Activities and Resources for Burning Vision

1. On June 11, 2008, Prime Minister Stephen Harper issued a formal apology to former students of Indian Residential Schools: you can read or watch the apology. Compare and contrast this apology to those made within Burning Vision. How does Clements’ play encourage the reader to think critically about sincerity, motivation, and consequences with respect to public apologies?

2. In addition to Marie Clements’ Burning Vision, there are other important Canadian literary texts that address the relations between Indigenous and Asian diasporic groups. SKY Lee’s Disappearing Moon Cafe, Lee Maracle’s “Yin Chin,” and the opening of Joy Kogawa’s Obasan are a few examples. In “Linked Histories and Radio-Activity in Marie Clements’ Burning Vision,” Sophie McCall argues that Burning Vision “emphasize[s] reconciliation as a process of building relationships across borders, but with an acknowledgement of the need to address the psychic and material gaps between Indigenous and migrant communities in Canada, and to work toward a politics of reparation and redistribution” (259). In highlighting reparation and redistribution, McCall is pointing to the need for more material changes than “reconciliation” often suggests. Select one other text that examines Indigenous and Asian diasporic experiences (such as the ones listed above) and consider how it engages with a politics of reparation and redistribution.

Selected Scholarly Articles on Marie Clements’ Burning Vision

• Curran, Beverley. “Invisible Indigeneity: First Nations and Aboriginal Theatre in Japanese Translation and Performance.” Theatre Journal 59 (2007): 449-65. Print.
• Eigenbrod, Renate. “‘the look of recognition’: Transcultural Circulation of Trauma in Indigenous Texts.” Indigenous Focus. Spec. issue of Canadian Literature 215 (2012): 16:32. Print.
• Gilbert, Reid. “Introduction: Marie Clements.” TRiC / RTaC 37.1 (2016): v-xxvii. Print.
• —. “Profile: Marie Clements.” Baylor Journal of Theatre and Performance 4.1 (2007): 147-51. Print.
• Grace, Sherrill. “The True North Strong and Free: War, the Arts, and the Canadian North.” Vancouver: UBC Killam Lecture, 2008. Web. 21 Oct. 2010.
• Fletcher, Alana. “Around the Backside: Productive Disbelief in Marie Clements’s Burning Vision.” TRiC / RTaC1 (2016): 27-41. Print.
• Hargreaves, Allison. “‘A Precise Instrument for Seeing’: Remembrance in Burning Vision and the Activist Classroom.” Canadian Theatre Review 147 (2011): 49-54. Print.
• LaFlamme, Michelle. “Speaking Up, Speaking Out, Or Speaking Back: The Signposts Are In The Right Direction.” TRiC / RTaC2 (2010): xxviii-xxx. Print.
• —.  “Theatrical Medicine: Aboriginal Performance, Ritual and Commemoration.” TRiC / RTaC2 (2010): 107-17. Print.
• McCall, Sophie. “Linked Histories and Radio-Activity in Marie Clements’ Burning Vision.” Trans/acting Culture, Writing, and Memory: Essays in Honour of Barbara Godard. Ed. Eva Karpinski, Jennifer Henderson, Ian Sowton, and Ray Ellenwood. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier UP, 2013. 245-66. Print.
• Whitaker, Robin C. “Fusing the Nuclear Community: Intercultural Memory, Hiroshima 1945 and the Chronotopic Dramaturgy of Marie Clements’s Burning Vision.” TRiC / RTaC1-2 (2009): 129-51. Print.

Works Cited

• Canada. Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada. “Statement of Apology to Former Students of Indian Residential Schools.” Ottawa, 2008. Statement.
• Clements, Marie. Burning Vision. Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2002. Print.
• Kogawa, Joy. Toronto: Penguin, 1981. Print.
• Lee, SKY. Disappearing Moon Cafe. Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 1990. Print.
• Maracle, Lee. “Yin Chin.” Canadian Literature 124 (1990): 156-61. Print. (Link)
• McCall, Sophie. “Linked Histories and Radio-Activity in Marie Clements’ Burning Vision.” Trans/acting Culture, Writing, and Memory: Essays in Honour of Barbara Godard. Eva C. Karpinski, Jennifer Henderson, Ian Sowton, and Ray Ellenwood. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier UP, 2013: 245-65. Print.