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Race in the City: Reconfigurations of Vancouver’s Urban Imaginary

people protesting

 This seminar will explore the representation of Vancouver in contemporary literature. Vancouver, situated on unceded Musqueam, Squamish, Sto:lo, and Tsleil-Waututh territory, has been ranked among the world’s most livable cities. We will focus on texts that contest this assessment by drawing attention to continuing colonization and gentrification and by imagining alternative communities and new forms of solidarity against systemic racism and oppression. We will include narratives concerned with the theft of Indigenous lands, Vancouver’s missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, the racist history of Chinatown, the incident of the Komagata Maru, the forced evacuation of Japantown, and the demolition of Hogan’s Alley. The seminar will be informed by various theoretical approaches including critical race theory, theories of decolonization, Indigenous literary criticism, and urban scholarship.

Department of English, Queen's University

Watson Hall
49 Bader Lane
Kingston ON K7L 3N6
Canada

Telephone (613) 533-2153

Undergraduate

Telephone (613) 533-6000 ext. 74446 extension 74446

Graduate

Telephone (613) 533-6000 ext. 74447 extension 74447

Queen's University is situated on traditional Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabe territory.