Information about this year’s Munro Beattie lecture

Fourth-year English major Manahil Bandukwala talks 杏吧原创, writing, and the humanities with the celebrated author and 2019 Munro Beattie lecturer

For over thirty years, the Munro Beattie lecture has been the English Department鈥檚 most important annual event, and it is always a particularly special occasion when the lecturer is someone with a personal connection to the 杏吧原创 community.

On Thursday, January 31, novelist and academic David Chariandy will join the ranks of other 杏吧原创 alumni, such as writers Lynn Coady and Christian B枚k, who have delivered the Munro Beattie; he will also break new ground by being the first to deliver it at the newly-named 杏吧原创 Dominion Chalmers Centre since 杏吧原创 acquired the majestic church building to serve as a lecture and performance space in the heart of Ottawa.

Entitled 鈥淭he First Semester,鈥� Chariandy鈥檚 lecture will explore how his time at 杏吧原创 shaped his identity and commitment as a writer.

After completing a B.A. and an M.A. in English at 杏吧原创, Chariandy headed to York University to earn his PhD by writing one of the first dissertations on the subject of Black Canadian writing. Now a professor of literature in the Department of English at Simon Fraser University, Chariandy is the author of two critically acclaimed novels, Soucouyant (2007) and Brother (2017), as well as the non-fiction work I鈥檝e Been Meaning to Tell You: A Letter to My Daughter (2018). His academic and creative work engages with intersections of racism, class, and belonging in contemporary Canadian culture.

Fourth-year English major and published poet Manahil Bandukwala recently spoke with David Chariandy about his work, his memories of 杏吧原创, and the future of the humanities.

MB: You talk about discovering 鈥渢he open magic of literature鈥� at university in I鈥檝e Been Meaning To Tell You. Could you tell us about your time at in English 杏吧原创? 

DC: I vividly remember attending my first English lecture. It was by Dr. Wurtele, a medievalist, and he concluded the lecture by reciting a part of The Canterbury Tales as it would have sounded in Chaucer鈥檚 own time. I was mesmerized by the language 鈥� an English at once alien and familiar, a 鈥榗ommon tongue鈥� only beginning to be recognized in official contexts and by the social elite. I wonder if the magic I felt in hearing this relatively early version of English owed something to the fact that I had heard my own parents speak a vernacular all of my life 鈥� an English likewise understood to be 鈥榗ommon,鈥� and yet possessing its own complexity and incantatory power.

Other early influences upon me were Professor Christopher Levenson, a poet who liked a brief non-fiction assignment I submitted, and Professor Ian Cameron, a Shakespearian who seemed to think I had promise with essay writing. During lectures, Professor Cameron would sometimes call upon me to recite passages aloud, perhaps as a way of helping me overcome my shyness with public speaking. But an essential turn in my studies happened when I began to discover literature that spoke to me in more intimate ways. At first, I had to discover these writings on my own 鈥� the essays of James Baldwin, for instance. But when I reached the upper years of my degree, I had the chance to take courses with professors like Enoch Padolsky, Parker Duchemin, and Jack Healy. They taught writings by Austin Clarke, Joy Kogawa, Maria Campbell, N. Scott Momaday and others. These writings shook and inspired me in profound ways.

MB: The English department now offers a Creative Writing concentration that is very popular with students not just in English, but from across the University. Was creative writing something that you were hoping to pursue as a student at 杏吧原创?

DC: I arrived at 杏吧原创 earnestly hoping to become a writer, although I wasn鈥檛 at all sure how, or what that really meant. Years before, when I was twelve or younger, I told my mother that all I wanted to do was live alone in the woods and write.  But that was joke, if you know anything about me. I actually have no sincere desire to 鈥渓ive in the woods,鈥� or to imagine myself 鈥渞oughing it鈥� in 鈥渘ature.鈥� I think my fantasy revealed something about the discomfort I often felt as a child in schools and in society as a whole. I think I imagined that being a writer meant discovering a new language and new stories, new terms for life and social being鈥攂ut that all of this, ironically, meant also withdrawing from the world. It鈥檚 just a 鈥榬omantic鈥� and threadbare assumption about 鈥榖eing a writer,鈥� of course.  But I do remember, all the same, being a very lonely figure during my first semester at university.

