ENGL 376 B1: Canadian Literature and Culture: Late 20th-Century Texts

M. Carriere

Apocalyptic and Post-Apocalyptic Fiction

This inquiry - literary, critical and theoretical - will focus on the apocalyptic tropes that foster pre- and post-9/11 works of fiction by Canadian, Indigenous, and Québécois authors. We will work through genre considerations relating to dystopia, speculative fiction, and science fiction, and their incorporation of apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic narrative and scenario. We will also consider how the texts under study grapple with the interconnected issues of global terror, environmental crisis, and Canada's ongoing history of colonial violence, and how they help us to rethink, in ethical terms, the very notion of the human, and to project new futurities.

Sample Primary Reading

 

• Nicolas Dickner. Apocalypse for Beginners.
• Cherrie Dimaline. The Marrow Thieves.
• Timothy Findley. Not Wanted on the Voyage.
• Thomas King. The Back of the Turtle.
• Emily Mandel. Station Eleven.
• Élizabeth Vonarburg. In the Mother's Land.