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Sam McKegney

Biography

My name is Sam McKegney, and I’m a settler scholar of Indigenous literatures. My teaching and research seek to register the ways in which Indigenous literary artists: (1) interrogate ongoing settler colonialism; (2) imagine modes of sociality that exceed the confines of the settler state; and (3) provoke extra-textual responses from Indigenous, settler, and diasporic readers that might contribute to decolonization. I’m fascinated and troubled by the study of masculinity and sport—particularly hockey—in settler colonial contexts.

I am the author of two monographs concerned with Indigenous literary art and the editor of a collection of interviews on the subject of Indigenous masculinities. I am a founding member and Past President of the Indigenous Literary Studies Association and the principal investigator for the Indigenous Hockey Research Network.

Research Interests

Indigenous literatures; Indigenous masculinities; hockey culture and Canadian nationalism; Indigenous governance and its pursuit through art; carceral composition; literary activism; Canadian literature.

Selected Publications
  • “Called to Relationship and Reckoning through Story: Reflections on Reading, Teaching, and Writing about Residential School Literatures” (co-authored with Michelle Coupal). Studies in Canadian Literature, 2021.
  • “Manufacturing Compliance with Anti-Indigenous Racism in Canadian Hockey: The Case of the Beardy’s Blackhawks” (McKegney, Henry, Koch, and Rathwell. Canadian Ethnic Studies, 2021.
  • Opportunities Denied: The divergent resonance of opportunity for Indigenous and non-Indigenous hockey players with the non-disbanded Beardy’s Blackhawks” (Rathwell, Henry, and McKegney). Sociology of Sport, 2021.
  • “‘Some people don’t unlearn those things’: A Conversation on Hockey, Racism, and Belonging.” (Davina McLeod with Sam McKegney). Canadian Ethnic Studies, 2021.
  • “‘We still need the game. As Indigenous people, it’s in our blood’: A Conversation on Hockey, Residential School, and Decolonization.” (Eugene Arcand [aski kananumohwatah] with Sam McKegney and Mike Auksi). Canadian Ethnic Studies, 2021.
  • “Indigenous Studies in the US and Canada” (co-authored with Aubrey Hanson). Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Literature, 2020.
  • Policy Paper on Anti-Racism in Canadian Hockey (Szto, McKegney, Dawson, Auksi). Hockey In Society, 2020.
  • “Decolonizing the Hockey Novel: Ambivalence and Apotheosis in Richard Wagamese’s Indian Horse” (co-authored with Trevor Phillips). Writing the Body in Motion: A Critical Anthology on Canadian Sport Literature. Reprinted in Hockey: Challenging Canada’s Game/Au-delà du sport national, 2018.
Awards and Recognition
Queen’s University Award for Excellence in Research
Queen’s University Graduate Coordinator of the Year
Queen’s University Human Rights Initiative Award
Best Essay Prize in Canadian Literature
Graduate Supervision

Canadian Post-Multiculturalism

Canadian Contemporary Conceptual Poetics

Women’s Hockey Literature

Anxiety and Settler Affect

Ky Pearce (Cultural Studies), Rural Queer and Indigenous Studies

Darren Zanussi (Cultural Studies), Reconciliation in Rural Ontario

Department of English, Queen's University

Watson Hall
49 Bader Lane
Kingston ON K7L 3N6
Canada

Telephone (613) 533-2153

Undergraduate

Graduate

Queen's University is situated on traditional Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabe territory.