Periods:

20th-Century Canadian
20th-Century North American 

Interests and Approaches:

Poetics
Culture & Theory
Critical Race & Gender Studies
Digital Humanities

Current Research:

In my own work I am deeply committed to interdisciplinary, nomadic thinking. This is perhaps partly due to my nomadic life growing up between the Southern United States and Southern Ontario. Crossing borders has become practice and praxis for me in my research and my teaching. Broadly, my research falls under the terms stated: poetics, culture & theory, critical race & gender studies, and digital humanities. Put more specifically, in my work I consider how cultural production can be—and has been—transformative.

I locate my work within a Canadian context but, like the subjects and texts I study, I understand the nation in transnational contexts. I’ve been interested in the loosely connected concepts of collaboration, cultural production, and the intersections between academia and the public sector since beginning my graduate career at McGill University where I worked on a bilingual collaborative research project, the Gabrielle Roy Research Group.

All of my work stems from a deep-seated commitment to bringing together collaboration, cultural production, and a consideration of publics to read Canadian culture.

I have three research projects currently underway:

“Collapsible Commons: Canadian Women, Cultural Production and Making National Narratives” is a pilot project for the Canadian Writing Research Collaboratory (CWRC pronounced ‘quirk’). This project considers a range of interdisciplinary work by women in the Canadian context to ask how they create spaces for what Rey Chow calls ‘responsible engagement.’ In addition to creating a digital archive and mapping project I am in the process of writing a companion critical manuscript. 

“Caesura: Archiving Turns in Canadian Poetics” is a joint project with Dr. Travis Mason (Dalhousie). In this manuscript project we examine a set of questions surrounding the discourse of poetry and poetics in Canada, particularly discourse that occurs outside of the traditional scholarly formats. How, we ask, does poetry inhabit other genres and media in order to gesture toward conversation relevant to political, cultural, and historical moments? How do commentators in public and academic circles construct a space for poetry to inhabit?

I am a collaborator on a SSHRC Research/Creation Grant entitled “Tracing the City: Interventions of Art in Public Space.” This project came about when we asked ourselves what happens when the private experience of art is disrupted, unsettled or reframed by the chance encounters and events of the public space of the city? Conversely, what happens when modes of production of art are opened up so that the public can intervene in processes of creation? The Principle Investigators are two artists – Solomon Nagler (NSCAD), a film-maker, and Kim Morgan (NSCAD), a sculptor/installation artist – and one social scientist –Dr. Martha Radice (Dalhousie), an urban anthropologist . I am one of three named collaborators (the others are Christopher Kaltenbach (NSCAD), an interdisciplinary designer, and Ellen Moffat, an independent sound artist). Together we will embark on a sustained, integrated collaboration in processes of research and creation to explore these questions.

Teaching:

Put simply, I love teaching.

My pedagogical strategy in all the courses I teach is to stress the necessity of developing critical reading and thinking skills through an incorporation of close textual analysis and instruction in cultural and theoretical contexts. In the classroom I emphasize the importance of both established critical and analytic methodologies and the integration of fresh and original interactions with literature. This has led me to expand the definition of “text” beyond the traditional work of literature to include non-literary texts (such as Inuk throat singing or installation work).

LEADER, EMERGENT SCHOLARS GROUP (CWRC):
In addition to providing a pilot project (Collapsible Commons) for the Collaboratory I am also the Leader Emergent Scholars Group, meaning that I recruit and provide support and training for new and emergent scholars of Canadian literature and culture whose projects would benefit from an online presence and digital resources. One of CWRC’s core beliefs is in creating space and support for new scholars.

HOOK & EYE: FAST FEMINISM, SLOW ACADEMY:
I write a collaborative academic blog with Heather Zwicker (U Alberta) and Aimee Morrison (U Waterloo). You can read the blog here.

Selected Publications:

“Feverish Futures.” Not Drowning But Waving: Feminism and the Liberal Arts. Ed. Jo-Ann Wallace, Susan Brown, Heather Zwicker, and Jeanne Perreault. U Alberta P, 2011. 131-42.
“O Little Expressway: Sina Queyras and the Traffic of Subversive Hope.” ESC Spec. Issue on Traffic. Ed. Cecily Devereux and Mark Simpson 36.1 (March 2010): 37-57.
“The. Women.: The Subjects of Marie Clements’s The Unnatural and Accidental Women and Carl Bessai’s Unnatural and Accidental.” Theatre Research in Canada Spec. Issue on Marie Clements Ed. Reid Gilbert 31.2 (Fall 2010): 164-81.
with Emily Carr. “Pre-Fix.” Spec. Issue “New Feminisms.” Matrix Ed. Karis Shearer and Melanie Bell 85 (Spring 2010): 32-39.
“Timing ‘I’: An investigation of the Autofictional I in Gail Scott’s Heroine.” English Studies in Canada 33.1-2 (2007): 147-64.

Edited Texts:

with Emily Carr. dANDelion Spec. Issue Hope on the Edge 35.1 (Fall 2009)

Awards:

Sessional and Part-Time Instructor Award of Excellence for Teaching 2010-2011
Research and Development Fund (Dalhousie) 2010
Community Service (U Calgary) 2008
Social Science and Humanities Doctoral Fellowship 2006-2008
Province of Alberta Graduate Scholarship 2005-2006