Pamela Banting

PAMELA BANTING, B.A., Cert. Ed., M.A. (Manitoba), Ph.D. (Alberta).

I have published two poetry chapbooks, Running Into the Open and Bareback as well as creative nonfiction essays, a book of literary theory, Body Inc.: A Theory of Translation Poetics (1995), and an anthology of contemporary western-Canadian writing about nature, landscape and sense of place entitled Fresh Tracks: Writing the Western Landscape (1998). As the Research Associate in charge of the Dorothy Livesay Papers, I organized the Dorothy Livesay archives at the University of Manitoba and co-wrote The Dorothy Livesay Papers (1986).

My current research interests are in Canadian and western North American literature, interdisciplinary and cultural studies, especially nature writing and environmental literature and ecotheory. For example, I conduct research, teach courses and supervise graduate work on such topics as theories of 'the animal,' writing about landscapes, the question of setting, local knowledge in a global world, writing the rural, settlers and nomads, the poetics of place and space, wilderness and wilder places, wild animal stories, extinction narratives, literature of the Canadian and American Wests, and environmental activism in literature. I also have an ongoing interest in what I have called 'translation poetics', as well as writing the body or corporeal theory.

I also teach courses in literary theory, Canadian literature, creative nonfiction, and creative writing.

In 2003-2005 I was the first Canadian to serve on the Executive Council of the inernational Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment (ASLE). I have since started a Canadian affiliate, the Association for Literature, the Environment and Culture in Canada (ALECC). Please visit our website at http://www.alecc.ca/ for more information about ALECC and to browse our newlsetter The Goose.

Writers, artists in all disciplines, professors, and graduate students working in the environmental arts, ecotheory or ecocriticism may wish to subscribe to the ALECC listserv. To subscribe, go to:

http://mailman.ucalgary.ca/mailman/listinfo/asle-canada-l

I am currently working on two projects: a collection of creative nonfiction essays about the Swan River Valley in northwestern Manitoba; a literary and cultural study of the Russell family; and a book of my selected critical essays.

Several of the essays from my manuscript about the Swan River Valley have won first, second and third prize in various Prarie Fire Literary Journalism competitions and been published in that magazine, and others are forthcoming in tow anthologies, Shaking the Dreamland Tree, ed. Adris Taskans (fall 2007), and Growing Up Rural, ed. Pam Chamberlain (fall 2008). Several of my creative nonfiction essays have also been nominated for Western Magazine Awards.

The Andy and Kay Russell family began as guides and outfitters in the area of Waterton Lakes National Park and went on to become environmental activists, wildlife documentary filmmakers, photographers, biologists, bear and caribou experts, and writers. Several of my articles on Andy Russell and Charlie Russell are forthcoming in essay collections.

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