Week 6: The Myth of the Multicultural City
We're back! After last week's snow-related class cancellation, this week in the Imagining Toronto course we'll be discussing the myth of the multicultural city. Among other things, we'll consider whether the myth of the multicultural city is Toronto's 'creation myth,' explore literary representations of racism and cultural exclusion and discuss what role tolerance might play in a city that has made unlikely neighbours of Croations, Serbs, Tamils, Sinhalese, Tutsis, Hutus, Sikhs, Hindus, Turks, Armenians, Greeks, Macedonians, Muslims, Jews and manifold other diasporas. In short, we'll explore whether we can live together without coming to blows — or whether doing so is even possible.
Literary works we'll discuss include Dionne Brand's novel What We All Long For, Farzana Doctor's Stealing Nasreen, Krisantha Bhaggiyadatta's "Race Talk," Earle Birney's "Anglosaxon Street," Austin Clarke's novel More, Rabindranath Maharaj's Homer in Flight, M.G. Vassanji's No New Land and a variety of other works.
Critical works we'll consider will include Stanley Fish's "Boutique Multiculturalism," Slavoj Zizek's "Tolerance as an Ideological Category," Herber Marcuse's "Repressive Tolerance," among others.
This week's lecture slides are available here:
2010-2011 Week 6 slides GEOG 4280 Myth of the Multicultural City
Some additional links:
Falloon, Matt, 5 February 2011. "Multiculturalism has failed in Britain, PM Cameron says." Globe & Mail.
Canadian Multiculturalism Act. 1985, c.24. An Act for the preservation and enhancement of multiculturalism in Canada.
Fish, Stanley, 1987. Boutique Multiculturalism, or why liberals are incapable of thinking about hate speech. Critical Inquiry, 23(2).
