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Olivia (Liv) Abram (PhD Program)Olivia (Liv) Abram (she/her) is a settler doctoral candidate whose research focuses on practices and pedagogies of ethical reading, viewing, and listening in relation to engagement with Indigenous literatures. Through her work, she explores the potential of slow, humble, and self-reflective settler engagement with Indigenous literature, including written and oral narratives, but also multimodal and experiential story, such as those in graphic narrative, song, and place-based teachings. Her dissertation, “Read, View, Listen: Ethical Settler Engagements with Indigenous Literary Expression in Academic, Educational, and Public Contexts,” is supported in part by funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, The Literary Encyclopedia, and The Digital Research Alliance of Canada. Recent Publications:
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Elyn Achtymichuk-Hardy (PhD Program)Elyn is interested in culture and gender in both literature and film. Her current research is on the legacy of Cold War anxiety on the James Bond franchise, with respect to the way the "Bond formula" has evolved—or not—in terms of fear, sexuality, and racial representations. Her theoretical apparatus makes use of affect in relation to a kind of catharsis of anxiety which is achieved through the expression and production of societal fears. She has also delivered papers on the economics of Lord of the Rings and gender in Harry Potter. If she had spare time, she might coach high school debaters, collect vinyl records, or perhaps watch Lethal Weapon repeatedly (read: obsessively). |
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Amanda Burrows (PhD Program)
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Mabiana Camargo (PhD Program)Mabiana Camargo is interested in Canadian Speculative Fiction, Women’s literature, and Feminism. Her research, under the supervision of Professor Wendy Roy, focuses on ideas of space and gender in Margaret Atwood’s speculative writing. Mabiana comes from Brazil. |
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Alyson Cook (PhD Program)Alyson is a PhD student who holds both an MA and a BA (Hons.) in English from the University of Saskatchewan. Her research interests include 20th-century British and Commonwealth Literature written by women in the interwar period. Supervised under Dr. Ann Martin, Alyson’s current research analyzes the significance of the modernist epiphany in the short fiction of Katherine Mansfield, Virginia Woolf, and Mary Butts through a critical framework based in new materialism. Alyson’s research explores the importance of trivial, ordinary objects that are depicted in specifically domestic, everyday spaces associated with women that lead to epiphanic moments and demonstrate that their importance is not for their usefulness, but rather for their ability to undermine utilitarianism and patriarchal value systems and point to a different way of engaging with the world—including the non-human elements of the world. |
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Mark Doerksen (PhD Program)Mark is an instructor and Ph.D. candidate in the department, having received his M.A. in Medieval Studies from the Centre for Medieval Studies at the University of Toronto. His area of study includes Anglo-Saxon eschatological texts and the theological implications of philology in Anglo-Saxon religious poetry. He is currently working on his dissertation under Saint Thomas More College's Dr. Michael Cichon on the philological relationship between Anglo-Saxon eschatological poetry and the Germanic mythic tradition. |
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Rahul Gautham Veliyil Edwin (MFA in Writing Program)Rahul is an MFA-in-Writing student. He obtained his BA (Hons.) in English from the University of Saskatchewan. He has experience working as a transcriptionist, survey research assistant, minute-taker, sales associate, and editor of college magazines. Although he was introduced to literature through poetry, which he occasionally dabbles in, his current project focuses on prose; specifically, it is a novel set in a re-imagined 16th-century India. The novel can be crudely described as Robinhood meets Game of Thrones meets the Arthurian Legends. |
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Veronica Fabian (MFA in Writing Program)Veronica Jeanette Fabian is an MFA writing student who obtained their BA from the University of British Columbia. Veronica is interested in exploring the fantasy and sci-fi genre to demonstrate not only the various forms of magic in the world, but the deep connections we have with other people. Their minor in Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies offers a critical lens when writing about such well-established genres. Veronica’s current thesis project utilizes the fantasy genre as a backdrop to recognizing unhealthy familial relationships and discovering the language to name and navigate such toxic relationships. |
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Challen Gladman (MA Program)Challen (they/them) is an MA thesis student, an avid artist of many mediums, and an enthusiastic petter of cats. Having originally graduated with their BA (Honours English, French minor) from Vancouver Island University, BC, they now find themselves transplanted from Douglas to Treaty 6 Territory and the Homeland of the Métis to live and learn at USask -- and, as a settler scholar, they are grateful every day for the opportunity! They have particular interests in fiction, myth, story-telling, various literatures from the margins (notably those that speak to their own experiences as queer, non-binary, and neurodivergent), ethics, accessibility, and the overall pursuit of human happiness. Their present thesis work explores themes of landedness and place-thought as imbued into the alternative American settler-colonial narrative of Battlestar Galactica (2003-2009), beyond which they hope to expand into Ph.D. studies next year and, eventually, become an English professor. They're curious to see what life brings next... but as long as it comes with tea and a good book, they have no doubt it will all be worth it in the end! |
