IDS 101

College Colloquium
Oh Canada!

Class Hours:

MWF

12:40-1:40pm

WLT 235

Prof.

Sammy Basu

with

Writing Center Associate

Slater Smith

Office Hours:

1:50-3:00pm or by appt

http://www.willamette.edu/~sbasu/IDS101/

with the generous assistance of the Government of Canada/ avec l’aide du gouvernement du Canada

COURSE DESCRIPTION

Oh Canada! Where is it? What is it? How and why is it different from America? What can we learn about ourselves by getting to know our northern neighbor? To what extent do we define ourselves in relation to an ‘Other’? This course begins with a beer commercial and ends by reflecting on competing visions of the future of North America. Along the way, we will look at Canadian history, geography, politics, and culture, consider the place of First Nations and Québec, as well as explore public policies towards health-care, welfare, religion, gender and sexuality, crime, the environment, multiculturalism, and war and peace. We will visit the web a great deal in class, host a guest speaker or two, try to imitate the great Canadian thespian William Shatner, and might … even … manage … a field-trip to … Victoria B.C. (but no promises, eh).

Student Learning Outcomes

As a section of Willamette University’s College Colloquium, this course is intended to cultivate and facilitate your abilities to:

Read closely
Discuss reflectively
Think critically
Write effectively

Course Requirements

You will be evaluated on your successful completion of the following:

Participation including consistent attendance, general preparedness, regular involvement, and random tests of your mental agility (25%)
Discussion leadership (15%)
3 Writing Assignments including online posting, drafts, and meeting with writing consultant (60%)

Attendance

If you miss a class, for whatever reason, at the start of the following class you must turn in a 300-word paper discussing the relevance of the reading and other material that was assigned for the day missed.

Technology and Phones

You are welcome to use a laptop, tablet etc in class unless your use of if it is evidently either distracting you or others, at which point said device may be removed from your person and destroyed.

Your phone should be turned off in class. If it rings, I reserve the right to answer it for you, and you will be required to bring treats for everyone to the next class.

Plagiarism

“Plagiarism (from Latin plagiare "to kidnap") is the practice of claiming, or implying, original authorship or incorporating material from someone else's written or creative work, in whole or in part, into one’s own without adequate acknowledgement.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plagiarism)

Don’t do it!

WU Policy

TurnItIn

Plagiarism.org

Course Readings

Other

Patrick James and Mark Kasoff (Eds.)

Canadian Studies in the New Millennium (2007)

Diana Hacker,

A Pocket Style Manual (2008, 5^th edition)

Citizenship and Immigration Canada, Discover Canada (2009)

Statistics Canada, Canada at a Glance (2011)

Eugene Forsey,
How Canadians Govern Themselves (2005)

REQUIRED

to buy

Recommended

to buy

All additional readings will be available online within the course syllabus page or the WISE site

WRITING CENTER CONSULTANT

Slater Smith

smithslater@gmail.com

COURSE THEMES

Temporality, spatiality, performance, and otherness

“It is the natural tendency for…similar groups of people to exaggerate otherwise superficially minor differences. The more alike the groups, the more they will seek ways to differentiate from each other…. Uniting against others is normal human behaviour.”

--Sigmund Freud on the Narcissism of Small Differences, 1930.

“Living next to you is in some ways like sleeping with an elephant; no matter how friendly and even-tempered is the beast, if I may call it that, one is affected by every twitch and grunt.”

--Pierre Elliott Trudeau, Washington, 1969.

“Americans do not know but Canadians cannot forget that two nations, not one, came out of the American Revolution.”

--S.M. Lipset in Continental Divide, 1990

“The 49th parallel does sometimes appear to be the boundary between self-confident and self-conscious.”

--Maclean's, 13 October 2003.

SCHEDULE

Date

Class

Thu 8/25

4:15 pm to

5:30 pm

CC class
Logistics,

Liberal Arts and Why Canada?

‘As Canadian as …’

Quiz...

