This thesis is titled Lost Lesotho Princess/Landlord Ears. It consists of an original play of the same name based upon the life-story of the author’s paternal grandmother and an accompanying essay titled “Lost Lesotho Princess/Landlord Ears: Visibility, Invisibility, Roots and Liminality in the African Diaspora.” The play falls under the following theatrical categories: African Diaspora drama, black theatre, western Canadian black theatre, realism, the memory play and to some extent, contemporary existentialism. The essay is a discussion by the author regarding the dramatic, social and political context of the play. The following themes are highlighted: history — pertaining to a collective black history and individual histories and (her)stories, regarding and respecting ones’ elders as a link to history and Africa, and notions of commonality and difference within the African Diaspora with attention paid to myths and narratives about what it means to be ‘dark-skinned’ or ‘light-skinned’ in various black communities around the world. The methods of investigation were: a study of the drama and literature of the African Diaspora, the dramatic literature of other post-colonial societies and marginalized groups, one-on-one interviews with Rose Landers, whose experiences are represented by Carrie, the main character in Lost Lesotho Princess/Landlord Ears and field research at JazzArt - a dance-theatre company in Cape Town, South Africa. The view-point the play lends itself to and the conclusions drawn by the essay are: that black people and black communities need agency and healing, that being of mixed race does not have to equal psychological confusion and that mixed communities, families and cultures have been and will continue to be relevant to the universal black experience and the artistic representation of the African Diaspora. The importance of writing as a form of healing, resolution and revolution for members of the African Diaspora and the importance of authorship of ones’ own history is highlighted.

This thesis is titled Lost Lesotho Princess/Landlord Ears. It consists of an original play of the same name based upon the life-story of the author’s paternal grandmother and an accompanying essay titled “Lost Lesotho Princess/Landlord Ears: Visibility, Invisibility, Roots and Liminality in the African Diaspora.” The play falls under the following theatrical categories: African Diaspora drama, black theatre, western Canadian black theatre, realism, the memory play and to some extent, contemporary existentialism. The essay is a discussion by the author regarding the dramatic, social and political context of the play. The following themes are highlighted: history — pertaining to a collective black history and individual histories and (her)stories, regarding and respecting ones’ elders as a link to history and Africa, and notions of commonality and difference within the African Diaspora with attention paid to myths and narratives about what it means to be ‘dark-skinned’ or ‘light-skinned’ in various black communities around the world. The methods of investigation were: a study of the drama and literature of the African Diaspora, the dramatic literature of other post-colonial societies and marginalized groups, one-on-one interviews with Rose Landers, whose experiences are represented by Carrie, the main character in Lost Lesotho Princess/Landlord Ears and field research at JazzArt - a dance-theatre company in Cape Town, South Africa. The view-point the play lends itself to and the conclusions drawn by the essay are: that black people and black communities need agency and healing, that being of mixed race does not have to equal psychological confusion and that mixed communities, families and cultures have been and will continue to be relevant to the universal black experience and the artistic representation of the African Diaspora. The importance of writing as a form of healing, resolution and revolution for members of the African Diaspora and the importance of authorship of ones’ own history is highlighted.