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Stephen Hardy (PhD Program)Stephen studies relationships between literature and music, and focuses on modern fiction. In 2017 he presented a talk on American author Richard Powers at the International Word and Music Studies conference in Stockholm, Sweden. He has taught ENG 114.3 Reading Culture: Literature and Music. His supervisors are Drs. Lindsey Banco and Ray Stephanson. |
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Tia Hendricks (MFA in Writing Program)Tia (she/her) is an MFA in writing student who has completed her B.A. Honours in English at the University of Saskatchewan. She is interested mainly in fantasy novels and creating magic for young readers. Her research focuses on mythology and the hero’s journey in Arthurian tales. The novel she is currently working on is a portal fantasy displaying a unique family bond with a female main character. |
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Lydie Hua (MA Program)Lydie Hua (they/them) is a settler MA Thesis student at the University of Saskatchewan. Lydie’s research focuses on the intersection of queer and diasporic poetry. Their interests include the poetic search for home and belonging for minorities in increasingly hostile/violent contexts of nationalism, assimilation, border-policing, and fascist definitions of who belongs. They are supervised by Dr. Jay Rajiva. |
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Lucy Chinyeaka Iwuala (MA Program)Lucy Iwuala holds a BA in English and Literary Studies from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. Her research focuses on African and Transnational/Diasporic literatures, with a specific interest in the conceptions of “home” and belonging within and beyond the African continent. Her work is deeply informed by her personal experience and active engagement with digital language activism and community management. Lucy is passionate about linguistic diversity and digitisation, having managed translation projects for Global Voices Lingua (Igbo) and coordinated cultural preservation initiatives with the Igbo Wikimedians Organisation. She has presented and moderated panels at international conferences, including Wikimania and WikiIndaba, on topics of digital language preservation and community resourcing. Under the supervision of Dr. Jay Rajiva, she will continue to develop her research on “home.” Contact: lucy.iwuala@usask.ca |
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Nicole Jacobson (PhD Program)Nicole is a PhD student. She completed her BA in English and German (double major) at the University of Regina and her MA in Applied Linguistics and Discourse Studies at Carleton University. She is interested in middlebrow modernism, especially detective and suspense fiction, and the linguistic and rhetorical construction of genre fiction more broadly. Her dissertation, which examines the intersection of genre and gender throughout Mary Stewart’s canon, is supervised by Dr. Ann Martin. |
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Morgen Jahnke (MFA in Writing)Morgen Jahnke (she/her) is an MFA in Writing student, primarily focused on poetry. Before recently moving back to her hometown of Saskatoon, she lived in Winnipeg, San Francisco, Vancouver, Paris, and San Diego. She holds a BFA in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia, and her work has appeared in Grain, Rhubarb, and The Magazine, and is forthcoming in Prairie Fire. |
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Vijay Kachru (PhD Program)
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Andrej Kiš (PhD Program)
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Jolena Klymyshyn (MFA in Writing)Jolena is an MFA student primarily writing fiction. She obtained her BA with a combined honours in Psychology and Creative Writing at the University of Kings College in Halifax. After five years living on the east coast, she is excited to be back in Saskatoon where she was born and raised. Jolena finds a lot of inspiration in history, the prairie landscape, and music. Her undergraduate research in psychology has left her intrigued by the mysteries of memory and the way in which memory is represented in literature. She is currently working on a novel for her thesis which delves into the nuances of familial relationships and memory. |
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Andreas Lohstraeter (MFA in Writing)Andreas earned a BSc in Biology and Environmental Studies (Double Major) at the University of Victoria. Through poetry, his work seeks to understand how our connection to landscape is influenced by history, personal experience, and the limits of language, as well as how we might begin to decolonize our relationship to place. |
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Douglas MacDonald (MFA in Writing)Douglas MacDonald (he/him) is a settler MFA student in Creative Writing. He earned his BA at the University of Alberta majoring in English with a minor in Creative Writing. His interest is interacting gothic short fiction with historical nonfiction. |
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Mikayla Marin (MFA in Writing)Mikayla is an MFA in writing student who earned her BA in English Literature and Creative Writing from Sonoma State University in California. For the past ten years, she’s built a career as a freelance food writer but has returned to pursue her love of fiction writing. Mikayla’s preferred genre is fantasy eco-fiction, and her work focuses on the complex interactions of civilization and society with the natural world. Current and historical real-world effects of climate change are often her inspiration. Mikayla currently lives in Saskatoon with her husband and two young children. |
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Shayne Metcalfe (MFA in Writing)Shayne Metcalfe is a filmmaker and cinephile who has directed or produced over 200 projects, with a particular affinity for feature-length cinema. His MFA work blends research in organizational dynamics, leadership, and business strategy with influences from 1970s and 1980s science fiction and 1990s film noir produced in Hollywood. Through a multi-class, ensemble-driven screenplay, Metcalfe explores speculative futures of neuro-implants, sentient technologies, and the ethics of human–machine relationships. His creative practice fuses trope and expectation into accessible, entertaining stories while interrogating the quantum state superposition of the screenplay itself, the tension between multiple narrative possibilities and the collapse of story into film. See Film credits on IMDb and @iseemovies on Instagram. |
