15. What are we reading? —an investigation of the genres of texts being studied by the Queen’s Undergraduate English Department"

• Published in: Inquiry@Queen's Undergraduate Research Conference Proceedings
• Main Author: Stock, Jeanette
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: Queen's University 2018
• Subjects: inuktitut
• Online Access: https://ojs.library.queensu.ca/index.php/inquiryatqueens/article/view/9894

The 2006 report by Dr. Frances Henry entitled “Understanding the Experiences of Visible Minority andAboriginal Faculty Members at Queen’s University” stated that “Queen's, like most other North Americanuniversities, is still struggling to overcome deeply entrenched cultural beliefs, values, norms and structuresthat preserve the continued dominance of Whiteness and maleness” (Henry, 157), and called on alldepartments to diversify their curriculum. Today, the Queen’s Academic plan expressly states that“Adequate representation of Indigenous issues in curricula across campus needs to be a majorobjective“(29). With the addition of Mohawk and Inuktitut classes and the Indigenous studies program,Queen’s as a whole is taking action to meet this objective. As a student of English myself, I was interestedin examining the state of the curriculum in Undergraduate English Department. In particular, I wasinterested in exploring whether texts by North American Indigenous authors are being included in thecurriculum, and what space is created for these texts within the English Department. My researchexamined the 1,289 texts ordered for Undergraduate English classes between the Fall Semester of 2009and the Winter Semester of 2013. These texts represent up an institution-specific canon, a snapshot ofwhat the Queen’s English Department—intentionally or unintentionally—have construed as important tothe field. My goal was to determine whether the “Eurocentric curriculum” (146) that the Henry reportunderscored persists within the English department, or whether academic spaces are being created thatinclude Indigenous Literature.