Tom Leveen at a storytime event for Arizona Humanities

In the second grade, Tom Leveen discovered his passion for storytelling. Students were given a task to write a short story, an exercise in honing handwriting skills. The teacher called him up, asking him to rewrite this story, making it longer, and Tom was told he was going to read it to the first graders.

“I thought I was being punished for something. I had no idea what I had done wrong,” Tom remembers. “This was one of those scary teachers, so I followed her instructions. And the next day, I was sent over to the first-grade classroom, terrified, because who loves public speaking, especially when you’re 8.”

He looked out at those wide-eyed first graders, and the world seemed to change.

“At that moment, I knew I wanted to do this for the rest of my life. I want to be up in front of people and I want to tell them stories.” A spark ignited within him, setting him on a path to pursue storytelling and creativity.

Leveen published his first novel with Random House in 2010, followed by eight more young-adult fiction novels. His second published work was actually a project he undertook in his first year in college in the early 90’s.

He dedicated over two decades to promoting and nurturing the arts, operating two theatre and mixed-use art venues in Phoenix, making films, and working as an actor, all while doing school visits, conferences, and conventions to promote his published young-adult fiction novels.

When his book, Random (2015), came out in the US, they sold the German language translation rights.

“And much to my surprise, I was contacted by somebody at the US Embassy in Berlin, and was asked to come to Germany for a book tour in eight different German schools, all English language speaking.”

That trip changed how Leveen saw the world. “My wife and I had both been overseas before when we were very young, and didn’t really appreciate all the differences from those cultures compared to growing up in the US,” he remembers. “As adults, and I think also as parents, coming back over from that long trip, we really started to realize the differences.”

He noted that there are so many vastly different cultures in such close proximity in Europe. Germany had opened his eyes to the incredible possibilities of life outside his homeland, “And we started talking relatively frequently about what other ways there could be to do life.”

That led him to look for a place to complete his master’s degree with the goal to teach at the university level.

Leveen cast a wide net, searching internationally for suitable programs, including in Germany. He had been accepted into several

programs including the library program at UBC Vancouver, the interdisciplinary program at Simon Fraser, and the MFA program here at UBC Okanagan, all of which were very tempting he says.

It was a visit to Kelowna that ultimately led him to the decision to come here. “My wife and I came up a few months before I had to make my decision and after the three nights we spent here, I knew that Kelowna was where me and my family were meant to be.”

“As a published author, I have experience in writing and publishing, but it was exciting to read about the creative writing faculty in Creative and Critical Studies,” he says. “They’re working on stuff that I don’t know about, and that was a big draw for me.”

The program has given him the opportunity to delve into poetry and nonfiction, subjects he notes he has had very little experience with. “The variety in teaching styles and approaches has broadened my understanding of these genres.”

Leveen notes that this program has turned out to be an invigorating experience. “It has given me fresh perspectives on writing, and I’ve learned about other unique viewpoints and motivations in ways I hadn’t encountered in my professional publishing experience. I’m learning a new vocabulary, a new way of talking about storytelling and about art and creation.”

He has found that his professors in the MFA program have a deep understanding of both the creative and the business aspects of writing. They don’t lose sight of the art’s value and purpose, making sure to prioritize these discussions alongside the business aspects.

“After over a decade in the industry, this approach is not just refreshing but also motivating. It has reignited my passion for my own creative practice. The emphasis on the artistic aspect of my field has made me appreciate my practice in a whole new light. I’m excited about what the future holds, and I’m grateful for the journey of rediscovery that UBC Okanagan has provided me.”

Leveen is in the second year of his program, and will be teaching a third-year creative writing class, Writing for Children, in the winter of 2024.

About Tom Leveen

Tom Leveen

Apropos of absolutely nothing, Tom has also: finished a marathon, two Spartan Sprints and a Super, completed a grueling 13-and-a-half hour crucible event coached by retired Navy SEALs, played guitar in three bands (but only in public once), earned a blue belt in tae kwon do, studied fencing, kenpo, and aikido, co-hosted a public access television show, been the artistic director of a theatre company and of a mixed-use arts venue, been an early literacy specialist, spent twenty years earning a four-year degree, did a ten-day book tour in Germany for his novel Random, and spent a total of nearly nine years in public library work, including being a Teen Programmer and Early Literacy Specialist.

PhD graduate Toby Lawrence (centre) with supervisors Ashok Mathur and Tania Willard after convocation, June 2022.

In 2021, Toby Lawrence completed a PhD in Interdisciplinary Studies at UBCO in the Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies, working with supervisors Tania Willard & Dr. Ashok Mathur (OCAD U). Her doctoral research critically examines contemporary initiatives reshaping curation that move beyond dominant western parameters of curation to offer something else. This research is supported by a deep dive into feminist and decolonial methodologies, which she employs throughout her own curatorial practice, including her current jobs. Lawrence also holds an MA in Art History from the Department of Art History, Visual Art and Theory at UBC in Vancouver.

She shared some insights on her time here at UBCO and what she is doing now.

