What are you in a perfect position to know + do, now? PROGRAMME DESCRIPTION Hum, the Humanities 101 Community Programme, is part of communities in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, Downtown South (DTES/South) and at the University of British Columbia (Coast Salish terri- tory), across Canada and beyond. With tuition-free courses that are prerequisite-free, students who are “entitlement-free,” free Public Programmes downtown, and a Steering Committee perpetually open to all students and alumni, Hum demonstrates that university can be “set free” of some of its precepts and remain intensive, empowering and enthusiastically-attended—in fact, it turns out that this is what Hum is in a perfect position to do + know + show, now. Who is involved? Hum participants live in the DTES/South and nearby areas, with diverse experience and knowledge: people from around the world and Indigenous people. They are working to overcome personally-felt oppressions and obstacles that are financial, institutional, educational, governmental, health-related and social, while experiencing intense gentrification and displacement in their home neighbourhoods. The Programme works closely with DTES/South communities and is sponsored by the UBC’s Faculty of Arts and private donations, largely from UBC alumni. Its dedication to being situated and responsive to both DTES/South residents and UBC communities means that Hum is always changing! What do we do? The Programme is committed to being responsible through respectful relationships based in learning. It runs four free, dedicated, university-level courses which are grounded in relevant, interdisciplinary critical and creative thinking practices: two are wildly interdisciplinary, delving into 20+ disciplines with many invited teachers over a full academic year (Hum101 and Hum201), and two are hands-on writing courses that touch on 13 genres in 13 weeks (Writing 101 and Writing 201). Classes are a lively mix of people coming together, sharing knowledge, expertise and humour, and creating conversations that may carry on for years …. How do we do it? Prerequisite-free, and with many supportive practices to meet students’ material and learning needs, Hum’s courses value participants’ own situated knowledges and desire to join in. Each year, courses have a different theme, such as Where there’s walls there’s holes, No carrots no sticks, Find freedom in the context you inherit (a quote from Stó:lō feminist writer Lee Maracle) and, this year, What are you in a perfect position to know + do, now? Students do preparatory readings, engage in small group discussions and read their work aloud at the start of classes, and do assignments—poems, reflections, essays, artworks—that are gathered in yearly publications. What else do we do? Hum also runs weekly Public Programmes at DTES/South community centres (Carnegie Centre and the Gathering Place) initiated and led by participants and alumni: study groups, workshops and an alumni-led documentary film series now in its 11th year. Members of Hum’s Steering Committee, that meets regularly in the DTES, have sung Hum’s body electric, stating that: “Hum takes us on an adventure of open-mindedness, possibilities, social participation and connectivity by unpacking preconceived ideas. Hum generates direction, community, knowledge, opportunity, possibilities and self-awareness through practices that distinguish our unity, creativity, knowledge, self-esteem, self-re- spect and self-determination.” How long has this been going on? Now, Hum is 18 years old, a frisky young adult and the first programme of its kind in Canada. To date, 895 students have graduated (since adding second level courses, about 75 people graduate each year), and there have been 192 volunteer teachers and scores of supportive UBC student/alumni volunteers who assist the dedicated Programme faculty/staff. Many more people are enmeshed in the growing number of devoted sister programmes across Canada and similar cours- es elsewhere. Along with the current focus on responsible relationships between communities and universities, support for Indigenous people’s educational desires, and international interest in freeing education, Hum is part of many movements…. INTRODUCTION “What are you in a perfect position to know + do, now?” Just by landing on water, every single raindrop creates a rising up of itself. For an instant, it’s a dis- tinct shape rounded together by its own surface tension, a ME, just now. Quickly that ME drops again, perfectly smaller and then perfectly smaller, each time marking a distinct now, now, now. It’s not alone: each time it touches down, it creates rings of diffraction that interfere with others and change the fleeting, shared surface of WE. And so a ME WE ripples in our classrooms and in this book. What are you in a perfect position to know + do, now? This slow-burning question sparked Hum101/201 classes this year—it’s been our theme, companion and guide. While seeking, searching for THE perfect position is a never-ending trick (it never happens, but you try, you try), why not consider if all of us are always in A perfect position to be ourselves, to