Talking with Americans (2006, 7.37),

22 Minutes Apology to America (2006, 2.26)

Fri 8/26

8:30 am

10:15 am

CC "Prep time"

Upload Postcards assignment on WISE

View/Listen:

http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/194

Hass reading in the 2008 Dodge Poetry Festival

Haas reading Issa’s haikus

Shayne Koyczan reads ‘We Are More’ (2007)

10:30 am

12:00 am

Smith

Audit

Opening Convocation:

“Meaning a Life: How to Become

a Reader and a Human Being”

Robert Hass

United States Poet Laureate (1995-1997), National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize Winning Poet, and Environmentalist and Professor (U.C. Berkeley)

1:30 pm to

3:00 pm

CC class

Reading, Writing, Living

Leaving the nest.
Sending postcards

Sat

8/27

8:30-10:00am

CC "Prep time"

Read:

Lyrics

View:
‘O Canada’ (1880, 1968, 1980) (vid, 1999, 1.30)

’American Woman’ (1970) (vid, 4.33) v (2006) (vid, 4.21)
‘Blame Canada’ (1999) (vid, 1.24) or Williams (2000) (vid, 2.52)
‘I am a Canadian’ (2000) (vid), or (vid)
’I am Not Canadian’ (2000) (vid, 1.42)
and Shatner ‘I am Canadian’ (vid, 3.02)
and The Arrogant Worms ‘I am not American’ (2004) (vid, 3.24)
and Yankovic ‘Canadian Idiot’ (2006) (vid, 2.34)

10:30-12:00

CC Class

Videos

Music

Paintings (Group of Seven, on G7, gallery)

Symbols

Metaphors
Maps (CanadainMaps)

Font (Adanac)

Mon, 8/30 9:00-10:30am		CC class Shared Canadian Values: Issues and Symbols (ppt) Historic Pride (ppt) Katrina (ppt) Canadian perceptions of America (2004 poll and 2005 polls) Canada as alternative


		Assignment 1 (15%): “I am American” Due: W, 9/9 online and as a hardcopy in time for class

		Read: close, reflective, critical
		Manning, Erin. 2000. “I AM CANADIAN Identity, Territory and the Canadian National Landscape.” Theory and Event, 4:4 See also G7, yoon, thomson
		Edwardson, Ryan. 2003. "Of War Machines and Ghetto Scenes": English-Canadian Nationalism and The Guess Who's "American Woman". American Review of Canadian Studies, Autumn2003, Vol. 33 Issue 3, p339-356.
		Seiler, Robert M. “Selling Patriotism/ Selling Beer: The Case of the "I AM CANADIAN!" Commercial.” American Review of Canadian Studies, Spring 2002, Vol. 32, Issue 1, pp.45-67.
		Extra stuff:
		Later Beer ads: anthem (vid), moon (vid), passive (vid), 500 miles (vid), abroad (vid), Glen (vid), beaver (vid), chasing beaver (vid), rash (vid), starts here (vid), hockey (vid), hockey stick (vid), hockey bag (vid), fly (vid), penalty box (vid), Jason Jones (vid), Canada Day (vid)

10:30 a.m.-3:00 p.m		Academic Advising & Schedule Confirmation (scheduled individual appointments)

Wed 8/31

12:40-1:40 pm

REGULAR CLASS SCHEDULE

Tom Brokaw explains Canada to Americans (2010, 6.16)

Rick Mercer: All About Canada (FAQ) or .

Overview comparison (una.org)

Explanations?

Canada-Us relations - The good, the bad and the ugly (ppt)

PeaceArch

So you want to move to Canada? Canada sucks.

Canadian perceptions of America

Read:

CS, ‘Introduction ’ pp.3-7, Patrick James and Mark Kasoff

Gravelle, Timothy. 2011. ‘Mutual Perceptions.’

