Anita Girvan

(She, They)

Assistant Professor

English and Cultural Studies

Other Titles: Cultural Studies and Environmental Justice
Office: CCS 347
Email: anita.girvan@ubc.ca

Research Summary

Cultural Studies; Environmental Humanities; Political Ecology and Environmental Justice; Black and Indigenous Feminist Ecological Thought; Stories, Metaphor; Critical Canadian Studies

Courses & Teaching

CULT 101: Cultural Studies Practices; CULT 490: Identities and Power

Biography

Anita Girvan (she/they) is a settler of Afro-Caribbean diaspora in Syilx Okanagan land. Girvan’s research and teaching lie at the crossroads of Environmental Humanities, Political Ecology, and Cultural Politics. Her book, Carbon Footprints as Cultural-Ecological Metaphors (2018 Routledge) traces the crucial ways that metaphors mediate more than-human relations and she is broadly interested in stories and cultural productions as key sites of contestation and reclamation in addressing pressing socio-ecological matters, like (de)colonization and climate change. Girvan has published in the Journal of Canadian Studies, the Journal of Political Ecology, Feminist Studies and Rhizomes and her current SSHRC-funded research projects include: “E-Race-sures, Renovictions and Reclamations: Cultural-Material Production in Canada” (PI) and “Racialized Ecologies. Girvan is informed and inspired by coalitional and collaborative approaches to world-building, including through music and other cultural productions.

Degrees

PhD, Cultural, Social Political Thought, University of Victoria
MA, Discourse and Language Studies, Carleton University
BEd. Ottawa University
BA, Languages, Carleton University

Selected Publications & Presentations

Books

Girvan, A. (2018). Carbon Footprints as Cultural-Ecological Metaphors. Exon, UK: Routledge.

Nath, N., Bhandar, D., Dhamoon, R. and Girvan, A.  The Letters: Writing Lives Through and Against the University (Forthcoming 2024)

Peer-reviewed Scholarly Publications

Girvan, A. LeSann, M. McGreer, P. (forthcoming, 2023). “Tracing E-race-sures, Finding Reclamations.” Journal of Canadian Studies.

Girvan, A. and Perez-Piñan, A. (forthcoming 2023). “Ecologies of De/Colonization: Embodied Perspectives from Caribbean Diaspora.” Social Justice Studies.

Girvan, A., Baljit Pardesi, Davina Bhandar, and Nisha Nath (2020) “Poetics of Care: Remedies for Racial Capitalism Gone Viral.” Feminist Studies. 46, 3.

Girvan, A. (2017). “Trickster Carbon: Stories, Science, and Postcolonial Interventions for Climate Justice.” Journal of Political Ecology 24: 1038-1054.

Girvan, A. (2013) “wii 2 r ephemera: Archiving Eco-cultural Morphology” CTheory Journal Special Issue on The Archive. https://journals.uvic.ca/index.php/ctheory/article/view/14793

Girvan, A. (2010) “Atmospheric Alienation, Carbon Tracking & Geo-Techno Agency” CTheory Journal, Code Drift: Essays in Critical Digital Studies, May 13

Girvan, A. (2009). “Remembering the posthuman within/across sustainability paths”. Rhizomes: Cultural Studies in Emerging Knowledge. Vol 19: Summer, 2009.

Other Publications

Girvan, A. and Chua-Garcia, Rina. (2021) “E-race-sures.” Editorial Introduction to Issue 19.1 of The Goose, A Journal of Arts, Environment and Culture in Canada.

Girvan, A. (2021). “Black Histories, Black Presencing and Black Futurities” The Hub (Athabasca University News Magazine)

Selected Grants & Awards

(PI) SSHRC Insight Development Grant “E-Race-sures, Renovictions and Reclamations: Cultural-Material Production in Canada.” (2022-2024)

(Co-applicant) SSHRC Insight Grant “Racialized Ecologies in and Beyond Settler-Colonial Canada: Documentary, Speculative and Poetic Texts and Contexts” (2022-2027) with Cheryl Lousley -PI (Lakehead), Co-Applicants: Renae Watchman, Susie O’Brien (McMaster), Nandini Thiyagarajan (Acadia), Tania Aguila-Way (U of T)

Professional Services/Affiliations/Committees

Editorial Board, Digital Futures Series, University of Toronto Press

Caribbean Studies Association

Association for Environmental Studies and Sciences (AESS)

Digital-Environmental Humanities Cluster (hosted by McGill University)

Association for Literature, Environment and Culture, Canada (ALECC)

Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment (ASLE)