University of Calgary

Pamela Banting

  • Associate Professor

Professional Description

Dr. Pamela Banting, B.A., Cert. Ed., M.A. (Manitoba), Ph.D. (Alberta).

Research

My current research and teaching are centered in the following fields:  

Environmental Literature, Eco-Theory and Ecocriticism
The Anthropocene Imaginary
Energy Humanities; Petrocultural Studies
Canadian Literature
Animal Studies; Animality; Multispecies Communities
Creative Writing 

I conduct research, teach courses and supervise graduate work in the environmental humanities; climate change and other challenges presented by living in the Anthropocene; the energy humanities or petrocultural studies; theories of 'the animal' and animality, particularly wild animals; multispecies communities; sense or spirit of place; rethinking notions of land and landscape; geography and/in literature; local knowledge in a global world; the literature of walking and other forms of locomotion (also known as psychogeography); extinction narratives; and elemental ecocriticism. 

Forthcoming and recent publications:

"From Beowulf through Virginia Woolf to the Coastal Wolves of British Columbia: Animals, Interdisciplinarity and the Environmental Humanities." The Goose, 18.2, (2020).

“Anim-Oils: Wild Animals in Petro-Cultural Landscapes.” On Active Grounds: Agency and Time in the Environmental Humanities. Robert Boschman and Mario Trono, eds. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier UP, 2019. 

Landscape as Alibi: Extracting Common Cause in the Energy Landscapes of Alberta.” Special issue on The Commons, The Goose 15.2 (2017): 4 – 6:  

Walking Through Lightning:  A Peripatetic Bioregional Reading of a Novel.” PAN: Philosophy, Activism, Nature 12 (2016): 179 -94. 

“Happy Camping:  Reading by Flashlight 2005 – 2015.”  Reflections on the first ten years of the Association for Literature, the Environment and Culture in Canada (ALECC) and the current state and the future of ecocriticism in Canada. The Goose 14.2 (2016):  3 – 5.  Web. 

"Ecocriticism in Canada." Oxford Handbook of Canadian Literature. Ed. Cynthia Sugars. London and Toronto: Oxford UP, 2015. 727 – 54. 

"Humming Along with the Bees: A Few Words on Cross-Pollination." Sustaining the West: Cultural Responses to Canadian Environments. Eds. Liza Piper and Lisa Szabo-Jones. Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier UP, April 2015. 325 – 30. 

"Colony Collapse Disorder: Settler Dreams, the Climate Crisis, and Canadian Literary Ecologies." Studies in Canadian Literature 39.1 (2014): 5 – 20. 

"The Ontology and Epistemology of Walking: Animality in Karsten Heuer’s Being Caribou: Five Months on Foot with an Arctic Herd."  Greening the Maple: Canadian Ecocriticism in Context. Ed. Ella Soper-Jones and Nicholas Bradley.  Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2013.  407 - 435.  

"Geography as Intertext: Toward a Non-Representational Reading of Thomas Wharton’s Novel Icefields."  Process: Landscape and Text.  Eds. Catherine Brace and Adeline Johns-Putra.  Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2010.  285 – 307. 

"Magic is Afoot: Hoof Marks, Paw Prints and the Problem of Writing Wildly." Animal Encounters.  Eds. Tom Tyler and Manuela Rossini.  Leiden, Netherlands, and Boston, MA: Brill Publishers, 2009.  27 – 44.

"From Grizzly Country to Grizzly Heart: The Grammar of Bear-Human Interactions in the Work of Andy Russell and Charlie Russell." Wild Words: Essays on Alberta Literature.  Eds. George Melynk and Donna Coates.  Athabasca, AB: Athabasca UP 2009. 159 – 72. 

"Abandoning the Fort: Cultural Difference and Biodiversity in Canadian Literature and Criticism." Teaching North American Environmental Literature. MLA Options for Teaching Series. Eds. Laird Christensen, Mark C. Long, Fred Waage. New York: Modern Language Association, 2008. 112 - 25. 

A few recent book reviews: 

Rev. of Energy Culture: Art and Theory on Oil and Beyond. Eds. Imre Szeman and Jeff Diamanti. West Virginia UP, 2019. Ariel, submitted January 12, 2021.  Accepted by reviews editor, Jan. 15, 2021. 

“Translations from the Ursine.” Rev. of Talking with Bears: Conversations with Charlie Russell, by G.A. Bradshaw. Alberta Views 23.8 (2020): 59.

"Thinking About and Thinking With the Environmental Humanities." Review. of Environmental Humanities: Voices from the Anthropocene, eds. Serpil Oppermann and Serenella Iovino. The Goose 16.2 (2018):  

Leave It in the Ground: Bitumen, Literature and Locative Thought.” Review of Unsustainable Oil: Facts, Counterfacts and Fictions, by Jon Gordon.  The Goose 16.1 (2017): 

Review of Found in Alberta: Environmental Themes for the Anthropocene, ed. Robert Boschman and Mario Trono. University of Toronto Quarterly 86.3 (2017).

Whose Entanglements? The Problems of Transnational Wildlife Conservation Theory.” Review of Wildlife in the Anthropocene:  Conservation After Nature, by Jamie Lorimer. The Goose 15.1 (2016):  

Review of The Cougar: Beautiful, Wild and Dangerous, by Paula Wild. Pacific Northwest Quarterly. 2015.  

Review of The Once and Future World: Nature As It Was, As It Is, As It Could Be, by J. B. MacKinnon.  The Goose 13.1 (2014):  

Review of The Energy of Slaves: Oil and the New Servitude, by Andrew Nikiforuk, The Goose (Fall 2013): 

Work-in-Progress: 

“H2Ocean: The Wet Ontology and Blue Ethics of Sue Goyette’s Ocean.”  Studies in Canadian Literature, in press (forthcoming May 2021).

“Becoming Fish: Settler Deeds and Misdeeds, Salmon Rules and Resilience, Multispecies Justice and Resistance in Gail Anderson-Dargatz’s Novel The Spawning Grounds.”  Under review. 

Plenary speaker.  “ ‘Backdrop Addresses Cowboy’: Aesthetic Backdrops, Energy Landscapes and Decolonizing the Underground.” Making Common Causes: Crises, Conflict, Creation, Conversation, Association for Literature, the Environment and Culture in Canada Conference, Queen’s University, June 15 – 18, 2016. 

 

Editorial work:

2013       Guest Editor, Canadian Literary Ecologies, special issue of Studies in Canadian Literature 39.1 (2014).

2011       Editorial Advisory Board, Canada and Beyond Journal (Spain)

2008       Editorial Advisory Board, Journal of Ecocriticism          

2007       Editorial Advisory Board, The Brock Review

2007      Editorial Advisory Board, Lake: A Journal of Arts and the Environment,

             House of Anansi Press

             Contemporary Verse Two Magazine

                 

 

Curriculum Vitae

 

 

Degrees

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