Professor Sam McKegney
PhD Queen's
On leave July 2011–June 2012
Contact Information
Office: Watson 435
Office Hours:
Extension: 74388
E-mail: sam.mckegney@queensu.ca
Research Interests
Indigenous literatures, contemporary Canadian literature (as well as its precursors), Indigenous governance and its pursuit through art, multiculturalism as an ideal and in practice, hockey culture, masculinity theory, and literary activism.
Recent Publications
- “Warriors, Healers, Lovers, and Leaders: Colonial Impositions on Indigenous Male Roles and Responsibilities,” Canadian Perspectives on Men and Masculinities: An Interdisciplinary Reader, ed. Jason A. Laker (Toronto: Oxford University Press, forthcoming in 2011).
- With Keavy Martin. "Inuvialuit Critical Autobiography and the Carceral Writings of Anthony Apakark Thrasher." Canadian Literature. (special issue on prison writing, forthcoming in 2011).
- “ ‘beautiful hunters with strong medicine’: Indigenous Masculinity and Kinship in Richard Van Camp’s The Lesser Blessed,” The Canadian Journal of Native Studies 29.1/2 (2009), special issue on Indigenous literatures and literary criticism.
- “Indigenous Writing and the Residential School Legacy: A Public Interview with Basil Johnston,” Studies in Canadian Literature 34.2 (2009).
- “Strategies for Ethical Engagement: An Open Letter Concerning Non-Native Scholars of Native Literatures,” Studies in American Indian Literatures 20.4 (2008).
- “Tenuous Tolerance: The Politics of Inconvenience from Kanehsatake to Caledonia,” West Coast Line 58 (2008). Special Issue on Citizenship and Cultural Belonging.
- Magic Weapons: Aboriginal Writers Remaking Community After Residential School, foreword by Basil H. Johnston (Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 2007).
Remarks
I’ve published a monograph entitled Magic Weapons: Aboriginal Writers Remaking Community after Residential School (2007) and articles on Indigenous and Canadian literatures in several academic journals. I’ve also written about the racism of nationalist mythologies in hockey writing in the collection Now is the Winter: The International Meaning of Hockey.
I have a few projects at various stages of conception and completion, including a study of Indigenous masculinities in literature—tentatively titled “ ‘Carrying the Burden of Peace’: Nurturing Indigenous Masculinities through Story”—a critical edition with Keavy Martin of Inuvialuit author Anthony Apakark Thrasher’s collected prison writings, and articles on Indigenous literary nationalism in the Canadian context.
I am currently involved in the supervision of dissertations on the political economy of addiction and self-harm in contemporary Canadian fiction, on the relationships among metaphor, curriculum theory, close reading, and literary pedagogy, on contemporary African child soldier narratives, and on the relationships between youth-generated online writing and linguistic evolution, community formation, and sociopolitical engagement. I welcome discussions of doctoral projects that intersect with any of my research interests.
IMAGES
Top:
Thomas Thrasher's shed on the shore of the Arctic ocean, Tuktoyaktuk, Northwest Territories. (June 2011)
Bottom: Three-hour sunset, Paulatuk, Northwest Territories. (August 2010)