Double Consciousness: The Poetics and Politics of Being Canadian

This chapter negotiates the notion of double consciousness through the participants’ discussion of short stories. This chapter explains the twofold purpose of using short stories: first, to develop students’ interpretation skills by engaging in reader response theory and, second, to help students negotiate their diasporic identities through the Duboisian double consciousness and what Gilroy referred to as the “desire to transcend.” The chapter discusses the participants’ uneasiness about using immigrant literature in the classroom, exposing how unsettled cultural issues remain unchallenged by the curriculum. It also touches upon radicalization as a response to extreme conditions experienced by individuals who are looking for answers to seemingly conflicting cultures and argues that connections between school and community, on the one hand, and curriculum and culture, on the other, must be successfully implemented.