What is your current profession? 

I have been working as a curator for the past 15 years. Since 2020, I have been working as a curator at Open Space, an artist-run centre in Victoria. This October, I will be returning to Vancouver to take on the role of Curator of Outdoor Art with UBC’s Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery. I am also co-developing an educational platform called Moss Project: Curatorial Research + Learning Program, as an alternative space for discourse and pedagogy within curation that supports historically underrepresented and racialized curators alongside allied practitioners through peer-to-peer learning, inquiry and mentorship.

What inspires you about your work? 

The potential of art as a catalyst towards learning, engagement, conversations and understanding, and the opportunity to bring people together through incredible and endless examples of creativity and innovation.

What made you decide, or influenced you to come to UBCO for your graduate degree?

I was looking for professors that could offer mentorship in specific modes of arts organization and creative practice. I was introduced to Dr. Ashok Mathur, who was the Creative Studies chair at the time, through work colleagues and I reached out to see if he was accepting students.

How do you think your degree set you up for your current position?

Timing played a large role in the success of my degree. The practices of my supervisors, committee members and cohort offered opportunities to experience and participate in projects that were foundational to my research and growth as a curator in significant and meaningful ways. These experiences, including participation in BUSH Gallery activities, sharing studio space with Samuel Roy-Bois and co-organizing the Indigenous Art Intensive alongside current and past FCCS faculty Ashok Mathur, Stephen Foster and Tania Willard, continue to influence the ways in which I work in my current position.

Tell us about people who have influenced you or helped you in your academic journey and current career.

I don’t have an official mentor; however, there are a handful of folks, including my UBC co-supervisors Ashok Mathur and Tania Willard and previous managers Julie Bevan (now Museum London) and Michelle Jacques (now Remai Modern and Moss Project collaborator), who continue to offer support and advice towards my professional trajectory. Each also demonstrate leadership qualities in their own practices that I value.

The FCCS Brown Bag Research Series, supported by the Associate Dean of Research, is a chance to hear from our faculty and graduate students to learn what’s happening in each department. We’re looking forward to hearing presentations on research, scholarship and creative output from any and all of our colleagues in the coming months.

All speaking events will be held on Fridays from 12:00 to 1:00 pm and will be hybrid – location for in-person attendance is ART 106, Zoom for virtual attendance. Registration is required for both, we will provide free lunch to all those who wish to attend in person (vegetarian sandwiches).

Register Now

Please note, the deadline to register if you want lunch included is Tuesday noon prior to the talk. 

LIST OF SPEAKERS

Fall 2023

Friday, October 13

• Dr. Daniel Keyes, Associate Professor, English & Cultural Studies
  The Centre for Indigenous Media Arts: What Happens to Born-Digital Research when the Director Departs? Born-digital media involves loss. The following is a story of the loss of Indigenous media. In 2012 Stephen Foster, a media artist and faculty member at the University of British Columbia Okanagan [UBCO] of Haida and settler ancestry (UBCO Senate 6), creates the Centre for Indigenous Media Arts [CIMA] that includes a website. On 1 January 2020, Foster joins Ontario College of Art & Design University as the Dean of its Faculty of Arts (OCAD University). In August 2022, a search for CIMA’s homepage indicates the page is inaccessible. A search for the CIMA’s website files by the UBCO campus IT services indicates these files and files associated with CIMA were all deleted as is customary when scholars leave the institution. Today traces of CIMA can be located on Internet Archives’ Wayback Machine offering 39 captures between September 20, 2015 and April 12, 2021. The only remaining physical remnant of CIMA is a small sign perched high outside the former Centre. Yet digital traces of CIMA’s existence persist as dead links: In 2022 a webpage designed to recruit Indigenous students to UBC continues to mention CIMA and provide a link to the dead site (UBC, “Indigenous.”). Various high-level planning documents like the 2020 UBC Indigenous Strategic Plan mention CIMA as part of the institution’s steps towards reconciliation. Moreover, CIMA’s deletion is puzzling in the context of UBC Okanagan’s 2019 Declaration of Truth and Reconciliation (UBC Indigenous Strategy Plan 11) that might insist the preservation of CIMA’s digital face needs to be preserved. The 2020 UBC Indigenous Strategic Plan notes UBC has been incremental in its approach reconciliation and that “the University needs to undertake to lay an enduring foundation for the future relationship with Indigenous peoples on our campuses and beyond” (11). I assume enduring might involve a commitment to “archiving” or “preserving” Indigenous research but these terms are absent from the plan. This story of loss gives rise to many questions beyond the four below: • How can media researchers best prepare for archival loss? • Is media art performative and as such is such loss therefore acceptable? • Should UBC and by extension other research universities have a duty of care (Care Manifesto) for such material beyond the Wayback machine as a default repository? • Is there an ideal “death kit” model for flattening born-digital media when the funding runs out or personal retire or depart that see the University as perpetual custodian?

