Picture of Leah Van Dyk

Leah Van Dyk

Pronouns: she/her

Positions

PhD Candidate

Faculty of Arts , Department of English

Student Assistant

Libraries and Cultural Resources

Contact information

Email

leah.vandyk@ucalgary.ca

Web presence

Twitter

Location

Office: SS1033

Background

Educational Background

MA English, University of Calgary, 2019

BA Honours English, University of Calgary, 2018

Biography

My primary research interests are located around the environmental humanities and radical revisionings of being in community — both pedagogically and practically — as a model of literary practice. My current work explores the intersections of environmental narratives, activism, and land-based embodied rhetorics of resistance. I am a Killam Laureate (2020-2022) and hold a Joseph-Armand Bombardier SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship: https://grad.ucalgary.ca/news/english-student-explores-how-we-understand-climate-change-through-narrative.

I have forthcoming research on environmental vulnerabilities, marginalized bodies, and climate crisis in Jesmyn Ward's Salvage the Bones (book chapter forthcoming, early 2023) and the ecoGothic and vegetal horror in Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle (co-authored with Amy LeBlanc).

Some recent publications include:

  • Nature as radical space in queer young adult narratives (Research on Diversity in Youth Literature)
  • Archival practice and public-facing pedagogy in Canadian audio archives (English Studies in Canada)
  • Eco-conscious memory and the power of story (Herbaria 3.0)

I am currently a researcher on the SSHRC-funded, multi-institutional SpokenWeb project: https://spokenweb.ca/mistakes-in-the-sound-archive-an-interview-with-leah-van-dyk/.

I am also the former Director (2020-2022), President (2019-2020), and member of the Anti-Racism and Decolonization Community Collective (ARDCC) of the English Department Graduate Association (EDGA).

Research

Areas of Research

Environmental Literature and Eco-Criticism, Indigenous Literatures, Cultural Studies, Pedagogy, Gender and Sexuality

Courses

Course number Course title Semester
ENGL 253.02 Poetry Winter 2022
ENGL 509/677 - non-marking Remediating the Archive Winter 2022
ENGL 265 Intro to Creative Writing Fall 2021
ENGL 251 Literature and Society Winter 2021
ENGL 251 Literature and Society Fall 2020
ENGL 405 - Non-marking Middle English Literature: The Canterbury Tales Spring 2020
ENGL 307 Literature After 1700 Winter 2020
ENGL 305 Literature Before 1700 Fall 2019

Awards

  • Izaak Walton Killam Pre-Doctoral Scholarship, Killam Laureates. 2020
  • Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship Doctoral Award, SSHRC. 2020

Publications

  • Access and Public-Facing Pedagogy in Digital Archival Production. English Studies in Canada. Vol. 44, no. 2, pp. 37-51. (2020)
  • Into the Woods: Queer Natures in Malinda Lo’s Ash. Research on Diversity in Youth Literature. vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 1-22. (2021)
  • (De)composing Gothicism: Disturbing the (eco-)Gothic in Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle. Amy LeBlanc. Forthcoming. (2022)
  • Salvaging Vulnerabilities: Climate Crisis and Marginalized Bodies in Jesmyn Ward’s Salvage the Bones. Jesmyn Ward: New Critical Essays. (2022)