Fri 9/2

Ringe

Lab

(Ford 322)

Due: Draft of Assignment 1

Discussion of Assignment

Using Word to create a web-page
How to post a web-page at WU

Or wordpress or iweb or ahead or wix

How to evaluate a web-page (pdf from UCBerkeley)

Use

Mon 9/5

No Class – Labor Day

Wed 9/7

1^st Presentation

Pitch (sing if you wish) the product,
i.e. present and discuss the webpage with your completed Assignment 1 song.

Fri 9/19

1^st Presentation continued

Performing Canada

Banknotes

View:

Discover Canada

· The Oath of Citizenship

· Message to Our Readers

· Applying for Citizenship

· Rights and Responsibilities of Citizenship

· Who We Are

· Canada’s History

· Canadian Symbols

Spatiality - Geography

Rick Mercer Rant: “Canadian Weather”

Rick Mercer: “Have and have-Not Provinces”

“U.S., Canada Map Edges Of Continent On Seafloor” (9/11/09)

View:

Discover Canada

· Canada’s Regions

Mon 9/12

Geography (cont’d)

Political geography (ppt)

Canadian interest in own geography (pdf)

Read:

CS, ‘Canada: Too Much Geography? ’ pp.8-36, Michael J. Broadway

Wed 9/14

Temporality - History

Timeline Canada

Timeline USA

History of Canada-US relations

Migration (UofC)

Read:

S.M. Lipset, Continental Divide,
Chapter 1: Revolution and Counterrevolution
Chapter 2: The American Ideology
Chapter 3: The Canadian Identity

Summary of diffs

Fri 9/16

History of Canada

English-Canada
French-Canada

Settlement (ppt)

Read:

CS, ‘Canadian History in North American Context ’ pp.37-64, John Herd Thompson and Mark Paul Richard

Mon 9/19

Politics and Government

Rick Mercer’s Rant: “Voting 101”

Senate of Canada on The Parliamentary System

RMR on How Parliament Works

Read:

CS, ‘Politics and Government’  pp.65-99, Munroe Eagles and Sharon A. Manna

Wed 9/21

Canada’s House of Commons (vid)

March 2011 pre-election controversy

March 25 2011 vote of no-confidence

Read:

Forsey, How Canadians Govern Themselves

View:

Discover Canada

Discussion readings:

Donley T. Studlar and Kyle Christensen. 2006. “Is Canada a Westminster or Consensus Democracy? A Brief Analysis.”

PS: Political Science & Politics, 39.4: 837-841.

HTML (185 KB)

Fri 9/23

The Canadian social contract

Mother Jones on Inequality

Federal Tax Dollars and Party Vote

Mercer on Why Canadians Pay Taxes

Mercer on Canada Revenue Agency

Mercer on Merging the Cdn and US Dollar

Mercer on Canada Banking

Read:

Mendelsohn, Matthew. 2002. Canada’s Social Contract: Evidence from Public Opinion. CPRN Discussion Paper No. P|01

Jedwab, Jack. 2007. Shared Canadian Values: Issues and Symbols. PPT.

Mon 9/26

The Economy

Read:

Corak, Miles. 2009. Chasing the Same Dream, Climbing Different Ladders: Economic Mobility in the United States and Canada. Economic Mobility Project. Pew Charitable Trust.

Wed 9/28

The Economy continued

KasoffNAFTA.ppt

Kasoff, Mark. 2007. “East Meets West in the Canadian Oil Sands.” ARCS, 37, 2, 177-183.

Alberta’s Oil Sands v Oil Sands Truth

Keystone XL Pipeline CNN (19 Sep 2011)

Read:

CS, ‘The Economy’  pp.223-244 Mark Kasoff and Christine Drennen

Fri 9/30

Health Care

Mercer on Health Canada

Mercer on Canadian Choking Institute

Mercer on Health Canada

Mercer on Best Thoracic Surgeon with a day job

Mercer on Chalmers Health Group

Mercer on Marcus Clinic

Healthy Eating From Health Canada

Health History

National Health Care policy (ppt)

Canadian healthcare 2004 (ppt)

Canadian healthcare 2007 (ppt)

Michael Orsini on HealthCare

Uwe Reinhardt (2009) vid

Joint Canada-United States Survey of Health 2003

Skala, Nicholas. 2006. ‘Previous Studies Comparing Health Care in the Us vs. Canada.’