Friday, October 27

• Dr. Greg Garrard, Professor, English & Cultural Studies
  Reading Canada’s Species at Risk Act (2002) as Bio-cultural Nationalism: The American Endangered Species Act (1973) is often described as the most effective conservation law ever passed. As Ursula Heise explains in Imagining Extinction, though, if one compares the ESA alongside conservation laws from other countries, one finds that they embody quite distinct senses of ‘why and how … communities see the fate of nonhuman species as part of their own identity and history.’ ‘Effectiveness’ cannot be determined without reference to these enculturated ideas about what is valued and conserved. We adopt Heise’s approach in a close reading of Canada’s Species at Risk Act (2002), and go on to show how bio-cultural nationalism, as much as scientifically-ascertained conservation status, affects SARA species listings.

Friday, November 10

• Zach DeWitt, MA in English student
  Reading Indigenous literature confronts the non-Indigenous reader with many challenges, not the least of which is the epistemological difference between Western perspectives and Indigenous worldviews. While many explanations of this challenge exist in Indigenous studies, I turn to the specific relationship between story and theory in various Indigenous cosmologies to engage with the relationship between the non-Indigenous reader and the Indigenous text. Haisla and Heiltsuk author Eden Robinson’s Monkey Beach offers this turn, as Robinson’s novel provokes the reader to take up epistemological considerations in their reading by explicitly directing them to consider certain aspects of Haisla thought and cosmology. My exploration of this “epistemological turn” will not only engage with Robinson’s exploration of nusa — the Haisla word for teaching traditional protocols — but also more general considerations of the coexistence of story and theory. I believe that such considerations might offer an approach for the reader to engage with the challenges of epistemological difference.

Friday, November 24

• Miriam Cummings, MFA Interdisciplinary Studies
  Live, solo, participatory thesis performance: Drawing back the curtains to reveal an ongoing research-creation process. Miriam’s thesis performance engages the audience in techniques that build tangible, repeatable skills that they can take away into their lives, such as somatic listening and physical imagination. The performance is currently being built over a series of six invited development sessions during October-December 2023. The project asks: Can the explicit facilitation of guided somatic practices in theatrical performance enact a collective heightened presence that leads to embodied learning?

Friday, December 8

• Tara Nicholson, PhD IGS student, Digital Art & Humanities theme
  Work-in-Progress: “Documenting Mammoths, EcoXombies & Other Arctic Extinctions: Designed to access a contemporary understanding of an active and non-static Arctic, my work documents ‘rock-star’ climatologists engaged in unravelling the effects of permafrost melt and ice sheet collapse. Spending time at remote science stations, I have become fascinated by the connections between art and science methodologies. The scientists I have spoken with employ vast forms of experimentation and nonlinear ways of working. Equally, I have also been drawn to understand the more speculative forms of climatology including large-scale techno-fixes and the increasing fascination to (de)extinction, and trophic rewilding. During the summer of 2023, I visited the University Centre (UNIS), the Svalbard Seed Bank and several permafrost monitoring sites in Longyearbyen, Norway. Part of the Norwegian archipelago, Longyearbyen is the world’s largest, most northern, continuously populated town that is attracting a growing number of tourists, researchers, and seasonal workers as it transitions from a coal mining town into an international sightseeing and research destination. Due to its location, adjacent to a warming oceanic jet stream, polar ice melt and permafrost erosion have been reported at a rate of four to six times faster than other landmasses on Earth leading to difficult challenges for the community. This intensified warming, often defined as Arctic amplification, is linked to erratic weather and the disappearance of permafrost landscape- causing landslides, infrastructure destruction and the vanishing of habitat for nonhuman animals. Amongst these catastrophic changes, Svalbard has been positioned as a ‘warming experiment,’ and the future-reality of climate crisis, as its extraordinary effects on human and more-than-human ways of life are already playing out in real-time.

Winter 2024

Friday, January 12

• Nikhita Obeegadoo, Assistant Professor, Languages and World Literatures
  Ananda Devi’s Ève de ses décombres (2006) [Eve out of her ruins] is an award-winning novel that depicts the underside of the Mauritian postcard. Woven into its French prose is “krapo kriyé” [when frogs cry out] (1981), the island’s most famous example of the séga engazé (a local musical form rooted in the island’s history of plantation slavery, with lyrics in Mauritian Creole and themes of social injustice). I ask: What is the effect of such intertextuality? On one hand, I explore how any attempt to reproduce music in written format is always unsatisfactory, if not problematic. On the other, I argue that the presence of the séga engazé functions as an alternative aesthetic form that draws attention to experiences sidelined by the official Mauritian narrative. Furthermore, I propose that “krapo kriyé” acts as a both a trigger of “multidirectional memory” (Michael Rothberg) and an example of a “subversive tactic” (Françoise Lionnet and Emmanuel Bruno Jean-François) that allows Devi’s work to retain local specificities while also appealing to a global audience.

