ONE OF MANY TEACHING PHILOSOPHIES… As a writer and scholar of cultural production in Canada, my work often demands an understanding of the various roles universities play in facilitating or legitimizing culture. Because making dynamic connections between my research and my teaching is, for me, an important pedagogical objective, I try to bring the role of the university—as part of a larger institutional network—to the forefront of discussion in the courses I teach. For example, I’ve often emphasized the way student politics facilitated the emergence of modernist literature in 1920s Montreal. This approach provides a forum for students to understand some of the important issues underpinning their own education. In other words, I think the academy itself can be used as a constructive, cross-disciplinary course text. This approach sets the stage for the next pedagogical objective: to encourage students to move towards increasingly complex understandings of their own role in the production of culture and society. Approaching education as a text which can be analyzed allows us to move towards understanding the importance of critically and productively engaging with our broader society on an everyday basis. My pedagogical hope is that this approach enables us—as classroom communities—to generate an intellectual generosity and excitement we can bring to our social, political, and cultural lives.*
COURSES I’VE TAUGHT:Love (ENGL/CRWR 2099) Studies in Research-Creation (ENGL 5006) Contemporary Canadian Literatures (ENGL/CANA 3270) Bibliography and Editing in Canada (ENGL 5001) Editing and Publishing Literature (CRWR/ENGL 3311) Literary Communities (CRWR/ENGL 3312) Bibliography and Small-press Publishing in Canada (ENGL 5000) Sports Literature (Baseball) (ENGL 2060) Modern Canadian Poetics in Context (ENGL 5000) Canada’s Revolutionary Decade (1930s) (ENGL 4414) Creative Writing Poetry I (CRWR 3010/ENGL 3098) Creative Writing Poetry II (CRWR 3011) Writing Theory (ENGL 3112) The Creative Process (CRWR 2001) Writing for University (ENGL 1100). Contemporary Critical Theory (ENGL 3002). Canadian Poetry of the 20th & 21st Century (ENGL 4471). Writing the Spanish Civil War (ENGL 5952). Canadian Literature (ENGL 2004). The Idea of Canada (CANA 2000). Modern Canadian Literature (ENGL 3231). Intro to Prose and Fiction (ENGL 1010). Intro to the Principles of Lit. Analysis (ENGL 1201). Intro to Canadian Literature (ENGL 2801). The Art of Social Justice in Canada (CANA 3991). Intro to Canadian Culture (CANA 2011). Intro to Literature (ENGL 1000).
*Many thanks go to the many teachers and even more students for the pedagogical mentorship.
Bart Vautour 