar, which must be purchased finished by the end of Reading Week. All readings and viewings need to be prepared before class discussion.
Films will be projected in separate screenings prior to the relevant lecture (weeks 4-5, 10-11), or made available via internet links.
Assessment details
4000 word essay (100%)
Educational aims & objectives
By the end of the module, the students will be able to demonstrate intellectual, transferable and practicable skills appropriate to a Level 6 module and in particular will be able to demonstrate:
- A knowledge and understanding of the linguistic and cultural specificity of Québécois literature and film as seen through the theoretical prism of alienation and identity.
- Knowledge and understanding of some of the different aesthetic strategies employed by writers and filmmakers within (officially unilingual) Quebec and (officially bilingual) Canada for the negotiation of fundamental questions concerning political, social and aesthetic representation.
- Knowledge and understanding of alternative currents of engagement with those questions, notably: indigenous activism, immigrant voices, sexual difference, North American and global cultures.
- Knowledge and understanding of some of the major francophone writers and filmmakers of late 20th-century and early 21st-century Quebec and Canada.
Teaching pattern
Two classes per week.
Suggested reading list
- François-Xavier Garneau, “Discours préliminaire”, Histoire du Canada (historical essay, 20 pp., 1845)
- Bertold Brecht, “On Chinese Acting” (theoretical essay, 7 pp., 1936)
- Arthur Burrows/Jean Palardy, Montreal by Night (film, 10 min., 1947)
- Grant McLean, The Return of the Indian (film, 10 min., 1955)
- Michel Brault/Gilles Groulx, Les Raquetteurs (film, 15 min., 1958)
- Jacques Ferron, “La vache morte du canyon”, Contes du pays incertain (short story, 34 pp., 1962)
- Françoise Bujold/Jacques Godbout, Le monde va nous prendre pour des sauvages (film, 9 min., 1964)
- Gilles Groulx, Le Chat dans le sac (film, 74 min., 1964)
- Michel Régnier, Mémoire indienne (film, 18 min., 1967)
- Pierre Vallières, Nègres blancs d'Amérique (extracts, 10 pp., 1968)
- Gaston Miron, L’Homme rapaillé (poems and essays, 25 pp., 1950-1970)
- Michèle Lalonde, “Speak White” (poem, 3 pp., 1968/films, 6 min., 1970/1980/2009)
- Gabrielle Roy, “Mon héritage du Manitoba” (autobiography, 11 pp., 1970)
- Alanis Obomsawin, Perdrix (film, 2 minutes, 1972)
- Jean Bouthillette, Le Canadien-Français et son double (essay extracts, 20 pp., 1972)
- Denis Héroux, J’ai mon voyage (film, 89 min., 1973).
- Jacques Bensimon, 20 ans après… (film, 56 min., 1977)
- Michèle Lalonde, “Destination 80” (prose poem, 12 pp., 1979
- Alanis Obomsawin, Les Événements de Restigouche (film, 45 min., 1984)
- Pierre Falardeau, “Discours Québec français” (speech, 1 p., 1985)
- Jean Chabot, Voyage en Amérique avec un cheval emprunté (film, 58 min., 1987)
- Jacques Godbout, Alias Will James (film, 83 min., 1988)
- Marco Micone, “Speak what” (poem, 2 pp., 1989)
- Pierre Falardeau, Le Temps des bouffons (film, 14 min., 1985-93)
- Abla Faroud, Le Fou d’Omar (novel, 192 pp., 2005)
- Kevin Papatie, Wapikoni mobile 2007 — L’Amendement (film, 4 min., 2007)
- Anita Aloisio, Les Enfants de la loi 101 (film, 46 min., 2007)
- Jenny Salgado, “Speak White” (video, 2009); “Spit White” (videoclip, 2011)
- Mathieu Denis/Simon Lavoie, Laurentie (film, 118 min., 2011)
- Xavier Dolan, Laurence Anyways (film, 159 min., 2012)
- Kent Monkman, Sœurs et frères (film, 3 min., 2015)
- Caroline Monnet, Mobiliser (film, 3 min., 2015)