Friday, January 26

• Emily Murphy, English and Cultural Studies
  “I will live these multiple lives”: Intermedial Narratology in Anaïs Nin: A Sea of Lies (2020): This presentation will trace the intermedial strategies of a graphic biography of twentieth-century novelist and diarist, Anaïs Nin. Léonie Bischoff’s Anaïs Nin: A Sea of Lies (2020), I argue, animates Nin, constructing an intermedial image-text at the intersection of biography and Nin’s autofictional intertexts. The comic, and the figure of Nin that it constructs, refuses to be unified at the expense of its multiplicity. This talk is early work on a chapter in my monograph on graphic or comics-form biographies. Graphic biographies have emerged as a distinct comics genre in the last twenty years, with a particular boom in the last two. In the book, I argue that these works replicate the circulation of media within their pages while engaging in the cultural memory exercise of biography.*content warning: the graphic biography explores aspects of Nin’s sexual abuse by her father, and my talk will also feature some of that material.

Friday, February 9

• Annie Furman, MFA Interdisciplinary Studies
  Presenting on writing, designing, and producing short performances to engage audiences with tangible, local climate solutions by looking at the Climate Change Theatre Action performances I am producing with Prof. Denise Kenney in December 2023 as a case study.

Friday, March 8

• Julie Carr, BA English student
  “Modernist Legacies in Postmodern Times”: Identifying & Situating the Graphic Biography
  Over the last twenty years, graphic biographies have emerged as a distinct genre, and the past few years in particular have seen them undergo a notable surge in popularity. In my presentation, I both attempt to determine a working definition with which to identify the graphic biography and to situate the genre within our cultural & social landscape, as to better contextualize its perception and construction by audiences; this process of attempting to situate the graphic biography includes examining the legacies of modernist thought and media categorization that have shaped the way we think about media over the past century, and that still hold a particular grasp on the medium of comics.

Friday, April 5

• Melissa Jacques, English and Cultural Studies
  In a work in progress titled “Decomposition as Pedagogy: Towards a Practice of (Un)becoming,” Melissa Jacques will talk about the relationship between writing, subjectivity, and place. Advocating for experimental forms of life writing that include the lyric essay and autotheory, she will focus on the relationship between storytelling and risk, between the past and the present, and between oneself and others. Bringing together such disparate epistemological frameworks as psychoanalysis, new materialism, and ethology, she will make an argument for decomposition as both a theory and a pedagogical practice that works to challenge conventional understandings of the self as sovereign or autonomous. Reflecting on the ethics of care made possible when we relinquish our desire for autonomy and control, she makes a case for practices of reading and writing that attempt what Leo Bersani and Ulysse Dutoit imagine as forms of “nonsadistic movement.” And if all of that seems too abstract, she will also tell a story about an unexpected encounter with an owl.

Michelle Grahame

After doing a few tours of campuses in the pacific north west and Vancouver Island, Michelle Grahame decided that the Okanagan was the place for her at the time. With her sights set on a university where she could pursue a program in creative writing, she chose UBC Okanagan to complete her undergraduate degree.

“When I was looking at places to study and where I might be living, the campus in Kelowna just appealed to me a little bit more than others I had been to,” she says.

Coming from North Vancouver, she was looking for somewhere that was not so close to home. “As a first-year student, you’re spending pretty much all your time on campus, the Okanagan and the UBCO campus was somewhere I could picture myself.”

Grahame started her degree in 2010, and was on a fast track to complete by 2013. To do so, she took advantage of the classes over the summer, allowing her to earn her degree within three years.

“I think school had always kind of been my safe place, so I didn’t really know what it was like to be working or out in the world.” Grahame explains that she was eager to work on her courses throughout the summer to keep her engaged in her studies.

Realizing that everyone’s path is a little bit different, after graduation, she decided that she needed to go a different direction, took a working-holiday in Australia, came back and became a certified personal trainer before eventually undertaking a graduate diploma in business administration.

“One of the biggest pieces of advice that I often give people is take your time. There’s so much you can get out of things when you’re not rushing through them.”

“When I went into my undergraduate degree, I knew I wanted to do creative writing and was considering a double major, but without having much experience outside school never found the right fit.”

Grahame adds: “When I entered into the diploma in business administration, I thought to myself, ‘Ok, I have this creative writing degree, I’ve done all of these really random things with my career and I don’t really know what direction I’m going.’”

Deciding to gain business knowledge helped her grow and shift her thinking and begin planning for her future.  “Instead of thinking about my end destination, I started to consider what are some of the things that I enjoy doing? What motivates and drives me? How might I grow and build on the things I have studied and learned?”

Grahame currently works at Simon Fraser University as an Associate Director in the Graduate Studies office, and is working to complete her Master’s in Business Administration (MBA).

During her undergraduate degree, Grahame focused mostly on poetry, and towards the second-half of her degree, she started doing a more nonfiction memoir writing.

“Learning to write in these different genres has really helped me as I’m working towards my MBA where there is a lot of reflective writing that is required,” she notes. “Although I’m not writing as much creatively right now, it’s having the ability to look back on your experiences and then present that to people, to be able to convey that message – that is something that I find most valuable from my degree.”

