Critical Conversations is a faculty research series organized by both the UBC Department of English Language and Literatures and the UBC English Graduate Student Caucus. The events aim to foster interdisciplinary dialogue across fields and periodization between students, faculty, and the larger university community. These events, which occur a handful of times over the course of the academic year, feature brief talks by speakers on a critical topic informed by their wide-ranging research expertise and interests.
“Discovery and Horror” comprises presentations from Drs. Margery Fee, David Gaertner and Daniel Heath Justice.
The in-person venue, Buchanan Tower Room 323, is wheelchair accessible. This event series is also available virtually via Zoom. Please indicate your attendance preference via the Registration form linked below.
Light refreshments will be made available for in-person attendees.
Speakers
Margery Fee
Margery Fee, FRSC, is a Professor Emerita of English. Recent publications are Literary Land Claims: The “Indian Land Question” from Pontiac’s War to Attawapiskat (Wilfrid Laurier UP, 2015); Tekahionwake: E. Pauline Johnson’s Writings on Native North America (Broadview, 2016) co-edited with Dory Nason; Polar Bear (Reaktion, 2019); and an edited collection of Jean Barman’s essays, On the Cusp of Contact: Gender, Space, and Race in the Colonization of British Columbia (Harbour, 2020). Her current book project attempts to show how mainstream beliefs about language, literacy and literature obscure important Indigenous ways of knowing. She is on the UBC Emeritus College Council and edits their newsletter, as well as the newsletter for the Volunteer Associates of the UBC Museum of Anthropology.
David Gaertner
David Gaertner is an assistant professor in the Institute for Critical Indigenous Studies and the co-Director of the CEDaR space: a community-centered new media and immersive storytelling lab. He writes, researches, and teaches new media, critical Indigenous studies; Indigenous literatures; contemporary Canadian literature, cultural theories of reconciliation, and speculative fiction. He has published articles in Canadian Literature, American Indian Research and Culture, and Digital Pedagogies in the Humanities, amongst others. He is the author of The Theatre of Regret: Literature, Art and the Politics of Reconciliation in Canada (UBC Press) and editor of Soykeyihta: The Poetry of Sky Dancer Louise Bernice Halfe (WLUP).
Daniel Heath Justice
‘siyo ginali. I’m an enrolled citizen of the Cherokee Nation, born and raised in Colorado. (See Statement of Indigenous Citizenship and Affiliation below.) Professionally, I work on unceded xʷməθkʷəy̓əm territory as Full Professor and Distinguished University Scholar in the Institute for Critical Indigenous Studies and Department of English Language and Literatures at UBC. I received my B.A. from the University of Northern Colorado and M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Before coming to UBC in 2012, I spent ten years as a faculty member in the Department of English at the University of Toronto in Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabe territory, where I was also an affiliate of the Aboriginal Studies Program.
My work in Indigenous cultural and literary studies takes up questions and issues of nationhood, kinship, and belonging, with increasing attention to the intersections between Indigenous literatures, speculative fiction, and other-than-human peoples. More information about my work can be found on my website.
