College Distinguished Scholar Award presented to English faculty member

On April 30, the College of Arts and Science celebrated outstanding contributions to teaching, research, and service, as well as acknowledging those who achieved tenure or promotion and who are retiring.

At that event, Dr. Wendy Roy was awarded the College’s Distinguished Scholar Award for research, scholarly, and artistic work. As noted in the letter of nomination, during her 22-year career at the University of Saskatchewan, Wendy has carved out an influential place in the study of power relationships in Canadian literature. Her research during this period has resulted in 20 peer-reviewed articles and four substantial academic books (two sole-authored and two as editor and contributor). Her research has been supported by a series of Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada grants and has been published in top academic journals and publishing houses for Canadian literary studies.

One letter of support noted that "Over the course of her exceptional career, Professor Roy has established herself as one of Canada’s most influential scholars of Canadian literature,” with research that demonstrates “a consistent ability to open new areas of inquiry and to model rigorous, imaginative scholarship."

Dr. Roy's most recent book is the 2025 edited collection ReVisions: Speculating in Literature and Film in Canada. It has been described by a leading scholar of dystopian fiction as a “timely and thought provoking collection that brings together critical and creative writing to explore dystopian and apocalyptic narratives from a distinctly Canadian perspective,” highlighting how speculative fiction and film "can reveal colonial legacies, interrupt dominant narratives, and recentre and re-envision broader histories and more equitable futures.”

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At the same event, graduate student Liv Abram was celebrated for earlier winning the Lesley Biggs Early Career Teaching Fellowship, and Dr. Jenna Hunnef was celebrated for achieving tenure.

Liv, a settler doctoral candidate whose research focuses on practices and pedagogies of ethical reading, viewing, and listening in engaging with Indigenous literatures, will work to revise the department's Indigenous Storytelling of the Prairies course [link to the article about her].

Jenna is a settler scholar with research and teaching specializations in Indigenous literatures of Turtle Island and nineteenth- and twentieth-century American literature. Her research projects include a SSHRC-funded project on allotment debates in Indian Territory newspapers and essays on Indigenous literary production during the modernist period.

For news about other College award-winners, see this article.