Deanna Reder

Professor
English

Education

  • MA (York University)
  • PhD (UBC)

Biography

Deanna Reder (Cree-Métis) is a Professor in the Departments of Indigenous Studies and English at Simon Fraser University. Her research is on the neglected Indigenous literary archive, initially funded by SSHRC in a project called "The People and the Text: Indigenous Writing in Northern North America up to 1992" (see www.thepeopleandthetext.ca). Her 2022 monograph, Autobiography as Indigenous Intellectual Tradition: Cree and Métis âcimisowin, is the recipient of the 2022 Gabrielle Roy Prize for Canadian literary criticism (English section) awarded by the Association for Canadian and Quebec Literatures (ACQL).

She is a founding member of the Indigenous Literary Studies Association (2013), the Indigenous Editors Association (2019), and a founding co-chair of the Indigenous Voices Awards from 2018-2023. In fall 2018, she was inducted into the College of New Scholars, Artist, & Scientists in the Royal Society of Canada.

*She is currently on sabbatical and returns to the classroom in Fall 2024.

Courses

This instructor is currently not teaching any courses.

Selected Publications

Books

Autobiography as Indigenous Intellectual Tradition: Cree and Métis âcimisowina. Wilfrid Laurier UP, 2022. 

Honouring the Strength of Indian Women: Plays, Stories, Poems by Vera Manuel. Eds. Michelle Coupal, Deanna Reder, Joanne Arnott, and Emalene Manuel. U of Manitoba P, 2019.  

Read, Listen, Tell: Indigenous Stories from Turtle Island. Eds. Sophie McCall, Deanna Reder, David Gaertner and   Gabrielle Hill. Wilfrid Laurier UP, 2017.  

Learn, Teach, Challenge: Approaching Indigenous Literatures. Eds. Deanna Reder and Linda M. Morra. Wilfrid Laurier    UP, 2016.  

Troubling Tricksters: Revisioning Critical Conversations. Eds. Deanna Reder and Linda M. Morra. Wilfrid Laurier UP,  2010.  

Journals

Co-edited, with Michelle Coupal, as guest editors, a Special Double Issue on “How We Teach Indigenous Literatures” in Studies in American Indian Literature 34 (1-2): Spring-Summer 2022.

Co-edited, with Sophie McCall, the fiftieth anniversary special issue: Indigenous and Postcolonial Studies.  Ariel: a Review of International English Studies 51 (2-3):  June 2020

Book Chapters

“First Peoples, Indigeneity and Teaching Indigenous Writing in Canada” with Margery Fee. Decolonizing the English Literary Curriculum, edited by Ato Quayson and Ankhi Mukherjee. Cambridge University Press Syndicate, 2023, 60-79.     

“The People and the Text: An Inclusive Collection” Collections Thinking: Ontologies, Agents, Communities, eds. with Margery Fee. Edited by Jason Camlot, Martha Langford, and Linda M. Morra. Routledge, 2023.  292-305. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003282303

“Recuperating Indigenous Narratives: Making Legible the Documenting of Injustices” The Other Side of 150, eds. Linda M. Morra and Sarah Henzi. Wilfrid Laurier UP, 2021. 27-40.

“Indigenous Autobiography in Canada: Recovering Intellectual Traditions.” The Oxford Handbook of Canadian  Literature. Ed. Cynthia Sugars. Oxford UP, 2016. 170-190.

Articles

“A Call to Teach Indigenous Literatures” co-authored with co-editor Michelle Coupal. Studies in American Indian Literature 34:1-2 (Spring-Summer 2022): ix-xxi

“Using Indigenous-Informed Close-Reading to Unlearn: Teaching Indigenous Perspectives of History in Literature.” Studies in American Indian Literature 34:1-2 (Spring-Summer 2022): 59-74, 245-250

“Indigenous and Postcolonial Studies: Tensions and Interrelationships, Creative and Critical Interventions”  with Sophie McCall. Ariel: a Review of International English Studies 51.2-3 (April-July 2020): 1-25

“Conversations at the Crossroads: Indigenous and Black Writers Talk” Edited by Sophie McCall, with David Chariandy, Karrmen Crey, Aisha Sasha John, Cecily Nicholson, Samantha Nock, Juliane Okot Bitek, Madeleine Reddon, Ariel: a Review of International English Studies 51.2-3 (April-July 2020):  57-82

“‘I write this for all of you’: Recovering the Unpublished RCMP ‘Incident’ in Maria Campbell’s Halfbreed ( 1973).” with Alix Shield. Canadian Literature #237 (2019): 13-25, 184.

"Native American Autobiography: Connecting Separate Critical Conversations," Lifewriting Annual 4  (December 2015): 35-63

 “On Both Sides of the 49th Parallel: Indigenous Scholarship in Opposition to Postcolonial Critique,” The Global South 9.1 (Spring 2015): 45-51

“A Complex Web of Relations that Extends Beyond the Human,” Journal of Chinese Philosophy 39:4 (December 2012): 507-517

“Thinking Together: A Forum of Jo-Ann Episkenew’s Taking Back our Spirits: Indigenous Literature, Public Policy and   Healing.” Co-Edited with Susan Gingell.Canadian Literature (2012): 91-127

“What’s Not in the Room?: A Response to Julia Emberley’s Defamiliarizing the Aboriginal.” Topia: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies 23-24 (2010): 406-415

“Canadian Indian Literary Nationalism?: Critical Approaches in Canadian Indigenous Contexts—A Collaborative Interlogue” with Kristina Fagan, Daniel Heath Justice, Keavy Martin, Sam McKegney, Deanna Reder and Niigonwewedom Sinclair. Canadian Journal of Native Studies 29.1/2 (2009): 19-44

Editor-Reviewed Publications

Books

Nest, Michael with Deanna Reder and Eric Bell. Cold Case North: The Search for James Brady and Absolom Halkett.  U of Regina P, 2020.

Introduction

“About the Indigenous Voices Awards” with Sophie McCall in Carving Space: The Indigenous Voices Awards Anthology, edited by Jordan Abel, Carleigh Baker, and Madeleine Reddon. McClelland & Stewart, 2023, v-ix.

Invited Publications

Articles in Journals

Okot-Bitek, Juliane and Kesha Febrier, Vidya Shah, Sue Shon, Deanna Reder, Jules Gill-Peterson. “Critical Race Theory Today: A Roundtable Conversation”Journal of Critical Race Inquiry 9:2 (2022)  https://jcri.ca/index.php/CRI/article/view/16273

Reder, Deanna, Sophie McCall, Sam McKegney, Sarah Henzi, and Warren Cariou. “Introduction” Special  Section- Carrying the Fire: Celebrating Indigenous Voices of Canada, Alaska Quarterly Review 36: 3 & 4. (Winter & Spring 2020): 190-198

“The New Turf of Indigenous Lit: on Tomson Highway’s From Oral to Written,https://bcbooklook.com/2018/03/30/the-new-turf-of-indigenous-lit/

“Exploding the Canon: The Founding of the Indigenous Literary Studies Association,” WRITE: the magazine for the Writers’ Union of Canada (Fall 2017): 24.

“‘Awina Maga Kiya’ (Who is it that you really are)?: Cree and Metis Autobiographical Writing,” Canadian Literature (2010): 131-134.