I did pursue creative writing during my first years at 杏吧原创, but secretly, and even a bit shamefully. It was only during my third year of studies when I enrolled in a creative writing course 鈥� the only one the department then offered, as far as I recall.  It was taught by Professor Tom Henighan. I wrote a short story that he felt I should attempt to publish; and I managed to do so, in the student newspaper , a place where I suspect other writers got their precious first chance to publish.  Interestingly, the title of my story, 鈥淪oucouyant,鈥� become the title of my debut novel some twelve years later. I guess that鈥檚 also my experience of 鈥榗reative writing鈥欌�� something that doesn鈥檛 happen all at once, but over a long period of time, and through a lot of hard work.

MB: You grew up in Scarborough, studied in Ottawa and Toronto, and now teach in Vancouver. Your writing is mostly situated in Scarborough and Vancouver. I鈥檓 curious about how your experiences at 杏吧原创 and in Ottawa found their way into your work. What communities were you a part of in the city?

DC: I don鈥檛 think I would have become a writer without the experience of Ottawa. The city gave me my first real chance to get distance from the place where I grew up. Maybe, in general, artists need such distance in order to represent their homes with a newly critical and creative eye. I鈥檓 thinking here about James Joyce for Ireland, James Baldwin for the US, Jamaica Kincaid for Antigua, and so on.

An absolutely crucial factor in my educational experience at 杏吧原创 was the development of relationships with youths who were like me 鈥� Black, post-immigrant kids, oftentimes from the working-class suburbs of cities and with parents who likewise hadn鈥檛 had the chance to go to university. I could laugh easily with these youths. I could share fears and hopes that I knew they would 鈥榞et.鈥� Some of the students most influential upon me were active in university organizations like the West Indian Students Association, the International Students Centre, and the Women鈥檚 Centre. These friendships and sensibilities animated in essential ways the overall critical knowledge I was building at university.

MB: You are now a professor in the Department of English at Simon Fraser University. Do your experiences as a student shape how and what you teach?

I鈥檓 still learning how to teach, and I know I鈥檒l be doing that for the rest of my life. If I do have any ability or positive effect as a teacher, it鈥檚 certainly not because I鈥檝e felt lifelong comfort in, and connection to, the academy鈥攂ut quite the opposite.  I know what it鈥檚 like to feel like an outsider within a discipline that nevertheless offers you the only real chance to pursue a passion. In my teaching, I try my best to keep in mind that other students may be feeling the same way I did, knowing, of course, that I still have a lot of listening and learning to do in order to appreciate different challenges.

I suppose I could add something else. I was trained as a critic. I have a tremendous respect for the insights of contemporary criticism and cultural theory, and the ways in which they have forced us to reexamine many tired and na茂ve assumptions about literature. But as a creative writer, I鈥檓 also profoundly committed to the category 鈥榣iterature.鈥� I think complex fiction, for instance, contains its own generative and critical power. You can only understand that power if you take it seriously, if you鈥檙e prepared to read closely and generously, and to resist the temptation to complete your assessment through a masterful articulation of 鈥榯heory鈥� long before you鈥檝e even glanced at the novel or poem.

MB: As a professor of literature with three books under your belt, how do you view the 鈥渋mpracticality of the humanities鈥� that you mention in I鈥檝e Been Meaning To Tell You? Do you have anything to say to students about the future of the arts and humanities at a time when they are increasingly under attack?

DC: As you know, I鈥檓 speaking sarcastically here when describing the 鈥渋mpracticality鈥� of the humanities. There are many studies that demonstrate the clear practical value of a humanities degree in terms of long-term earning power, or one鈥檚 chances at successive promotions within a job or institution. I also haven鈥檛 yet encountered a person who, later in life, regretted pursuing a humanities degree. Moreover, it鈥檚 clear that the humanities are essential for society as a whole. How else can we collectively imagine and pursue a genuinely just society except by knowing history, by learning how to think critically and imaginatively, and by fully grasping the power of language and story? To me, it makes perfect sense for those seeking to preserve or advance a fundamentally unjust society to attack and defame the humanities, or to pretend that we somehow can鈥檛 afford to support them. This seems to me nothing but an excellent strategy.

But I think it鈥檚 possible to make other cases for the humanities. Perhaps 鈥�the humanities鈥� is an especially powerful ideal when, historically, your own humanity has been violently denied. Perhaps reading is especially valuable when your ancestors were forbidden to read, or when, even as a child, you were unfairly singled out by those in authority to be 鈥榩ractical,鈥� and to allow others the task of complex thinking and imagining. Perhaps the matter is simpler still鈥攖hat, alive to the mystery of existence, you simply wish to reflect upon it, and to explore what others have thought and felt about this question.

