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‘Too Strong’ of a Female Role: Feminist or Anti-Feminist?
(Editor Note: This blog article contains spoilers from Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl) Geoffrey Chaucer’s Wife of Bath’s Tale and Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl evoke two kinds of reactions in their readers: “you go, girl!” or “crazy b****”. Within the frame of their respective marriages, The Wife of Bath and Amy seek to control their husbands. While these strong female roles can be seen as either liberating or misogynist, this categorization is not so black and white. Both texts perhaps agree that women are strong and smart enough to have power, but also present this power as potentially problematic. Does this type of narrative illustrate women positively or negatively? The Wife of…
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Submit to TGS 7.2!
The Garden Statuary (TGS) is the English department’s student-run multimedia journal. TGS publishes a wide range of student work, including academic essays, fiction, creative-non fiction, scripts, poetry, visual artwork, and more. If you’ve done some particularly stellar creative or academic — or perhaps creative academic? — work, TGS wants you! Successful submissions will be published online and in the beautiful end-of-year print edition. So what are you waiting for? Send us something today! The submission deadline for Issue 7.2 is February 16, 2018! Find out how to submit here! And keep an eye out for our end of term launch party, which will feature the printed 2017-18 issue.
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The Fourth Annual Colloquium: Presenters and Abstracts
The English Students’ Association is excited to present the fourth annual Colloquium! This conference features presentations from English undergraduate students, graduate students, and faculty members. The Colloquium offers the opportunity to share your work and discuss ideas with other students and faculty members in the English Department. Everyone is welcome to attend! When: 12 – 4 PM on Saturday, January 20, 2018 Where: Dodson Room (3rd Floor), Irving K. Barber Learning Centre The Colloquium is free and will include a catered lunch with vegetarian options available. RSVP on our Facebook page and reserve a spot through Eventbrite! Faculty Presenters Ray Hsu is Faculty Supervisor at the Emerging Media Lab. Author of two award-winning books,…
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The Discussion of Race on Television Over Three Decades
Race: an arbitrary subject which some have the privilege to ignore while most do not. The popular narrative of a group of white people struggling to “make it” is often the way life in North America has been depicted on television. This narrative fails to capture reality, as it does not acknowledge the challenges and obstacles of people who are not white and middle class. To explore how the conversations about race have changed on television, I am going to analyze the way race is discussed in three popular shows: Friends which takes place in the 90’s, The Office which takes place in the 2000’s, and Master of None which…
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More Than Just Words on Paper: Reflections on an English Degree
In my first year at UBC, I was a Science student on weekdays and a barista on weekends. I stuck out my coffee-making career into my second year, which was when I decided to pursue English Literature and Psychology. The “So You Wanna Be A Barista” jokes didn’t start until after I’d transferred into Arts, and, ironically, after I’d decided to quit my job. This post isn’t meant to set fire to any major or lord one degree over another. It’s a reflection of what I’ve gained from studying English and the value of an English Lit experience to me. In the end, your degree is more than just the…
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Oh, for the Love of Keats!
