{"id":10652,"date":"2022-06-14T07:55:53","date_gmt":"2022-06-14T11:55:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/canadianstudies\/?post_type=cu-people&p=10652"},"modified":"2025-09-05T14:55:56","modified_gmt":"2025-09-05T18:55:56","slug":"orly-lael-netzer-2","status":"publish","type":"cu-people","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/canadianstudies\/people\/orly-lael-netzer-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Orly Lael Netzer"},"content":{"rendered":"

Research<\/strong><\/p>\n

My research focuses on the public work of testimony in contemporary Canada. As a scholar of autobiography, memory, and cultural studies, I explore how audiences are invited to bear witness to difficult knowledge and histories of injury and harm through literary, visual and performance art.<\/p>\n

I turn to testimony because it outlines the relational and ethical stakes of this moment, shaping the dynamics between communities\u2019 protest and societal response. My research aims to better understand what it means to bear witness to testimony, and how relations between communities in the nation-state are shaped through the ways we listen and respond to each other\u2019s stories of protest. Interlacing diasporic, transnational, Indigenous, and intersectional feminist approaches, these questions guide my research on the politics of recognition, reconciliation, and redress in Canada, thinking through its colonial roots, neo-colonial risks, and de-colonial futurities.<\/p>\n

My current work turns to the intersection of life stories and mediation studies, examining the ethical tensions between emerging technologies and testimonial culture, asking how the use of new media and technology is pushing testimonial discourse to new frontiers and raising new questions on cultural memory and the ethics of bearing witness.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Teaching<\/strong><\/p>\n

My courses often focus on the ways that textual and visual culture shape\/ challenge\/ imagine national identity, the public role of collective memory and counter-memory in cultural institutions, and the uses of life stories as vehicles for socio-political change. With over a decade of university teaching experience, I approach my courses as active sites of learning, exploring Canadian Studies as a distinctly political site of inquiry that is formulated through its settler-colonial, diasporic, Indigenous, and transnational histories and trajectories. In so doing, my pedagogy uses critical humanities approaches to explore how cultural production is strategically mobilized to shape our ways of being with others, within and beyond the nation. Prior to joining the School I was an Assistant Lecturer at the University of Alberta (2017-2022) where I also served on the executive committee of the Canadian Literature Centre (2015-2017).<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Selected Publications<\/strong><\/p>\n

Edited books<\/u><\/p>\n

In Search of Right Relations: Ethics and Life Narratives.<\/em>\u00a0Wilfrid Laurier University Press. [under review].<\/p>\n

Trans Narratives: trans<\/em>, transmedia, transnational<\/em>. Co-edited with Anna Horvat, Sarah McRae, and Julie Rak. Routledge, 2021. (ISBN 9781032058436<\/a>)<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Peer reviewed journal articles<\/u><\/p>\n

\u201cOn Teaching Life Writing in an Age of Social Change.\u201d Co-authored with Amanda Spallacci. \u201cTeaching Life Writing: Theory, Methodology, and Practice\u201d special issue of a\/b: Auto\/Biography Studies<\/em> 37.3, 2022. doi: 10.1080\/08989575.2022.2154437<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cMaterial Weapons: Paratext, Ethics, and Testimony in Carmen Aguirre\u2019s\u00a0Something Fierce<\/em>.\u201d \u201cTestimonial Encounters in the Americas\u201d special issue of\u00a0AmLit \u2013 American Literatures<\/em>\u00a0edited by Molly Appel and Leila Pazargadi, 1.1 (Oct. 2021): 64-85.\u00a0doi: 10.25364\/27.1:2021.1.5<\/a>\u00a0[open access]<\/p>\n

\u201cA VR Empathy Machine:\u00a0Canada Reads<\/em>\u00a02019, Testimonial Transactions, and the Cunning of Affective Recognition.\u201d\u00a0Canadian Literature<\/em>, 242 (2020): 58-78. https:\/\/ojs.library.ubc.ca\/index.php\/canlit\/article\/view\/192411<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cCollaboration\u201d co-authored with Maria Faini and Emma Maguire, in \u201cWhat\u2019s Next? The Futures of Life Writing\u201d special issue of\u00a0a\/b: Auto\/Biography Studies<\/em>. 32.2 (2017): 247-250. doi:\u00a010.1080\/08989575.2017.1289017<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom Qallunaat to James Bay: An Interview with Mini Aodla Freeman, Keavy Martin, Julie Rak, and Norma Dunning\u201d co-authored with Rebecca Fredrickson, Brandon Kerfoot and Katherine Meloche.\u00a0Canadian Literature<\/em>\u00a0226 (Autumn 2015): 112-123. doi:\u00a0https:\/\/doi.org\/10.14288\/cl.v0i226.187571<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Edited special issues<\/u><\/p>\n

\u201cTeaching Life Writing: Theory, Methodology, and Practice\u201d a special issue of\u00a0a\/b: auto\/biography studies<\/em> 37.3 (2022). co-edited with Amanda Spallacci.<\/p>\n

\u201cAuto\/biography in Transit\u201d special issue of\u00a0Biography: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly<\/em>\u00a0co-edited with Jason Breiter, Lucinda Rasmussen, and Julie Rak, 38.1 (Winter 2015).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"template":"","meta":{"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"people-type":[35],"yoast_head":"\nOrly Lael Netzer - School of Canadian Studies<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/canadianstudies\/people\/orly-lael-netzer-2\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/canadianstudies\/people\/orly-lael-netzer-2\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/canadianstudies\/people\/orly-lael-netzer-2\/\",\"name\":\"Orly Lael Netzer - 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