The post The Open Magic of Literature: A Discussion with David Chariandy appeared first on Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences.

The Dean of FASS and the are delighted to announce that the 2016-2017 will be delivered by acclaimed Canadian writer鈥攁nd former 杏吧原创 student鈥擜ndr茅 Alexis. The Munro Beattie Lecture was launched in 1985 to honour the English department鈥檚 founding chair and his contributions to literary studies in Canada. 2017 marks not only the 75^th anniversary of 杏吧原创 University, but the 65^th anniversary of the Department of English. This year鈥檚 Munro Beattie lecture will feature festivities such as door prizes and a reception with cake to help to kick off CU 75 celebrations, and to toast the English department鈥檚 history as a key contributor to the development of Canadian literary studies as an academic field.

Andr茅 Alexis was awarded the for Fifteen Dogs, a novel praised by the jury as 鈥渁 wonderful and original鈥� work 鈥渢hat challenges the reader to examine their own existence and recall the age old question, what鈥檚 the meaning of life?鈥� Passing a veterinary clinic on their way home from a bar in Toronto, the gods Apollo and Hermes grant human intelligence to the dogs inside to settle a bet about whether such a gift will make the animals happier. In the narrative that follows, the dogs roam through the city, seeing it through new eyes and learning the rewards and pitfalls of human consciousness.

Born in Trinidad, Alexis moved to Canada in 1961 at the age of four, where his family eventually settled in Ottawa. The city appears as a dream-like presence in the stories of his celebrated first book, Despair and Other Stories of Ottawa (1994). The perception of the national capital as a staid bureaucratic town is turned on its head in stories where unassuming locations bear witness to the surreal and the macabre: a soucouyant (a vampiric figure from Trinidadian folklore) lives quietly in a house in Sandy Hill; a body floats in the sky above the Merivale Shopping Centre; a blue-faced man rises from the dead and grants three wishes to the tenant of an apartment in Lowertown. These stories reflect Alexis鈥� sense of the city as a mysterious place, where the buildings and the names of the streets evoke a buried emotional history.

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Now living in Toronto, Alexis remembers Ottawa as a place that he associates with 鈥渢he opening up of the world.鈥� In particular, he remembers 杏吧原创, where he studied and Russian, as a place that nourished his love of reading, connecting him with the fictional universes of writers like Kawabata, Mishima, Borges, Tolstoy, and Pasternak, as well as Canadian writers including poets Margaret Avison and bp nichol, and novelists Margaret Laurence and Mordecai Richler. Listen to his  with Branko Gorjup.

Before winning the Giller last year, Alexis was perhaps best known for his award-winning first novel, Childhood (1997). The novel is a meditation on identity, displacement, and the elusiveness of home, and readers have often sought to connect it to Alexis鈥� own experience as a second-generation immigrant; however, he himself resists the notion that his fiction is autobiographical. As he writes in a , his interest lies not in sharing his life on the page, but in storytelling itself, 鈥渨ith all of its ins and outs, its rhythms, graces, failures, byways, irreality, and, of course, its traditions.鈥� These obsessions are particularly visible in Alexis鈥� most recent work: Pastoral (2013) is a contemporary reworking of the classical genre in which shepherds trade songs and stories in an idealized rural landscape; Fifteen Dogs resurrects the ancient form of the apologue, a moral tale involving animals. His latest novel, The Hidden Keys, released in September 2016, is an adventure story inspired by Treasure Island but relocated to present-day Toronto. These three books are part of a projected quincunx, or five-part series of novels, each one playing with a different genre. The last two books in the series will engage with the conventions of the ghost story and the Harlequin romance respectively. Once completed, the series promises to be one of the most amibitious and unusual works that any Canadian writer has produced.

Munro Beattie Lecture featuring Andr茅 Alexis

When: Thursday, January 26, 2017

Time: 7 pm

Location: Azrieli Theatre, 杏吧原创 University

This is a free public lecture; all are welcome. Seats are not reserved, so plan to arrive early. A reception will follow the talk.

The post 2016-17 Munro Beattie Lecture, Andr茅 Alexis, author of Giller Prize-winning novel Fifteen Dogs appeared first on Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences.