Brenda Vellino

Research Interests:

• Twentieth-Century and Contemporary Poetry & Theatre Studies (Indigenous, Canadian, Transnational)
• Indigenous Multi-Media forms (theatre, graphic novels, stop motion animation, film)
• Critical Human Rights Humanities
• Environmental Humanities: Indigenous, Decolonial, Multi-Species Studies
• Gender, Sexuality, Critical Race, Intersectional Theories

I am a cross-appointed faculty member in English and the Human Rights and Social Justice program in The Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies. I welcome enquiries regarding supervisions in Indigenous cultural studies, transitional justice and cultural studies, contemporary poetry studies, and contemporary theatre studies.

I teach several courses for the environmental & climate humanities (EACH) minor in FASS, including Literary Ecological Fieldwork and the capstone seminar, EACH 4000.  My research is informed by decolonial priorities and Indigenous led land, water, and multi-species responsibilities and considers Indigenous storywork in theatre, popular culture, grassroots projects, and mapping work.   Currently, I am undertaking a collaborative story mapping project with geography colleague, Derek Smith, in partnership with members of the Algonquin Anishinaabe community of Kitigan Zibi.

Awards:

• CURO Development Grant, 2022-2024
• University Teaching Award, 2020
• CURO Development Grant, 2013-2015
• SSHRC 4A Grant, 2008-2009
• SSHRC 4A Grant, 2006-2007

Coordinator: Carleton Climate Commons Working Group, 2023-2024

Professional Membership: Indigenous Literary Studies Association, Canadian Association of Theatre Research, American Comparative Literature Association

Recent Publications:

“Apprenticeship Pedagogy for Teaching Indigenous Popular and Multi-Media Genres.” Studies in American Indian Literature, 32, nos. 1-2, 2022: pp. 163-82.

“Intervening in Settler Colonial Genocide: Restoring Métis Buffalo Kinship Memory in Amanda Strong’s `Four Faces of the Moon.’” Studies in American Indian Literature 32: 3-4 (2020): 149-75.

“`Re-Creation Stories’: Re-Presencing, Re-embodiment, and Repatriation Practices in Leanne Betasamosake Simpson’s “How to Steal a Canoe.” Journal of Canadian Native Studies. 2019.

“Restaging Indigenous – Settler Relations: Intercultural Theatre as Redress Rehearsal in Marie Clement’s and Rita Leistner’s The Edward Curtis Project.”Theatre Research in Canada. 38.1 (Spring 2017): 92-111.

“Beyond the Trauma Aesthetic: The Cultural Work of Human Rights Witness Poetries.” Routledge Companion to Literature and Human Rights. Ed Sophia McClennan and Alexandra Schulteis Moore.  New York: Routledge, 2016.

“Cultivating Translocal Citizen Witness:  Contemporary Human Rights Poetry as `Remembrance/Pedagogy.’”  Options for Teaching: Human Rights and Literature. Eds. Alexandra Schulteis Moore and Elizabeth Goldberg.  New York: MLA: 2015.

— With Sarah Waisvisz. “The Steveston Noh Project as Redress Theatre from Below.”  Canadian Literature.  Spring 2013.

— With Sarah Waisvisz. “Yael Farber’s Molora and Colleen Wagner’s Monument as Post-Conflict Redress Theatre.” College Literature. 40.3 Summer 2013: 113-37.

Recent Papers:

“Confluencies: from Rita Wong’s Decolonial Watershed Poetics to Eco-Literary Fieldwork Pedagogy,” ALECC, U of Saskatchewan, June 2022.

“Repatriating Buffalo Kinship and Michif Intergenerational Memory in Amanda Strong’s Stop Motion Film, `Four Faces of the Moon.” ILSA, UBC, Vancouver, BC, June 2019.

“Grassroots `   Honouring Projects and Indigenous Women’s `Right to Presence’: Embodied Territorial Sovereignty in `The REDress Project.” ILSA, First Nations University of Canada, Treaty 4 Territory, May 2018.

“Intimate Relations: Living Contextual Practices of “Intergenerational Memory” in Leanne Simpson’s `How to Steal a Canoe’.” Indigenous Literary Studies Assoc., Sto: lo First Nation Territory, Chiliwack, B.C., June 2017.

“Witnessing Alongside Indigenous Memorial Spaces and Ceremonial Practices.” CACLALS, U of Calgary, May 2016.

“Indigenous Women’s Rights in an Era of Settler Apology.” Human Rights Lit. Seminar, ACLA, Harvard, March 2016.

Graduate Courses

• 2022 Transnational Theatre: Conflict, Crisis, Bordercrossings on the Contemporary Stage
• 2021 Restorying Resurgence in Indigenous Popular and Multi-Media Genres

Seminars

• EACH 4000: Reorientations: Decolonial, Environmental, Multi-Species, Climate Change Humanities
• HUMR 4907:  Special Topic in Human Rights: Indigenous Human Rights through a Cultural Lens

Supervisions:

• Emma D’amico, Ph.D. Dissertation Co-Supervisor, Environmental Humanities, In Progress.
• Hong Ngyuen, Ph.D. Dissertation Supervisor, Gender & Sexuality in Virtual Novels, In Progress
• Steve McLeod. Ph.D. Dissertation Supervisor. Resurgence and Storywork Analyses of Representations of the Indigenous-non-Indigenous Relationship, 2019.
• Sarah Waisvisz, Ph.D. Dissertation Committee Member. Dissident Diasporas: Genres of Maroon Witness in Anglophone and Caribbean Literature. 2014.
• Rob Winger, Ph.D. Dissertation Co-Supervisor.  John Thompson, Phyliss Webb and the Roots of the Free Verse Ghazal in Canada. 2009.
• Sam Bean, MRP, Indigenous-Settler Relations, 2023.
• Chris Johnson, MRP, Canadian Poetry (Phyllis Webb), 2014.