Dr. Jim Ellis
Positions
Professor
Contact information
Background
Educational Background
BA English, University of New Brunswick, 1986
BSc(CS) Computer Science, University of New Brunswick, 1985
MA English, University of New Brunswick, 1988
PhD English, York University, 1995
Biography
I am professor of English at the University of Calgary and director of the Calgary Institute for the Humanities, Canada’s oldest humanities institute. I teach sixteenth-century poetry and prose, on which I have written numerous essays and books, including most recently The Poem, the Garden and the World: Poetry and Performativity in Elizabethan England (Northwestern UP, 2023). My current project looks at the role of plants in The Faerie Queene. I have also taught and published on British film, with a focus on queer directors such as Terence Davies, Isaac Julien, and most extensively, Derek Jarman; in addition to essays in this area, I published Derek Jarman’s Angelic Conversations (Minnesota UP, 2009).
As director of the CIH, I have edited a series of books on the environmental humanities: Calgary: City of Animals (2017); Water Rites: Reimagining Water in the West (2018); and Intertwined Histories: Plants in their Social Contexts (2019). With Noreen Humble, I co-edited Mythologies of Outer Space (2025). I am the series editor of the Calgary Atlas Project, which produces maps of alternative or forgotten histories of Calgary. I also write about contemporary art, most recently for the magazine Border Crossings.
Research
Areas of Research
Participation in university strategic initiatives
Awards
- SSHRC Connection Grant: “Energy Sovereignty, Energy Security, Energy Justice”, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. 2023
- Calgary Foundation Community Grant: Calgary Atlas Project, Calgary Foundation. 2020
- SSHRC Connection Grant: “Energy and Scale”, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. 2019
- SSHRC Connection Grant: “Spectral Cities”, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. 2018
- CCKF-CHCI Summer Institute in Chinese Studies and Global Humanities, CHCI & the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange. 2018
- Great Supervisor Award, University of Calgary Faculty of Graduate Studies. 2017
- SSHRC Standard Research Grant, “Gardens, Space and Motion in Spenser’s Faerie Queene”, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. 2010
Publications
- Sexuality and Citizenship: Metamorphosis in Elizabethan Erotic Verse. University of Toronto Press. (2003)
- Derek Jarman's Angelic Conversations. University of Minnesota Press. (2009)
- Calgary: City of Animals. University of Calgary Press. (2017)
- Water Rites: Reimagining Water in the West. University of Calgary Press. (2018)
- Intertwined Histories: Plants in their Social Context. Jim Ellis, editor. University of Calgary Press. (2019)
- The Poem, the Garden and the World. Northwestern University Press. (2023)
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