OECD 2011 HC Report on Canada and US

Kaiser Family Foundation. 2011. ‘Health Care Costs’

Read:

Docteur, Elizabeth and Robert Berenson. 2009. ‘How does the quality of Us HealthCare Compare Internationally?’ Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Mon 10/3

Welfare and Social Assistance

CCPA: Affordability Gap between rich and poor

CCPA Canada’s Growing Gap (3.29 min)

The Guardian (23 0ct 2008): Wealth gap creating a social time Bomb

Trailer Park Boys – Countdown to Liquor Day

The wealth gap and welfare in the US

OECD Your Better Life Index 2011

OECD Society at a glance 2011

Canada or here

US or here

Read:

S.J. Kunitz, with I. Pesis-Katz, “Mortality of White Americans, African Americans, and Canadians: the causes and consequences for health of welfare state institutions and policies.” Milbank Quarterly, 83: 5-39, 2005.

Wed 10/5		Religion Mercer on Traditional Values 2003 Gallup poll data Religious Divide between US & Canada Is religion a force for good? 2010 poll Globe and Mail 2010 article on Secularization 2001 Census data on religion Pew forum on US on religion Pew key findings on US Pew on American Grace State level data on importance of relig

		Read:
	Group 1	Christopher T. Burris, Nyla R. Branscombe, and Lynne M. Jackson. “’For God and Country’: Religion and the Endorsement of National Self-Stereotypes.” Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, Vol. 31, No. 4, 517-527 (2000)
	Group 2	Dennis R. Hoover, Michael D. Martinez, Samuel H. Reimer, and Kenneth D. Wald. “Evangelicalism Meets the Continental Divide: Moral and Economic Conservatism in the United States and Canada.” Political Research Quarterly 2002 55: 351-374
	Group 3	Eisgruber, Christopher L. and Zeisberg, Mariah, "Religious Freedom in Canada and the United States." International Journal of Constitutional Law, Vol. 4, No. 2, pp. 244-268, 2006.

Assignment 2 (15%): “Home-making”

Due: W, 10/26 online and as a hardcopy in class

Fri 10/7		First Nations Canada’s first nations Maps AFN in Canada FactSheets AIM in US Movement Stats Canada on Aboriginal Peoples UN ratings of Canada and FN Native groups protest Stephen Harper Indian Residential School Apology (11 June 2008, 7 min) Canada’s Long Train of Abuses 1 (8.44min) and 2 (8.37) Joanelle Romero, American Holocaust of Native American Indians (2009, 9.51) Al Jazeera on Poverty USA – Native Americans (2007, 3.00) Uneasy Dance 2011

		Read:
		CS, ‘Native Peoples’ pp. 100-124, Michael Lusztig
	Half class	Bonita, Lawrence. 2003. “Gender, Race, and the Regulation of Native Identity in Canada and the United States: An Overview.” Hypatia. 18.2: 3-31

	Other half of class	Seed, Patricia. 2011. ‘Three Treaty Nations Compared: Economic and Political consequences for Indigenous peoples in Canada, the United States, and New Zealand.’ Canadian review of comparative literature.

Mon 10/10

Occupy Salem!?

SJ 4 Oct 2011 – Occupy Wall Street gets local

WSJ Earnings

Adbusters site

David Harvey on Crises of Capitalism (26 Apr, 2010)

Naomi Klein on Occupy Wallstreet (6 Oct 2011)

Wed 10/12		Québec French Language use today (2005) Shared? Values (pdf) ’I am Not Canadian’ (2000) (vid) Trudeau on "Equality or Independence" (vid) Quebec as a Nation: New Perspective (vid) Quebec wants Harper on Quebec as distinct society Rick Mercer on Quebec 2006 Linguistic minority vitality study 2006 Unilingualism in Canada 2006 Bilingualism in Canada 2006
		1543
	1718 map of NA showing the Mississippi region	1750s
		1774
		Read: CS, ‘Quebec’s Destiny’  pp.165-184, Louis Belanger and Charles F. Doran