This thesis is titled Lost Lesotho Princess/Landlord Ears. It consists of an original play of the same name based upon the life-story of the author’s paternal grandmother and an accompanying essay titled “Lost Lesotho Princess/Landlord Ears: Visibility, Invisibility, Roots and Liminality in the African Diaspora.” The play falls under the following theatrical categories: African Diaspora drama, black theatre, western Canadian black theatre, realism, the memory play and to some extent, contemporary existentialism. The essay is a discussion by the author regarding the dramatic, social and political context of the play. The following themes are highlighted: history — pertaining to a collective black history and individual histories and (her)stories, regarding and respecting ones’ elders as a link to history and Africa, and notions of commonality and difference within the African Diaspora with attention paid to myths and narratives about what it means to be ‘dark-skinned’ or ‘light-skinned’ in various black communities around the world. The methods of investigation were: a study of the drama and literature of the African Diaspora, the dramatic literature of other post-colonial societies and marginalized groups, one-on-one interviews with Rose Landers, whose experiences are represented by Carrie, the main character in Lost Lesotho Princess/Landlord Ears and field research at JazzArt - a dance-theatre company in Cape Town, South Africa. The view-point the play lends itself to and the conclusions drawn by the essay are: that black people and black communities need agency and healing, that being of mixed race does not have to equal psychological confusion and that mixed communities, families and cultures have been and will continue to be relevant to the universal black experience and the artistic representation of the African Diaspora. The importance of writing as a form of healing, resolution and revolution for members of the African Diaspora and the importance of authorship of ones’ own history is highlighted. / Arts, Faculty of / Theatre and Film, Department of / Graduate

Wayde Comptons poetry collection Performance Bond is a union of hip-hop aesthetics and visual poetry to create a space for Vancouvers black community. Although the majority of the poems in Performance Bond are lyric, visual poems have a significant and varied presence in the book. Compton creates his visual poetry by including such materials as photographs and signs, concrete poetry and pseudo-concrete poetry, graffiti, a simulated newspaper facsimile of an original Vancouver Daily Province article, voodoo symbols, and typed characters that do not necessarily form words. Despite a contemporary population of over two million people, the greater Vancouver area of today does not have a centralized black community similar to that found in other North American cities like New York, Chicago, Los Angles, Toronto, or Halifax. To reconcile the absence of a centralized black community in Vancouver, Compton turns to sampling black culture from across the world (with an obvious concentration on the United States) in order to develop and represent his own black identity. The similarities between visual poetry and hip-hop culture, particularly their emphasis on spatial representation, facilitate Comptons continuing project to create a place for the black community in Vancouver.

Wayde Comptons poetry collection Performance Bond is a union of hip-hop aesthetics and visual poetry to create a space for Vancouvers black community. Although the majority of the poems in Performance Bond are lyric, visual poems have a significant and varied presence in the book. Compton creates his visual poetry by including such materials as photographs and signs, concrete poetry and pseudo-concrete poetry, graffiti, a simulated newspaper facsimile of an original Vancouver Daily Province article, voodoo symbols, and typed characters that do not necessarily form words. Despite a contemporary population of over two million people, the greater Vancouver area of today does not have a centralized black community similar to that found in other North American cities like New York, Chicago, Los Angles, Toronto, or Halifax. To reconcile the absence of a centralized black community in Vancouver, Compton turns to sampling black culture from across the world (with an obvious concentration on the United States) in order to develop and represent his own black identity. The similarities between visual poetry and hip-hop culture, particularly their emphasis on spatial representation, facilitate Comptons continuing project to create a place for the black community in Vancouver.

This thesis clarifies some issues at the forefront of Multicultural education from an anti-racist perspective. The researcher is concerned that, while school boards across the country allegedly promote an education wherein the perspectives of all Canadian cultural groups are included—a goal that reflects promises of both the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the policy of Multiculturalism—differences persist between what is intended by policy makers and what perspectives are actually included in the curriculum. These contradictions between intentions and conduct are explored by exarmning the effects of Multicultural ideology on the discursive borders of Canadian education. These ideas are then related to the specific example of African Canadian history. Past and present contradictions between Canadian policies and practices toward African Canadians are scrutinized. The issue of African Canadian exclusion from the Canadian Literary Canon is emphasized and this problem is related through a discussion of the Canadian publishing industry. The writer argues that different kinds of opportunities are required that help learners explore the subject of racism on an emotional level, develop in-depth understandings about African Canadian history and cultures, and give learners opportunities to listen to African Canadian perspectives. The idea that African Canadian literature could be utilised by educators is suggested as a way to start establishing a basis for education where African Canadian perspectives are represented on equal terms. Pedagogical problems that might arise with the introduction of these stories into the curriculum are addressed. The writer argues that Canadian education developed out of a context of oppression. Postmodern research paradigms are suggested as a way to explore these issues. Following on the diverse writing styles that are used in postmodern inquiries, an excerpt from a play by the writer is included. Both the play and the discussion intentionally disrupt the suggestion of a self-Other dichotomy that is sometimes present in education and research. The writer explores this territory and ultimately suggests the possibility of negotiating relationships that are not defined by oppression, but that acknowledge the pain that oppression causes.

