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.