Episode 56: Marc Lynch interviews Warren Cariou
Sep 19, 2023
Introduction:
In this episode, Warren Cariou and Marc Lynch discuss the relationships between land, story, memory, and history. They also talk about Indigenous masculinities, poetry as a form of discourse, and petrography as both critical and creative practice.4
Bios:
Marc Herman Lynch is a mixed-race writer currently doing a PhD student at the University of Calgary and serving as president of filling Station magazine. Each summer he works with the creative team at Wordsworth Youth Writing Camp to teach young writers. He lives in Moh’kins’tsis, otherwise known as Calgary, in Treaty 7 Territory, Alberta. His debut novel, Arborescent, was published by Arsenal Pulp Press in 2020.
Warren Cariou was born in Meadow Lake, Saskatchewan into a family of Métis and European heritage. Though he has lived away from Meadow Lake for many years, his art and academic work maintains a focus on the cultural and environmental questions that have preoccupied the people of his homeland. His books, films, photography and scholarly research explore themes of community, environment, orality and belonging in the Canadian west, with particular focus on the relationships between Indigenous stories and the land. Warren Cariou is a professor in the Department of English, Theatre, Film and Media at the University of Manitoba. He lives in Winnipeg with his wife, the poet and professor Alison Calder.
Show notes:
3:21: Introduction
4:00: The next generation of Indigenous storytelling traditions
5:12 Discussion of the essay Landsending
7:50: The relationship between Land and Story
8:00: Work with Duncan Mercredi’s poetry
10:40: Land of Oil and Water: Sensory relationship to land
13:00: Modernity and disconnect from land
15:00: The practice of not seeing in the abuse of land
17:45: Warren’s Petrography as a practice
19:40: The World’s First Photograph
23:00 Sensory effects of working with Tar
25:00 Discovering Beauty in Tar
26:30 Tar as a pre-colonial tool
31:00: An Athabasca Story
31:45: reminding us to remember & Braiding Sweetgrass
34:00: Warren’s bibliography & the appeal of working in different forms
37:00: Tarhands: A Messy Manifesto
38:30: Poetry as a discourse
41:00: Reflecting on roundtable on Indigenous Masculinities
42:30: Thinking as Protectors
45:15: Upcoming project on Indigenous storytelling
47:00 upcoming projects
48:00 A new edition of Gregory Younging’s Elements of Indigenous Style
TIA House recognizes the generous support of the Canada Research Chairs program and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. We also appreciate the support of the Faculty of Arts and the Department of English at the University of Calgary, where our offices are housed, as well as the guidance of Marc Stoeckle at the Taylor Family Digital Library.
TIA House is run by Larissa Lai, Shuyin Yu, Ryan Stearne, Shazia Ramji, Rebecca Geleyn, Mikka Jacobsen, Benjamin Ghan, Amy LeBlanc, Marc Lynch, and Mahmoud Ababneh.
Our Intro/Outro music is Monarch of the Streets by Loyalty Freak Music, accessed from the Free Music Archive.