Fri 10/14

Women

RMR: c-Harmony

RMR: Bold Beautiful Biathlon

Stats Canada on Women in Canada 2011

- Income data for 2008 and trend 78-08

- earnings by occupation 2008

Center for American Progress: US Women poverty rates 2008

US Dept of Healty and Human Services: women and poverty 2010

National Women’s Law Center: analysis of new census data, 13 Sept 2011

Government Department Status of Women Canada

Real women of Canada org

Angus Reid poll Gender equality still elusive 2010 data

Conference Board of Canada Gender Income Gap 2009

World Economic Forum Global Gender Gap 2011 rankings, Canada 2008 v US 2008

Read:

CS, ‘Women’s Issues ’ pp.185-222, Patrice Leclerc

Mon 10/17		Multiculturalism RMR: Rick and Ruby Dhalla Trudeau on Multiculturalism 1971 CPRN Policy Brief on Diversity Canadian Multiculturalism Day Canada’s Multicultural Portal How Canada officially thinks about MC Annual Report on CMA 2007-2008 Conference Board of Canada Acceptance of Diversity 2009
		Read:
½ class	read	Kymlicka, Will. 2003.  ”Being Canadian.”  Government and Opposition 38.3: 357–385.
½ class	read	Harles, John C. 2004. “Immigrant Integration in Canada and the United States.” American Review of Canadian Studies, 34.2: 223-258.

Wed 10/19

Gender and Sexuality

How Gay Marriage Became Legal in Canada (6.59min)

Bedroom. What’s wrong with gay marriage? (30sec)

Parents. Blanket

Canada LGBT Marriage Commercial

Canada LGBT Commercial

Toyota Canada commercial

RMR: Harper on Gay Marriage

THh22M on Conservatives on GM

Statistics Canada on Gay Pride … by the numbers

equalmarriage.ca

Global same-sex marriage stats

Read:

Smith, Miriam. 2007. ‘Framing Same-sex Marriage in Canada and the United States: Goodridge, Halpern and The National Boundaries of Political Discourse.’ Social & Legal Studies, March 2007; vol. 16, 1: pp. 5-26.

Fri 10/21

No Class - Mid-semester day

Victoria B.C. Trip

Sample questions

2011 Itinerary

Mon 10/24

Trip Report and putting it all together

2011 Pictures unedited

Wed 10/26

Guest Speaker:

Kevin Cook
Political, Economic & Academic Officer.
Canadian Consulate General - Seattle

Fri 10/28		2nd Presentation

Mon 10/31		2nd Presentation

Wed 11/2

Sports and Recreation

Pop Culture

NFB The Sweater

Joni Mitchell, A Case of You (4.36)

Canadian Commercial - I AM CANADIAN !!!

Canadian, Please.

William Shatner on ET Canada (2006, 2.00)

Feist Interview on Spinners ‘Interface’ (2008, 6.22)

Feist on The Hour with George Stroumboulopoulos (2008, 10.25)

Read:

CS, ‘Literary and Popular Culture’ pp.15-164,  Andrew Holman and Robert Thacker

Fri 11/4		Law and Crime RMR on Crime and Fear RMR on Prison Farm Program Stats Canada data on Cda and Us crime (2000) Conference Board of Canada on homicides, assaults, and burglaries NYT on US prison pop levels (2008) Rate Charts (2009)
		Read:
		Anthony N Doob, Cheryl Marie Webster (2006)  ”Countering Punitiveness: Understanding Stability in Canada's Imprisonment Rate.”  Law & Society Review 40 (2), 325–368.
		Newman, Stephen L. Liberty, Community, and Censorship: Hate Speech and Freedom of Expression in Canada and the United States. American Review of Canadian Studies, Autumn 2002, Vol. 32 Issue 3, p369.