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Jenna Miller (PhD Program)Jenna Miller’s (she/her) research focuses on contemporary life writing by women authors. She is interested in experimental narratives characterized by fragmentation, non-linearity, and genre-blurring. Under the supervision of Dr. Ella Ophir, Jenna examines the alternative structures and spaces women use to voice their stories. |
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Renelle Morelli (MFA in Writing)Renelle (she/her) is an MFA in Writing student who obtained her BA in English at the University of Saskatchewan with a minor in Studio Art. She is interested in historical and speculative fiction. Currently her research is on the lives of women in classical history and how their experiences were navigated and learned. |
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Ian Moy (PhD Program)Ian is a Ph.D. candidate whose research focuses on families and cultural conflict in Canadian literature. He is supervised by Dr. Wendy Roy |
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Banjo Olaleye (PhD Program)Banjo's area of study is Ignatius Sancho and 18th-century literature. He is supervised by Dr. Allison Muri. |
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Jasmine Redford (PhD Program)Jasmine is a Ph.D. student and teacher's assistant at the University of Saskatchewan whose research interests include Canadian literature, comics and visual culture scholarship, and the intersection of the two: Canadian comics scholarship. Under the supervision of Dr. Wendy Roy, she defended her thesis entitled "Chasing Captain Canada: National Identity Challenged Through Superheroes in Canadian Comic Books." She has obtained her B.F.A. with a major in visual art from the Emily Carr University of Art and Design in Vancouver and her B.A. (English Honours) and M.A. from USask. In addition, Jasmine, who signs her work as Minjaz, is an illustrator and has recently finished over one hundred and twenty-nine pages of hand-painted artwork for the graphic novel Siegfried: Dragon Slayer (2022)--a four-year project that was undertaken alongside her academic work at USask. |
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Gwen Rose (PhD Program)Gwen Rose (she/they) is a PhD candidate at the University of Saskatchewan. Gwen's research interests include modernism and the lived experience of marginalized peoples. Her dissertation combines these interests, examining the representation of transgender characters within literary modernism. Gwen is supervised by Dr. Ella Ophir. |
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Cara Schwartz (PhD Program)Cara Schwartz (she/her) is a settler doctoral student whose research is situated at the intersection of Black and Indigenous literary studies. She examines Black-Indigenous relations through their contemporary literatures to explore how they can co-exist and co-resist in the shared space of Turtle Island (North America). Under the co-supervision of Dr. Kristina Bidwell (NunatuKavut) and Dr. Jenna Hunnef (settler), Cara seeks to reveal the decolonial and relational potential of chaos across these two diverse fields. |
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Megan Solberg (PhD Program)Megan is a Ph.D. student who holds a B.A. (Honours) in English from the University of Saskatchewan and an M.A. in Literature from the University of Westminster (U.K.). Supervised by Dr. Ann Martin, her research examines the intersection of creative practice, marginalization, and suffering in the works of Katherine Mansfield, Dorothy L. Sayers, and Jean Rhys. |
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Parastoo Tahmasbi (PhD Program)Parastoo (she/her) completed her B.A. in English Language and Literature in Iran, graduated from the University of Saskatchewan with an MA in 2025, and is now a PhD student in the Department of English. She has worked as a Teaching Assistant and Research Assistant in the department. She is interested in digital humanities, and under the supervision of Dr. Muri, her MA thesis explored The Beggar’s Opera (1728), an 18th-century play, through spatial literary studies. She is also interested in speculative fiction and textual scholarship. Parastoo enjoys getting involved in the community and spends her free time volunteering with different organizations. |
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Alexander Torvi (MA Program)Alexander Torvi is an MA Thesis student who had previously completed a Bachelor of Arts Honours degree in English and a minor in Computer Science at the University of Saskatchewan. His area of interest lies in a synthesis of New Media, the Digital Humanities, and Media Studies. Currently, he is writing his thesis on the potential online role-playing games have for creating connections during the COVID-19 pandemic through the synthesis of gameplay and digital storytelling. |
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Gideon Umezurike (PhD Program)
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Hamid Yari (PhD Program)Hamid Yari is a PhD candidate who focuses on diasporic cinema and literature. His research interests include nationalism, urbanization, memory studies, and diaspora studies in cinema and literature. His current research, along with his PhD project on post-Revolution Iranian cinema and literature, focuses on two manuscripts: “The City and State of Exception in Orson Welles’s The Trial” (for Culture Unbound journal) and “Urban Alienation and Spatial Metaphors in Dariush Mehrjui’s Cinema” (a book chapter for ReFocus series, Edinburgh University Press). Hamid has taught a few courses at USask including RNG 114.3: Reading Culture and War Literature: Trauma and Identity (to Saskatoon Seniors). He is supervised by Dr. Jerry White. |
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Emily Zepick (MA Program)Emily (she/her) is an M.A. Thesis student. She is interested in contemporary readings of British modernist literature and also in the ways that literature intersects with pedagogical implications. Under the supervision of Dr. Ann Martin, Emily will examine pedagogical links to the literary writing of Virginia Woolf. Before beginning her M.A. courses, Emily completed a B.Ed. degree through the University of Saskatchewan and taught in K-12 classrooms. |
