Tag Archives: Truth and Reconciliation Commission

“A soul-deep desolation:” Reconciliation and the Vacuum of Unstoried Existence

Excerpted from The Theatre of Regret: Art, Literature, and the Politics of Reconciliation While it is intimately, and, perhaps, impossibly, entwined with Christian ideology and Western politics, the idea of reconciliation does not belong to the Western theory alone. Indigenous scholars such as Billy-Ray Belcourt, Daniel Heath Justice, Hadley Friedland, Val Napoleon, Heidi Kiiwetinepinesiik Stark, […]

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Forgiveness, “a thousand pound word”: the Literature of Forgiveness and Reconciliation

Richard Wagamese was one of the premier authors of forgiveness and reconciliation in Canada. What do his novels tell of about the TRC?

Theatre of Regret Now Available in Paperback

The Theatre of Regret: Literature, Art, and the Politics of Reconciliation in Canada is now available in paperback via UBC Press. Some of the chapters were developed out of writing that I first shared on this blog. For instance the post “Reconciliation: ‘Like an Echo Turned Inside Out’” is the basis of the book’s conclusion, […]

Theatre of Regret Now Available in Paperback

The Theatre of Regret is now available in paperback from UBC Press.

sehtoskakew: “Aboriginal Principles of Witnessing” in the Canadian TRC

Witnessing and testimony are an essential component of every Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and the Canadian TRC is no exception. However, these key terms are ideologically loaded and have historically excluded Indigenous knowledge systems (for instance Delgamuukw v. British Columbia). While “Schedule ‘N’” (which contains the Canadian TRC mandate) gestures towards “Aboriginal principles of witnessing,” there […]

Apology’s Worth It: How Canada Profits from Apology

Cathy Busby. We Are Sorry, detail; fabric panel, 610 cm x 1402 cm; Sorry (Stephen Harper), Sorry (Kevin Rudd), Sorry series inkjet prints, each 112 x 163 cm, Winnipeg Art Gallery, 2010 —— We live in an “Age of Apology“. In a way that was unimaginable during the Cold War, “sorry” is now a primary element […]