One of our ESA contributors, Saakshi, reflects on the way a trip to Keats’ home affected her outlook on English, poetry, and the universality of pure human emotion. I was fortunate enough to have myself immersed in the magical world of John Keats for the first time in high school, two years ago. Ever since I read his work, no other poet’s words have managed to move or resonate with me more. Keats wrote with a passion unmatched, about emotions so heartbreakingly human that I couldn’t help but feel his pain, almost alongside him, and fall more in love with his poetry. It was a dream come true when…
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Children’s Literature Isn’t Just for Kids
Confession time: I’ve read more Harry Potter books than I have Shakespeare dramas. Yes, I know, truly shameful stuff for an English Lit major. But despite my supposed status as an adult, I’m still a total sucker for children’s literature. Children’s literature is an expansive and flexible genre that can be prescribed to many different works. What counts as children’s lit depends on how you define the genre, and how you define “children” and “literature”. You could argue Harry Potter, “Alice in Wonderland” and “Coraline” fall under that category. And then you have outliers like Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy, which for all purposes appears to be children’s literature…
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The Theatre Experience, Through the Eyes of an English Lover
I might not know what sort of future I am looking towards, or the career path I am destined to take, but I definitely have always known that I would be some kind of Arts Major at UBC. My passion has always been centered around creativity — telling, reading and writing stories — so it’s no surprise that in high school my favourite and best subject was English. I read all sorts of poems, novels, and plays (as the routine English class normally does), and with each work I gained more knowledge, more happiness, and more curiosity. It was a source of my passion, an outlet for my creative needs — but…
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HOWLween! with the ESA Recap: Part Two
This is Part Two of our exciting HOWLween! with the ESA Recap. You can catch up on Kristinaville’s initial casualties here. The two werewolves were still at large. Our town, on the other hand, was feeling not so large. Especially when we all woke up and discovered that Jessica, the nicest person in our whole town, had been murdered. Also, ever since Kevin died, we had all been running short on carbs. Our energy levels just weren’t what they used to be. * ‘What if we just don’t kill someone? What if I’m morally against killing?’ Ronnie asked, after leading three angry murder mobs. ‘No, you have to kill someone,’ said…
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HOWLween! with the ESA Recap: Part One
On October 30th, the ESA gathered for its annual game of Werewolf. We ate candy. We decorated cookies. We sharpened our pitchforks and ruined friendships. Don’t fret if you missed out on the fun and food. There will be more of it (with hopefully less bloodshed) on Friday, November 17 at the ESA’s November Board Game Night! You can also hear some (far more expert) stories, poems, and more at The Garden Statuary Issue 7.1 Launch Party on November 30! In the meantime, Rebecca, Kristinaville’s town doctor, has provided an unbiased and totally accurate account of the village’s werewolf trials and tribulations. [Editor’s Note: We are currently negotiating with Rebecca…
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Submit to the Colloquium
The English Students’ Association is officially calling for submissions to our fourth annual conference, The Colloquium! This conference features presentations from English undergraduate students, graduate students, and faculty members. The Colloquium offers the opportunity to share your work and discuss ideas with other students and faculty members in the English Department. The Colloquium will be held on Saturday, January 20, 2018. Please see below for more detailed info! Submission Information When can I submit? The deadline for submissions is currently Friday, Dec 23. Who can submit? Are you a UBC graduate or undergraduate student? Then you can submit! How long should my presentation be? Presentations will be approximately ten minutes long.…
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🎲 ESA Board Game Night 🎲
Have you written an essay before? Then you are probably an expert at finding many ways to say the same thing. Let your vocabulary skills shine by bringing your wits to the ESA Board Game Night on November 17, 4 PM – 5:30 PM, at Buchanan Tower 104A (Lobby). Featuring games such as: 🏅 Bananagrams 🏅 Taboo 🏅 Anomia 🏅 Apples to Apples 🏅 Pictionary …and more! Face off against your fellow English students to see who’ll emerge victorious. FREE snacks will be provided. RSVP on our Facebook event here.