Grahame remembers that her classes at UBCO were intimate environments where you get to know both your professors and your peers quite well. The workshop experience really teaches you how to give constructive feedback but also receive and implement that constructive feedback.

“Being in the MBA program, it is team based, so having that experience at an undergraduate level made it quite an easy transition for me.”

Grahame adds that in her current career as a leader and manager, having that ability to work with your team and give that feedback is really important, and that practice with creative writing prepared her to be able to do just that.

“In those classes you are often sharing things that that are more intimate and makes you vulnerable. That experience has served me well in my workplace.”

Symposium organizer Jodey Castricano (back left) along with graduate students Annie Furman (left front), Madeline Donald (middle), and Zach DeWitt (right)

A unique collaboration is providing a research exchange between UBC Okanagan and soon-to-be visiting faculty from England’s University of Exeter, at UBC’s Okanagan campus. Entitled, Telling Stories: The Humanities in an Age of Planetary Agenda-Setting, this initiative involves collaborators Dr. Jodey Castricano (UBCO), Dr. Ina Linge (U Exeter), Dr. Paul Young (U Exeter). This event is stage two of a series of events housed at both University of Exeter and UBC Okanagan, and aims to move towards and make space for an Arts/Humanities response to climate change, mass extinction, and environmental degradation, in order to drive healthy, sustainable, and just social and environmental change.

At a time when demands for environmental sustainability and food system justice are increasingly urgent, and planetary agendas are being set by scientific and financially interested parties, this project explores how Arts and Humanities scholars and artists at both Exeter and UBC Okanagan can contribute to agenda setting and climate justice through storytelling methods. This approach is important because stories serve to naturalize certain ways of thinking about and acting in the world, and because they can invite and inspire meaningful social and cultural engagement and action.

By engaging scholars, thinkers, makers, and creatives, we aim to reframe and rewrite climate justice narratives–ie. stories–that are currently exclusive to science, technology, and economics.

This event is stage two of the collaboration and includes both a symposium (July 19th, 2023) and a Multispecies Storytelling Workshop (July 21st, 2023). Our symposium takes place at UBC Okanagan campus, while the Multispecies Storytelling Workshop is situated on the land at Woodhaven Eco Culture Centre, both of which are on the unceded and ancestral land of the Okanagan Syilx people.

Follow the link below to learn more and to register for the symposium and workshop.

Telling Stories Symposium and Workshop

This event is supported by a UBC Okanagan-Exeter Excellence Catalyst Grant entitled “Telling Stories: The Humanities in an Age of Planetary Agenda-Setting”, the Faculty of Critical and Creative Studies and is organized by the Post-Anthropocentrism and Critical Animal Studies Research Group [PACAS].

Students walking to the convocation ceremony, MFA student Umar Turaki pictured at the front

The year’s convocation ceremony was held in person on June 8^th, and the faculty and staff in the Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies are happy to congratulate all of the students who completed their degrees in 2023.

This year we have sixteen masters students, four doctoral students, fifty-one Bachelor of Arts students, seventeen Bachelor of Fine Arts students, and four Bachelor of Media Studies students who are graduating with their degrees.

Breckin Baillie, who completed his BA degree with an Honours in English, and a member of the graduating class of 2023, was the student reader at our ceremony, and shared these words with the graduating class:

“These years of our lives, will not be idly shelved into the recesses of our brain to be forgotten. While we have been here, we have fulfilled this etymology of nourishing – we have been nourished by this institution, by the education we have received,” he said. “We have been nourished as adults, as future leaders, as pioneers in our fields, the giants whose shoulders will be stood on, we have learned to speak, to read, to think, our minds, our greatest gifts, have been challenged, corrected and expanded.”

Breckin reminded us all that these graduating students are now part of the alumni family of UBC: “Never forget the nourishment we have received here. While our time as students may be over, our relationship has just changed status. As alumni we are now part of a great family – a family of scholars, creators, world builders. We now belong to a community of changemakers and leaders.”

After the ceremony, a reception was held in the Creative and Critical Studies building for all of the FCCS graduates and their guests to continue the celebrations of the day. Bryce Traister, Dean of the faculty raised a glass to toast this year’s graduating class and their families.

“There are moments when I feel very proud to be part of an institution, and today was one of those days,” Traister said. “I always feel lucky to say I get to spend a life in schools, it has been my privilege to be able to do that. And I want to extend a welcome to each of you to come back and see us, tell us what you are doing, what you want to do, and what we need to do better. The faculty and all of the staff are full of excitement for your future.”