change, to influence each other and be influenced while knowing and doing, together? In Hum, have you ever felt a lift of curiosity—as if you’re suspended for a moment before settling into depth, width, resonance, company? Featured here, participants’ writing and images inhabit the peo- ple—students, teachers, volunteers, staff, supporters—and the different subjects and disciplines we’ve studied and practiced this year, plus more. Mingling at the shore or further out at sea, readers can hear tidal exchanges of booms and murmurs. You see, it’s not that WE are a downpour landing upon an unchanging surface, but the drencher as well as what’s drenched, eddying, implicated. This book is a material sign of the movement we made, held in your hands. Amidst moments of calm dusk blue, find flashes of roiling activity and humour, piercing clarity and daring questions, all held together by its fluent, articulate spine. On the book’s cover, the title instills suspense, always inviting us to wonder which perfect situation we’re in now. At home on a bookshelf, its neighbouring books will grow damp from its influence. You might have noticed Hum’s watermark on the cover’s lower corner, a ballast that grounds us for a term, a year, a decade or more. The Programme description on the previous page fleshes out what we do. Channel swimmers all, this year we’ve traversed 13 writing genres and 20+ academic disciplines with 43 teachers, plus field trips, Public Programmes and Steering Committee meetings in the Downtown Eastside and Downtown South (DTES/South), participants’ home or nearby neighbourhoods, about which many wrote passionately and powerfully. Just by landing nearby, every one of us creates rings of diffraction that touch others. This year we were touched by sadness when two of Hum’s beloved teachers passed away: Colleen Carroll, Downtown Eastside champion, Hum alumna and founder/curator of “Documentaries for Thinkers,” an 11-year-old Saturday night film series at Carnegie Centre; and long-time Hum teacher and friend, Kwakwa_ka_’wakw Hereditary Chief Beau Dick, Walas Gyiyam. Still, always, learning from them, we realize now that they are both Hum’s “elders,” our twin gravities. Every year, so many people shape and hold Hum; all are included in the Acknowledgement section that concludes this book, and many send their well wishes. Hum gathers, with gratitude, on the un- ceded, ancestral, traditional land of the hən’q’əmin’əm’-speaking xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) people. The Programme is profoundly influenced by Musqueam Elder Larry Grant, and by the work of both Donna Haraway and my sister Jody Butler Walker who dropped the seed of this year’s image/theme in my consciousness many years ago. Special thanks go to Reuben Jentink, erstwhile Hum staff and this year’s constant gardener, and to Leslie Robertson, editor of the journal BC Studies, who invited two Hum alumni, Lorna J. Johnson and Buffalo Star Woman (Sandra Delorme), to contribute essays from last year’s publication so that their wise and brave words can resonate, further. Each moment marking a distinct now, now, now, our Hum time together continues, undulating inward, outward. And WE’re not alone: see how those drops of water send out and receive each others’ influ- ences, how they carry on and on? There’s lots more Hum to stay involved with, and you will always be welcome to cultivate new Hum capacities, too! To the graduates of Hum101, Hum201, Writing101 and Writing201, I send my admiration—may you continue to rock boats gently, bravely, wisely and outrageously. Dr. Margot Leigh Butler Academic Director, Hum CONTENTS 9 HUM101/201 COURSE OUTLINE 27 HUM101/201 COMPOSITIONS 32 Monica Alas 36 James Gillis 38 Kimberley Hurrell 42 Joel Rakesh Kumar 46 Cindy QT 50 Jose A. De La Torre 54 Stergios Vlioras 58 Viola Antoine 60 KJ Conrod 62 Roody Etienne 64 Lorna Jean Johnson 66 Simon Limbert 70 Antonio Lopez 72 Ana Rosa Alcantara Matos 74 Derek Myles 76 Raul Castillo Rios 80 Jennifer Rudolph 84 Edgar Sevilla 86 Mike Sismey 90 HONOURING KWAKWA_KA_’WAKW HEREDITARY CHIEF BEAU DICK, WALAS GYIYAM 91 PHOTOGRAPHS 99 WRITING COURSE OUTLINE 103 WRITING COMPOSITIONS 110 Gilles Cyrenne 147 Gilles Cyrenne 132 Lisa David 127 Carolina de la Cajiga 133 Shawna Di Guistini 107 Fouta Djallon 139 Daniel D. Drost 127 Garth Feschuk 142 James Gillis 112 Kurt L Gonsalves 121 Patricia D. Haram 114 Kimberley Hurrell 126 Cher Hurrell 105 Iskote 'Iskwe (Arleen R. Windigo) 122 Iskote 'Iskwe (Arleen R. Windigo) 106 Joel Rakesh Kumar 135 Denise Linnay 141 Keith Long 146 Antonio Lopez 109 Jason D. Love 123 Victoria Michaud 119 Maria Coral Monge 124 Barbara Morrison 128 Barbara Morrison 147 Martin Murphy 116 Michael Edward Nardachioni 138 Hon Nguyen 126 Irena Pindur 134 Allexandre Ramsey 103 Jerry Shallow 144 Fred Shantz 142 Olga Sorenson 128 Sid Steel 118 Crantley Chaka Weekes 136 Buffalo Star Woman (Sandra Delorme) 149 WELL-WISHES 166 PUBLIC PROGRAMMES 167 HONOURING HUM ALUMNA COLLEEN CARROLL 170 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 174 GRADUATING PARTICIPANTS HUM 101/201 COURSE OUTLINE What are you in a perfect position to know + do, now? FACULTY Dr.