Sophie McCall

Education

• BA (Queen's)
• MA (UBC)
• PhD (York)

Biography

My name is Sophie McCall, and I’m a settler scholar of Indigenous literatures. My research and teaching focus on how Indigenous writers challenge the violent histories of settler colonialism and use forms of expression to imagine and bring into reality narratives of continuity and resistance. I have published widely on topics such as textualizing oral history, the struggle for Indigenous rights, decolonization, resurgence, and reconciliation.

I am the author of First Person Plural: Aboriginal Storytelling and the Ethics of Collaborative Authorship (UBC P, 2011), which was a finalist for the Gabrielle Roy Prize for English Canadian literary criticism and the Canada Prize from the Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences for scholarly work in the Humanities. I am the editor of Anahareo’s Devil in Deerskins (U Manitoba P, 2014), the first book-length life narrative published by an Indigenous woman author in Canada, and co-editor of Indigenous and Postcolonial Studies, the 50th anniversary issue of Ariel: A Review of International English Literature (2020); Read, Listen, Tell: Indigenous Stories from Turtle Island (Wilfrid Laurier UP, 2017); The Land We Are: Artists and Writers Unsettle the Politics of Reconciliation (ARP Books, 2015); and Cultural Grammars of Nation, Diaspora, and Indigeneity in Canada (Wilfrid Laurier UP, 2012).

I am working on a SSHRC-funded project, with NunatuKavut scholar Kristina Bidwell, exploring Indigenous-led collaboration in Indigenous literary arts. I am the Director of the Masters of Arts for Teachers of English (MATE) and co-chair, with Deanna Reder (Cree-Métis), of the Indigenous Voices Awards (see indigenousvoicesawards.org).

Keywords:

Indigenous literatures; collaboration; relationality; resurgence; decolonization; graphic novels and comic books; residential school narratives; ethics of representation; textualizing orality; multidisciplinary Indigenous arts

Selected Publications:

Indigenous and Postcolonial Studies
Edited by Deanna Reder and Sophie McCall
Vol. 51 No. 2-3 (2020)
https://journalhosting.ucalgary.ca/index.php/ariel/issue/view/5165

Read, Listen, Tell: Indigenous Stories from Turtle Island
Edited by Sophie McCall, Deanna Reder, David Gaertner, & Gabrielle L’Hirondelle Hill
Wilfrid Laurier UP, 2017
www.wlupress.wlu.ca/Books/R/Read-Listen-Tell2

The Land We Are: Artists and Writers Unsettle the Politics of Reconciliation
Edited by Gabrielle L’Hirondelle Hill and Sophie McCall
Arbeiter Ring Press, 2015
https:// arpbooks.org/Books/T/The-Land-We-Are

Anahareo, Devil in Deerskins: My Life with Grey Owl
Edited by Sophie McCall
University of Manitoba Press, 2014
https://uofmpress.ca/books/detail/devil-in-deerskins

Cultural Grammars of Nation, Diaspora, and Indigeneity in Canada
Edited by Christine Kim, Sophie McCall, and Melina Baum Singer
Wilfrid Laurier UP, 2012
www.wlupress.wlu.ca/Books/C/Cultural-Grammars-of-Nation-Diaspora-and-Indigeneity-in-Canada2

First Person Plural: Aboriginal Storytelling and the Ethics of Collaborative Authorship
UBC P, 2011
www.ubcpress.ca/first-person-plural

Recent Articles:

• “Reconsidering Fanon’s Language of Recognition in Indigenous Studies.” Partisan Universalism: Essays in Honour of Ato Sekyi-Otu. Ed. Gamal Abdel-Shehid and Sofia Noori. Daraja P, 2021. 47-62.

• “Indigenous Writing in Canada.” The Cambridge History of Native American Literature. Ed. Melanie Benson Taylor. Cambridge UP, 2020. 327-348.

• “Indigenous and Postcolonial Studies: Tensions and Interrelationships, Creative and Critical Interventions” (co-authored with Deanna Reder). 50th anniversary issue of ARIEL: A Review of International English Literature, Vol. 51 No. 2-3 (2020): 1-25.

• “Conversations at the Crossroads: Indigenous and Black Writers Talk” (by David Chariandy, Karrmen Crey, Aisha Sasha John, Cecily Nicholson, Samantha Nock, Otoniya Juliane Okot Bitek, Madeleine Reddon, Deanna Reder, and edited by Sophie McCall). 50th anniversary issue of ARIEL: A Review of International English Literature, Vol. 51 No. 2-3 (2020): 57-81.

• “Re-Framing, De-Framing, and Shattering the Frames: Indigenous Writers and Artists on Representing Residential School Narratives.” Studies in American Indian Literatures (SAIL) vol. 32, no. 1-2 (2020): 1-25.

• ‘Carrying the Fire’: Celebrating Indigenous Voices of Canada: A Literary Anthology. Special Issue of Alaska Quarterly Review (co-edited and with an Introduction by Warren Cariou, Sarah Henzi, Sophie McCall, Sam McKegney, and Deanna Reder), Vol. 36, No. 3 & 4 (2020)

• “Case Study: Indigenous and Non-Indigenous Authors in Collaboration.” In Gregory Younging, Elements of Indigenous Style: A Guide for Writing By and About Indigenous Peoples. Brush Education, 2018. 32-35.

• “CanLit Guide: Marie Clements’s Burning Vision.” (co-authored with Christine Kim). CanLit Guides. 24 May 2018. http://canlitguides.ca/.

• Review, Dylan Robinson and Keavy Martin (editors), Arts of Engagement: Taking Aesthetic Action in and beyond the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier UP, 2016. English Studies in Canada Vols 43/44, No 4/1 (2017/2018): 195-99.

• “Land, Memory, and the Struggle for Indigenous Rights: Lee Maracle’s ‘Goodbye, Snauq.’” In Indigenous Literature and the Arts of Community. Edited by Sam McKegney and Sarah Henzi. Special Issue of Canadian Literature 230/230 (2017): 178-195.

Forthcoming:

• “Living on Unceded Indigenous Territories: Vancouver as a Site of Conflict in Building Alliance and Autonomy in Decolonial Struggles.” Land/Relations: Possibilities of Justice in Canadian Literatures. Ed. Smaro Kamboureli and Larissa Lai (Wilfrid Laurier UP).

• “Reframing Indigenous Comics and Graphic Novels.” Cambridge Companion to the Native American Novel. Ed. Melanie B. Taylor (Cambridge UP).

• “Teaching Indigenous Graphic Novels: English / Indigenous Studies 360.” How We Teach: Special Issue of Studies in American Indian Literatures (SAIL).

• Read, Listen, Tell: A Reader’s Guide. Website with teaching and learning resources (hosted by Wilfrid Laurier UP). www.readlistentellprod.wlupress.readerbound.com/

Current Graduate Student Supervision:

PhD students:
• Jaron Judkins, Indigenous Literary Studies and Mormon Settler Colonialism
• Mackenzie Ground (committee member), ôtenaw, Indigenous Urban Spaces

MATE students:
• Dave Kenny
• Elise Costa
• Michelle Jensen