Leah Van Dyk

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).

Awards:

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

• Courses