A Reasonable Balance: The Arts and Canadian Studies

A Reasonable Balance: The Arts and Canadian Studies LOUIS APPLEBAUM In spite of the remarkable response provoked by the Report of the Commission on Canadian Studies, I have found relatively little said or written about the arts element within that Report . This, then, will move the spotlight a bit in order to focus on the arts component in the Symons Report. I know, as an aside, that Tom Symons has a special concern that the arts should have a suitably high place in the realm of Canadian Studies. To begin boldly, it is my estimation not only that the universities and colleges, as a whole, have failed to provide a suitably high status for Canadian arts study and practice, but that the failure to do so is serious, even tragic. There is not enough taught about Canadian arts; there is not nearly enough research on Canadian artists and art subjects; there is not enough campus arts activity that has a Canadian source or theme. Because the university community doesn't direct enough attention to Canadian arts, it is unable to lead the non-academic community towards developing a proper interest, respect and pride in Canadian artistic achievements. If Symons is right, the irony is that the students seem to be ready to study and to participate, but the academic /administrative system of decision-making persists in denying them the opportunity. Though Symons and his colleagues would make such statements in a much more moderate way, the facts they reveal are accusatory enough: -one university offers 60 graduate courses in English literature but only one in Canadian literature. -historical studies do little enough with Canadian history but Canadian cultural history is almost totally ignored. -in a country like Canada where multiculturalism is so critical an element in our social-political 100 structure, astoundingly little attention is given to Canadian folklore. (There are 170 folklore departments in universities in the USA.) -of 10 universities teaching architecture, only 5 offer even one course in Canadian architecture and only 3 provide analytical studies of Canadian buildings. -at long last, one university can offer graduate studies in Canadian art history. -too few of our universities provide enough arts studies (only one has a faculty of fine arts that covers as many as 5 arts fields) but even in these the Canadian component is greatly undernourished. The list can go on. None of the 50 or so areas of academic study covered by the Symons Report gives a reasonable amount of attention to the Canadian aspect of these subjects. In the field of the arts, this neglect is alarming. This is not to say that nothing is happening or that all academic institutions are equally indifferent . But why must we be thankful for a handful of research projects on Canadian arts because a few years ago there were none? Why should we feel smug that we no longer have to hide a course in music by Canadians within an "acceptable" course entitled "Music of the Americas" as was the case too recently? Why do we still not have biographies about Sir Ernest MacMillan or Healey Willan? And I suppose we will be told that it is much too early to worry about biographies of living artists. The Report repeatedly makes the point, which I endorse completely, that in pushing for an increase in the Canadian factor within curricula and research, there is no desire to place academic interest within a chauvinistic frame. It's a matter of reasonable balance. It is not, however, reasonable to accept and condone a situation where a country as developed, as important, as rich as Canada should devote so little attention to its own culture and to education about itself. I cannot imagine a French child or a Spanish student not knowing a lot about their great painters and composers, not delivering oral compositions with patriotic fervour about their opera house or national museums, or about the Revue d,etudes canadiennes role of their writers in the evolution of their country. Their parents wouldn't stand for it. Even in the new world, the Mexican or Argentinian finds a prominent place in his national awareness for the great cultural institutions and...