Lisa Grekul, PhD

Associate Professor

English, English and Cultural Studies

Other Titles: English
Office: CCS 335
Phone: 250.807.9347
Email: lisa.grekul@ubc.ca

Research Summary

Research Interests: Canadian literatures; minoritized Canadian literatures; diasporic literatures; postcolonial theory; Ukrainian Canadian studies.

Courses & Teaching

Readings in Narrative; Introduction to Canadian Literature; Canadian literature (regionalism, diaspora, multiculturalism, postmodernism)

Biography

Originally from St. Paul, Alberta, Lisa Grekul lived and studied in Mbabane (eSwatini), Edmonton, and Vancouver before joining the Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies on UBC’s Okanagan campus in 2005.  She has published three books, Kalyna’s Song (2003), Leaving Shadows:  Literature in English by Canada’s Ukrainians (2005), and Unbound:  Ukrainian Canadians Writing Home (2016, co-edited with Lindy Ledohowski), as well as articles and reviews in Canadian Literature, the University of Toronto Quarterly, ARIEL, Canadian Ethnic Studies, the Journal of Ukrainian Studies, and Event.  Her classroom-work, for which she has been named six times to UBCO’s Teaching Honour Roll, engages students in the study of contemporary Canadian literatures, diasporic and minoritized Canadian literatures in particular.   Her scholarly and creative writing, though focused sharply on Ukrainian Canadian cultural production and the experiences of diasporic Ukrainians in Canada, seeks to contribute to the broad, difficult, and indeed ongoing processes of decolonization and reconciliation.

Degrees

BA (Hons English) University of Alberta, MA (English) University of Alberta,
PhD (English/Canadian Literature) University of British Columbia

Selected Publications & Presentations

Books

Unbound: Ukrainian Canadians Writing Home. U of Toronto P, 2016. (co-edited with Lindy Ledohowski).

Leaving Shadows: Literature in English by Canada’s Ukrainians. U of Alberta P, 2005.

Kalyna’s Song. Coteau, 2003.

Select Articles/Chapters

‘Nothing is forgotten,’ or Forgiven: First World War Internment in Barbara Sapergia’s Blood and Salt.”  Canadian Ethnic Studies 54:1 (2022):  105-126.

“Ukrainian Identities On(the)Line: Writing Ethnicity in a Time of Crisis.” Unbound: Ukrainian Canadians Writing Home, edited by Lisa Grekul and Lindy Ledohowski, U of Toronto P, 2016, pp. 121-35.

“Guns and Tender Cotton: Feminized States in Rawi Hage’s De Niro’s Game.” University of Toronto Quarterly vol. 84, no. 2, 2015, pp. 48-69.

“Bad Guys, Brides, and Buffoons: A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian and the ‘Othered’ Europe.” Literatures in English: New Ethical, Cultural and Transnational Perspectives, edited by Michael Kenneally, Rhona Richman Kenneally, and Wolfgang Zach, Stauffenburg, 2012, pp. 11-24.

“Innate Civility: Whiteness in Camilla Gibb’s Sweetness in the Belly.” ARIEL, vol. 41, no. 3-4, 2010, pp. 1-22.

“The Doomed Genre: Myrna Kostash and the Limits of Non-fiction.” Wild Words: Essays on Alberta Literature, edited by Donna Coates and George Melnyk, Athabasca UP, 2008, pp. 173-189.

“Re-placing Ethnicity: New Approaches to Ukrainian Canadian Literature.” Home-Work: Postcolonialism, Pedagogy, and Canadian Literature, edited by Cynthia Sugars, U of Ottawa, 2004, pp. 369 – 383.

“(Re)reading the Female Ethnic Subject: Vera Lysenko’s Yellow Boots.” Journal of Ukrainian Studies, vol. 28. No. 2, 2003, pp. 113 – 127.

[with Sneja Gunew and Margery Fee]. “Myrna Kostash: Ukrainian Canadian Non-Fiction Prairie New Leftist Feminist Canadian Nationalist.” Canadian Literature, vol. 172, 2002, pp. 114 – 143.

Selected Grants & Awards

SSHRC Standard Research Grant, 2007 – 2010

Awards & Distinctions

Kobzar Literary Award (2017), for Unbound:  Ukrainian Canadians Writing Home (co-edited with Lindy Ledohowski, University of Toronto Press, 2016)

Finalist for the Kobzar Literary Award (2008), for Leaving Shadows:  Literature in English by Canada’s Ukrainians (University of Alberta Press, 2005)

Finalist for the Kobzar Literary Award (2006), for Kalyna’s Song (Coteau, 2003)

Finalist for the Amazon.ca/Books in Canada Best First Novel Award (2003), for Kalyna’s Song (Coteau, 2003)

Professional Services/Affiliations/Committees

Past-President the Dolyna Ukrainian Cultural Society and continue to serve as an executive director