Email

ssoliver@ualberta.ca

Education

PhD, Western University

MA, Western University

BA (Honours), St. Francis Xavier University

Teaching 

I teach introductory courses in English and senior courses in Canadian, postcolonial, and diasporic literatures. My classes incorporate a variety of learning activities (workshops, collaborative exercises, reflection activities, free-writing, etc.). I also use staged writing assignments to provide students with feedback throughout the writing process. If you are interested in taking one of my classes, please don't hesitate to contact me. For more information on my teaching, see below.

Research 

My research focuses on questions of embodiment, identity, and power in relation to issues of race, gender, sexuality, and class. I am particularly interested in representations of the senses, concepts of relationality, and intersections of diaspora, indigeneity, and settler colonialism in Canada. My current research project focuses on the role of smell in Canadian diasporic women's writing. I am also interested in representations of resource extraction sites such as the Alberta tar sands. In addition to my disciplinary research, I participate in the scholarship of teaching and learning (SOTL). For more information on my research, see below.

Journal Articles

•  “The Politics of Scattering Seeds: Cultivation and Diasporic Settlement.” (In revision)

•  “Diffuse Connections: Smell and Diasporic Subjectivity in Larissa Lai’s Salt Fish Girl.” Canadian Literature, vol. 208 (Spring), 2011, pp. 85-107. https://canlit.ca/article/diffuse-connections/ (abstract)

Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SOTL)

• “What if Grassroots Don’t Take Root?: Reflections on Cultivating Communities of Practice” (co-authored with Gavan Watson). Transformative Dialogues, vol. 10, no. 1, 2017, pp. 1-6. http://www.kpu.ca/sites/default/files/Transformative%20Dialogues/TD.10.1.2_Oliver%26Watson_What_If_Grassroots_Dont_Take_Root.pdf
• “Stop and Smell the Roses: Incorporating Smell as a Multisensory Learning Tool in the University English Classroom.” Teaching Innovation Projects, vol. 2, no. 2, 2012, pp. 1-21. https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/tips/vol2/iss2/1/

Before coming to Augustana, I taught a variety of courses in English and Interdisciplinary Studies at Western University and Huron University College in London, Ontario. At Augustana, I have taught the following courses: 

• AUENG 102: Critical Reading, Critical Writing

• AUENG 298: Special Topics (Imaginary Homelands: Diasporic Literatures in English)

• AUENG 281/381: Canadian Literature Since 1950

In 2018/19, I will be teaching the following courses:

• AUENG 103: English Literature From the Romantic Period to the Present

• AUENG 280/380: Canadian Literature To 1950

• AUENG 460: Selected Topics: Consuming Difference: Food and Multiculturalism in Canadian Literature