FCCS is also pleased to recognize the achievements of the following graduating or continuing students who received awards for their outstanding academic performance this year:

• Savanah Babij, Kelly Curtis Memorial Scholarship in English
• Sonja Berg, Jaeger Entrance Award
• Aditri Chatterjee, Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies International Student Award
• Ronnie Cheng, 2021 Vernon Film Society Media Prize
• Mihai Covaser, FCCS French Essay Prize
• Rain Doody, Jill Douglas Entrance Award
• Katja Ewart, Asper Scholarship
• Cady Gau, Visual Arts Scholarship; Murray Johnson Memorial Award in Visual Arts
• Madeline Grove, FCCS International Student Award
• Makeena Hartmann, Elinor Yandel Memorial Award in Fine Arts; Norma and Jack Aitken Prize in Visual Arts
• Jaine Hillier, Media Studies Scholarship
• Josie Hillman, Asper Graduating Prize
• Chloe Jenkins, Visual Arts Prize
• Simone King, Doug Biden Memorial Scholarship in Visual Arts
• Peyton Lynch, Craig Hall Memorial Visual Arts Scholarship in Printmaking
• Elizabeth MacDonald, FCCS French Scholarship
• Emily-Jayne May Myatt, FCCS Dean’s Award for Visual Arts
• Mariah Miguel-Juan, Visual Arts Prize
• Claire Miller-Harder, Campbell Family Graduate Award in Fine Arts
• Carrie Mitchell Jack and Lorna Hambleton Memorial Award
• Alberte Patenaude, FCCS Spanish Scholarship
• Christal Perdison, FCCS Languages Scholarship; FCCS International Student Award
• Rachel Pickard, FCCS Cultural Studies Scholarship
• Arthur Pielecki, Asper Scholarship
• John Prendas, Frances Harris Prize in Fine Arts; Henderson Award in International Development
• Calise Stankoven, Creative Studies Transfer Prize in Creative Writing
• Marissa Thompson, Creative Writing Prize
• Naomi Ukrainetz, Jessie Ravnsborg Memorial Award
• Mathew Wanbon, FCCS Creative Writing Scholarship
• He Wanling, FCCS Art History and Visual Culture Scholarship
• Ziv Wei, FCCS International Student Award
• Abigail Wiens, FCCS English Scholarship
• Margaret Wileman, Dr. Shelley Martin Memorial Scholarship

The FCCS Dean’s Honour list recognizes students in all years of the BA and BFA degrees, who are at the top of their class with a GPA of 85% or better.

Bachelor of Arts Students

Bachelor of Fine Arts Students

Bachelor of MEdia Studies Students

BFA student Angela Wood walking to the ceremony

Faculty members congratulating the graduates before the ceremony

FCCS faculty members Myron Campbell, Ramine Adl, Michael V. Smith, Francis Langevin and Nina Langton before the ceremony

Dean Bryce Traister raising a glass to the class of 2023

FCCS post-convocation reception, 2023

MFA graduate Rylan Broadbent with his partner at the FCCS reception

English Honours students Breckin Baillie, Zachary Sawchuk, Abigail Wiens, 
Maggie Wileman faculty members Robert Eggleston and Marie Loughlin

MA English graduate Dana Penney with supervisor Marie Loughlin

BA graduate, excited about this day!

Eun Jee Lee (centre), Co-op student and Art History and Visual Culture graduate with co-op supervisors Shauna Oddleifson and Jessica Beck

Rina Garcia Chua, PhD graduate

The Critical Relations Symposium was held on April 28 and 29^th, 2023. Organized by the It’s Lit! Club, the symposium offered undergraduate and graduate students an opportunity to share their research with the wider campus academic community.

Below is a recap of the events held in April, from the desk of co-organizer, and It’s Lit! Club Treasurer, Jess Beaudin:

The 2023 Critical Relations Symposium: Encounters was opened with song, story, and collective discussion by Anona Kampe, a knowledge keeper from the Penticton Indian Band. Anona’s requested self-introduction highlighted for us the critical role her own relations play in her interwoven understanding of self and place–she is a mother, a daughter, a teacher, a student, and she lives in mutually fruitful relation with nonhuman beings and with the land that is often called Penticton, on Syilx territory.

Anona shared a simultaneously traditional and seasonally non-traditional telling of captikʷł–a story of a boulder-carrying competition among the earth’s beings– after which we were each called to share our personal takeaway or experience of the story. Like the repetition and emphasis used throughout the story, this collective and iterative processing reinforced the multiple meanings of the story, and inscribed these meanings for those in attendance onto the non-consensual marked land to which the story refers: the now-settler-deconstructed boulder heritage site near Summerland, BC. Opening our symposium in this way drew attention to the encounters between settler and Indigenous lifeways, as well as human encounters with what we linguistically collapse, violent in its terminological simplicity, into ‘the land’.

Read about the site and its alterations.

The intimacy of this opening to our symposium and welcome to those attending perfectly framed our topic of Encounters across story, history, and forms of being.

Our first and only panel submitted as such, “Fostering Interconnectedness through Artistic Interjections” hosted Miriam Cummings, Ronan Fraser, and Annie Furman, three MFA students from UBCO working in theatre and creative writing. As a throughline, their presentations employed art as a method and mediating encounter, intervening politically, environmentally, and interpersonally through a desire to do better, be better, and make better through their work.

