Author Archives: Brittany Luby

Serving Indigenous Community-Oriented Scholars in the Ivory Tower

Brittany Luby The academic landscape is changing. In response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action, many Canadian universities have committed to increasing the diversity of their faculty. They have also committed to improving Indigenous programming. Many universities have associated these action items with two goals: (1) combatting the perpetuation of colonial knowledges, and (2) attracting and retaining… Read more »

Sludge, Bugs, and Sturgeon Fry: Corporate Growth, Environmental Health and Sturgeon Populations on the Winnipeg River

By Brittany Luby, PhD Candidate, York University While I was growing up near the Winnipeg River, sturgeon was not part of our local diet. Given the high levels of mercury – the result of industrial dumping practices and the release of organic mercury from rotting flooded vegetation – Dad limited the size of our locally caught filets to less than… Read more »

Room for Change: Anti-Slavery Rhetoric in Contemporary Literature, an Interview with Emma Donoghue

Ma’s grinning. “We can do anything now.” “Why?” “Because we’re free.” – Emma Donoghue, Room (Toronto: HarperCollins, 2010). Free of “Room” – a locked garden shed with a single skylight, the primary setting of Emma Donoghue’s award-winning fiction novel, Room. In Room, Donoghue brings readers into Jack’s world, an eleven by eleven ‘cell,’ that he shares with Ma and a… Read more »

Teacher-Students and Student-Historians: Discovering Constance Margaret Austin and the Value of Experiential Learning with Spadina Museum

Discovering Constance Margaret Austin and the Value of Experiential Learning with Spadina Museum

Ecological Indigenization: Buffalo-Clad Imperialists at the 49th Parallel

Scrub oak speaks: It speaks Sioux. It speaks Anishinaabe. English now. Maybe – since Trudeau – it even learned some French. If you listen carefully, beneath the roar of stories about colonialism, it will whisper we were here, we were here.

Reflecting on Kan’s “Shamanism and Christianity”: Making Sense of Family Conversion Narratives

Brittany Luby reflects on how her studies, particularly Sergei Kan’s “Shamanism and Christianity” inspired critical reflection of her own family’s conversion narratives.

Kill the “Indian” and Save the “Wild”: Vocabularies with Political Consequences in Indigenous Studies

Active History contributor Britt Luby looks at manomin, ‘wild’ rice and vocabularies with political consequences in Indigenous Studies.