Course Code: CULT 206
Academic Year: 2025-2026
Canada is a country of great cultural, ethnic, linguistic and religious diversity. What does it mean to be Canadian? Who is Canadian? Canadians often find these questions to be especially puzzling. In this course, particular attention will be paid to the official claim that Canada is an excellent example of how relative prosperity can be achieved for the majority. This course will also explore how Canada has affected, and been affected by, a number of major issues: Canada's colonial past; its democracy; its cultural diversity; its treatment of Aboriginal Peoples; its corporate world; its spheres of poverty; and its lived experiences of childhood, adolescence and adulthood. A recurring question throughout the course will be whether a Canadian identity is really necessary at all in contemporary Canada. A related question is whether it is really possible to speak accurately today of a single, unified Canadian "culture".