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Adventures in Narnia, or Through the Wardrobe and Back Again
The first time Lucy Pevensie opened Professor Kirke’s wardrobe and entered Narnia, she was eight years old. The first time I went with her, I was nine. There is something especially magical about reading things as a child. You have fewer prejudices, little knowledge of things beyond face value and the all-absorbing wonder of innocence. I certainly experienced Narnia that way, drinking it in fully and unaware of hidden symbols and meanings. Edmund was a jerk, the White Witch was a terribly mean lady, and Narnian talking beavers put Canada to shame. I skipped happily through the series, oblivious to anything beneath the veneer of adventures in a magical land.…
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Canon Cagematch: VILLAINS
💀 The ESA executive team hopes everyone had a satisfactorily spine-tingling Halloween and thanks all the brave souls that made it to our HOWLween event! Fear not, however; there is one last treat in store before we must bid farewell to the spirit of Halloween. Gather around the cauldron as the ESA executive team put forth their most loathed villains (no, professors and essay deadlines do not count). 💀 Jia, President: For the collective “Monster Mash” blog post last year, I wrote about Victor Frankenstein. I was grappling with the task of finding out which villain I wanted to write with when it occurred to me that Frankenstein is still the dude for…
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✱ TGS Issue 7.1 Launch Party! ✱
We’re back!!!! The English Students’ Association and The Garden Statuary, UBC’s undergraduate literary journal, are excited to welcome all of you to the launch of Issue 7.1! Please join us on Thursday, November 30 from 5-7 pm for: 🍂 Free food!! 🍂 Readings from published undergraduates!! 🍂 Mingling with editors, authors, and artists! 🍂 A chance to purchase or win past print editions! This event is open to everyone from the UBC community and beyond. Please feel free to invite your friends, family, or even complete strangers! 🍂 TERRITORIAL ACKNOWLEDGEMENT 🍂 The Garden Statuary recognizes that this event is taking place on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territories of the…
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‘Meet the Profs: They Came from Buchanan Tower’ Recap!
On October 11th, the ESA hosted our second event of the year, Meet the Profs: They Came from Buchanan Tower! We are very lucky in the Department of English to have such easy access to a wealth of intelligent, funny, and personable faculty. This year, we were grateful for the presence of: Dr. Siân Echard, Head of the English Department Dr. Alex Dick, Chair of the Majors Program Dr. Laura Moss Dr. Judith Paltin Dr. Robert Rouse Dr. Rick Gooding Dr. Ian Hill Dr. Barbara Dancygier Dr. Chris Lee Dr. Jessica de Villiers Thank you so much to all of you for joining the ESA at this special event. We…
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HOWLween! with the ESA
Join the ESA on October 30th for a spooky, scary, sensational afternoon of Halloween fun and games. Including: 👻 Spooky mad-libs stories 😱 Free, festive treats for all 💀 Cookie decorating for ESA members 🎃 And our annual, heart-stopping game of Werewolf Bring your friends! Bring your enemies! We’re going have a scary good time. WHAT: An amazing Halloween afternoon! WHERE: Buchanan Tower, Room 104A (Lobby) WHEN: 4:00 -5:30 PM RSVP at our Facebook event!
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AGM Recap!
Welcome to the first blog post of the UBC English Students’ Association for the 2017-18 year! Thank you so much to all of our members—those new and old and not yet—for eating our ice cream cake and having a good time at the AGM. You invigorated the executive team (certainly myself) and we are so excited to serve you for this year and give you more opportunities to mingle, express yourself, and excel as a UBC English student. For those of you who weren’t there, have no fear! Here’s a recap: We began with human bingo while waiting for people (and ice cream cake) to arrive and of course I…
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They Came From Buchanan Tower! Student-Professor Mingle
In the miracle of perfected Three-Dimension, the ESA presents THEY CAME FROM BUCHANAN TOWER. What are they? Where do they come from? Who are these all-powerful creatures dwelling in Buchanan Tower? And what do they want on campus? You can learn the amazing answers only when you come to the most thrilling professor-student event this October. Meet the department, get to know your professors, and learn to see them less like terrifying aliens and more like friendly ones. When: Wednesday, October 11, 5:00 PM Where: Buchanan Tower, Room 599 RSVP at our Facebook event! BuTo photographed by Jeff Hitchcock.
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Submit to The Garden Statuary!
The Garden Statuary (TGS) is the English department’s student-run multimedia journal. TGS publishes a wide range of student work, including academic essays, fiction, creative-non fiction, scripts, poetry, visual artwork, and more. If you’ve done some particularly stellar creative or academic — or perhaps creative academic? — work, TGS wants you! Successful submissions will be published online and in the beautiful end-of-year print edition. So what are you waiting for? Send us something today! The submission deadline for Issue 7.1 is October 20th! Find out how to submit here!