Our second and concluding panel of the day, “Encounters Across the Mechanical”, brought together Larissa Piva (UBCO MFA), Brianne Christensen (UBCO MA), and Nathalie Kurkjian (UBCO BA). We witnessed explorations of artificial intelligence technologies and art, the author as function set in conversation with paratexts, and epistemological liberation and limitations through language construction. These considerations for how we encounter texts–considerations of form, construction, language, and boundaries, helped shift our framing to the how of encounter, in addition to the what. 

Presenters, organizers, and faculty enjoyed dinner together the evening of April 28th, 2023 at Kelowna’s Frankie We Salute You, before returning, rested and well-caffeinated the next morning for our third panel: “Encountering Loss and Memory”. This panel hosted Bibek Sharma (MFA), Zev Tiefenbach (MFA), and Andisha Sabri (MFA), all of whose works confront geographical space and disconnection, cultural inheritances, and post-memory in exploring identity.

We were honoured to have Nancy Holmes present her work, “Place, Play, Love: Community art as ‘non-proscriptive space” as a keynote for our symposium. Dr. Holmes’ presentation came in two parts: first, she shared stunning images and information about the MANY bee species local to the Okanagan and British Columbia more broadly–an educational talk very much in line with her work as representative of Border Free Bees; second, she spoke to the value of community-based art projects and the power such projects hold for incremental ethical shifts toward nonhuman beings with whom we share this earth. Her presentation articulated a powerful message regarding how artists and academics alike can engage with and activate critical masses in the public in order to create change.

Our final panel, “Living Precariously: Embodied Encounters”, was composed of Karyann Dorn (M-IGS), Claire Miller-Harder (MFA), and Britt Mackenzie-Dale (PhD Candidate UNB) (absent). Like some of our other panels, our final panel was emotionally-laden insofar as it drew together systemic homelessness and the opioid crisis in southern Alberta and elsewhere, and Mennonite women’s embodied resistance to abuse and silencing. In both cases, the act of writing and its oration became an outcry–a site and an encounter with truths that are both repressed and ignored.

We are so grateful to all who shared their work and attended The Critical Relations Symposium: Encounters. In closing, I want to extend our collective gratitude to Dr. Nancy Holmes, whose donation back to our conference enabled us to create our first Critical Relations Symposium Student Paper Prize, awarded to two participants in this year’s symposium! To this, we also extend our heartfelt congratulations to both Brianne Christensen and Zev Tiefenbach, whose exceptional presentations are well-deserving of extra accolades. We treasure all the incredible presentations and the work that made selecting awardees so very difficult for this event. Lastly, we look forward to the next iteration of the Critical Relations Symposium, hosted by It’s Lit! Club!”

Below are some photos from the two-day symposium.

Espaces francophones Team 2022-2023; Carl Ruest, Aradhita Arora, Francis Langevin, launch event, September 2022.

A joint initiative between the Okanagan School of Education (French Pathways) and the Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies (French programs), Espaces francophones’ mission is to cultivate a sense of belonging among Francophones (first language or other) at UBCO. 

Over the last year, Espaces francophones has organized a number of successful events for students, faculty and the campus community, including a launch for the initiative, French film nights, social event for French speakers and learners, crêpe breakfast with the chance to socialize with other francophones, and creative writing sessions, in French.

Find out more about the past year’s events and what Espaces Francophones has to offer.

Matthew Davis

Matthew Davis is a Lecturer in the Department of English and Cultural Studies and the Co-Coordinator of the Digital Arts and Humanities program at UBCO. His research investigates the connections between embodiment, gender, and technology in place, space, and religious practice in pre-modern material, textual, and performance cultures.

Davis received his PhD in English literature (with a certificate in Digital Humanities) from Texas A&M University in 2013.  Before coming to UBCO, he was a ZKS-Lendrum Assistant Professor (Research) in the Scientific Study of Manuscripts and Inscriptions at the University of Durham for 2022, a postdoctoral fellow at the Ruth and Lewis Sherman Centre for the Digital Scholarship at McMaster University, a Lindsey Young Visiting Faculty Fellow at the University of Tennessee’s Marco Institute for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, and the Council of Library and Information Resources/Mellon Fellow in Data Curation for Medieval Studies at North Carolina State University.

Dr. Davis shared some insights on his research and teaching practices here at UBC Okanagan.

Tell us about your research interests and what excites you about your field of work

My research investigates the connections between embodiment, gender, and technology in place, space, and religious practice in pre-modern material, textual, and performance cultures. The goal there is to tease out what I call semiotic palimpsests–elements of the ways people thought about themselves in the late medieval and early Tudor periods that have been lost or suppressed due to the expectations of people in subsequent centuries. This means I’m primarily concerned with the cultural contexts works are produced within, their relationship to contemporary ideas, and the lives of the people who produced and consumed them.

I liken what I do to a form of literary archaeology; there’s the general study of literature qua literature, of course, but beyond that there’s insights to be gained about medieval culture and in the case of drama, how these works might have been put into practice in a real, ephemeral moment of performance. That sort of sense that the medieval should be allowed to stand as it’s own thing and not as part of or in opposition to something else seems to largely be missing today. We live in an incredibly presentist time; everything is focused on the eternal now and things are often taken out of context and put to work to shore up our beliefs, whether for good or ill.  I see the broad goal of my work in the middle ages to be in some ways an act of decolonization; not, in this case, of settlers colonizing indigenous lands but of the present colonizing the past and taking from it what they find useful.