This thesis clarifies some issues at the forefront of Multicultural education from an anti-racist perspective. The researcher is concerned that, while school boards across the country allegedly promote an education wherein the perspectives of all Canadian cultural groups are included—a goal that reflects promises of both the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the policy of Multiculturalism—differences persist between what is intended by policy makers and what perspectives are actually included in the curriculum. These contradictions between intentions and conduct are explored by exarmning the effects of Multicultural ideology on the discursive borders of Canadian education. These ideas are then related to the specific example of African Canadian history. Past and present contradictions between Canadian policies and practices toward African Canadians are scrutinized. The issue of African Canadian exclusion from the Canadian Literary Canon is emphasized and this problem is related through a discussion of the Canadian publishing industry. The writer argues that different kinds of opportunities are required that help learners explore the subject of racism on an emotional level, develop in-depth understandings about African Canadian history and cultures, and give learners opportunities to listen to African Canadian perspectives. The idea that African Canadian literature could be utilised by educators is suggested as a way to start establishing a basis for education where African Canadian perspectives are represented on equal terms. Pedagogical problems that might arise with the introduction of these stories into the curriculum are addressed. The writer argues that Canadian education developed out of a context of oppression. Postmodern research paradigms are suggested as a way to explore these issues. Following on the diverse writing styles that are used in postmodern inquiries, an excerpt from a play by the writer is included. Both the play and the discussion intentionally disrupt the suggestion of a self-Other dichotomy that is sometimes present in education and research. The writer explores this territory and ultimately suggests the possibility of negotiating relationships that are not defined by oppression, but that acknowledge the pain that oppression causes. / Education, Faculty of / Curriculum and Pedagogy (EDCP), Department of / Graduate

This dissertation contributes to the fields of Canadian literature and black cultural studies in Canada a new regional archive of literature, the black prairie archive. It unearths and brings critical attention, for the first time, to the unknown history and cultural production of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century black pioneer writers on the Canadian prairies, and connects this historical literature to the work of contemporary black prairie authors. The black prairie archive thus brings together one hundred and thirty five years of black writing on the prairies, from 1873-2008. Theorized in terms of what Pierre Nora calls a lieu de mémoire, or a site of memory, the black prairie archive operates as a site of collective black-inflected memory on the prairies. It retrieves memory of a repressed but important black history and culture and brings it into consciousness of the present historical moment. In its ability to remember what has been repressed and forgotten, the archive functions as a literary counterhistory, calling attention to the aggressive exclusions and erasures involved in the historical, social, critical, and legal construction of the prairies as an ideological—not a geographic—space in relation to race. In addition to bringing a new regional black literature to light, this study offers the black prairie archive as a discursive formation that points to a new methodology, a methodology capable of addressing the limits of certain critical debates in Canada. Specifically, it offers a strategy for theorizing black belonging and territoriality in terms other than the problematic metaphors of black indigeneity; for reading the regional particularities of black prairie literature and subjectivity; and for overcoming the impasse at the centre of black Canadian cultural studies, represented by the debate between Rinaldo Walcott and George Elliott Clarke, regarding which model, the archival or diasporic, best articulates the space of black Canada. The black prairie archive demonstrates how the archive can become a critical, activist, anti-national strategy for recovering repressed black histories, literatures, and presences.