Next fall’s freshman seminar….

Just finished the blurb for my TAP class next fall:

From Pucks to Parliament: Canada’s cultural landscape

If you ask the average American about Canada, you’ll find that most know very little about this mysterious land north of the US, labeled on most American maps as nothing more than “Canada.” In this course’s exploration of Canadian culture, we’ll “travel” from coast to coast to coast in our quest to learn more about the people, culture, politics, and history of Canada, the United States’ largest trading partner and one of its most important allies. Throughout our journey, we’ll be paying particular attention to Canadian literature, music, television, and movies.

This Residential TAP course will see most students living in Canada House, part of Living/Learning’s Global Village Residential Learning Community. This will also be a technology-driven, writing intensive course that will see you writing, blogging, and even podcasting about your new discoveries about Canada. The course will include a mandatory class trip to Ottawa, Canada’s capital, during which we will visit Parliament, the National Gallery and Museum of Civilisation, and, yes, even attend a hockey game.

For the duration of the course, each student will also be loaned an iPod loaded with Canadian music, audio books, and lectures connected to the topics we will be studying.

Paul Martin is an Assistant Professor in the Department of English and the Director of UVM’s Canadian Studies Program. Paul grew up in Edmonton, Alberta and has lived in Vermont since 2003. Although he enjoys living in Vermont, you’ll frequently hear him longing for Tim Hortons coffee and donuts and pining for the big sky of the Canadian prairie. His research areas include Canadian literature in both English and French and contemporary fiction. Although he spent his youth playing music instead of hockey, he’s a diehard Edmonton Oilers fan, having grown up in the heyday of Gretzky, Messier, Coffey, Kurri, and Fuhr.