How did you know you wanted to be a professor?

I started out working on a degree in International Relations with the original goal of wanting to join the Foreign Service in the United States. About two years into that program I decided that the life of a Foreign Service Officer, where you change locations every three years, wasn’t conducive to building a life. Which is a bit ironic, considering my post-degree pinballing around the world, but nevertheless that was my thinking.

Once I’d made that decision, I needed to figure out what I did want to do with my life. I was sitting in a computer lab on my undergrad campus when it struck me that what I really wanted to do was talk about ideas. That’s the thing that most excites me, and the job that seemed most likely to let me do that as a major part of my job was to be a professor.

What kind of learning experiences do offer your students

It depends on the course I’m teaching, obviously, but in general a student in my courses can expect to encounter what the digital world calls “Critical Making” and what might more broadly be considered experiential learning.

For my digital courses like the ones I’m teaching here at UBCO, I am a big believer in learning-by-doing and failure being built into the learning process. Much of the work in my class is trying out various digital tools and methods while I talk to students one-on-one or in small groups. I see my goal in these courses to make students aware that these tools exist and to give them a basic understanding of how they function under the hood. If it turns out that the tool or method has use for them they can explore it further, but knowing the tool is available in their metaphorical tool-chest is what I hope they get out of the courses I teach here.

Left to right: Jason (Darian Detta’s brother who accepted the award on his behalf), Kristen Burns, Alison Braid, and Corinna Chong. Not pictured: Madeleine van Goudoever

Local author Corrina Chong was the judge for the 25th annual Okanagan Short Story Contest, and announced the 4 finalists at a public event held at the Alternator for Contemporary Art last week with each of the writers reading a part of their story.

The winning author, Alison Braid of Summerland, took first place for her short story “Two Day Summer”.

“Upon reading the very first sentence of “Two Day Summer,” I knew I was in the hands of an expert. Every sentence of this story is beautifully crafted, the characters are richly drawn, and the conflict is layered with delicate precision,” explains Chong.

Alison Braid’s work has been shortlisted for the Montreal International Poetry Prize, Arc Poetry Magazine’s Poem of the Year Contest, and The Bridport Prize in Flash Fiction. She is the author of the chapbook Little Hunches (Anstruther Press, 2020.) She holds an MFA from the Vermont College of Fine Arts, and is currently working to finish a collection of short stories, titled Look Both Ways & Other Stories.

Madeleine van Goudoever, placed second with “Peachy Like Nietzsche”.

Chong says this about van Goudoever’s story, “This story is the best mixture of funny and tragic, its quirky, unpredictable characters grounded in decisive, vibrant writing. The concluding paragraphs, in particular, weave its narrative threads together with remarkable poise and sensitivity.”

Madeleine van Goudoever is a former graffiti artist from Montreal, who currently resides in Kelowna. She also writes poetry.

Third place went to MFA alumna Kristin Burns for her story, “Heat”.

“This is a writer who understands their characters as complex, three-dimensional people, and also has a keen ear for crafting propulsive, rhythmic sentences and images sharp enough to cut.” Says Chong.

Kristin is a queer MFA graduate currently living back in her hometown Vernon. She’s previously won second place in the Okanagan Short Story Contest, and her short story “The Lakeweed Girl”, shortlisted in 2022, will appear in this month’s issue of Carousel Magazine along with an accompanying illustration she made.

Finally, Darian Detta took the top prize for the high school category for his story, “The Place Where None Can Grow.”

“I was struck not only by the seamless way this story integrates the Ktunaxa (too-NA-ha) language and honours indigenous oral storytelling traditions, but also by the vivid, elegantly rendered imagery—tears transforming into thousands of silk strings, samaras plucked out of the wind’s grasp by the roiling tar, yellow flowers erupting from the earth. This was a deeply atmospheric and moving story by an undeniably talented young writer,” explains Chong.

Darian Detta is a grade 11 student and aspiring author at Mount Baker Secondary School in Cranbrook. He has a soft spot for both fantasy and science fiction (though a blend of both is his first and foremost preference.)

Corinna Chong is an acclaimed Canadian writer, editor and English professor at Okanagan College. The annual contest, organized by the Creative Writing program in the Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies (FCCS), is a writing competition open to fiction writers in British Columbia’s Southern Interior. Writers submit their stories, which are then read, anonymously, by faculty, and the shortlisted stories are sent to a guest judge to choose the winners in the adult and high school categories.

The first-place writer received $1,000 plus a one-week retreat at The Woodhaven Eco Culture Centre in Kelowna; second-place winner received $400 and third-place received $200. The top high school student received a $200 prize. Co-sponsors of the contest are FCCS and the Central Okanagan Foundation.

View the full short list for this year’s contest.