Contact
Associate Professor, Augustana - Fine Arts & Humanities
- ssoliver@ualberta.ca
Overview
Area of Study / Keywords
Smell Literatures of Canada Diaspora Settler colonialism Women's writing Environment
About
Education
- PhD, Western University
- MA, Western University
- BA (Honours), St. Francis Xavier University
About Me
"Where do you know from?" is a guiding question in both my research and my teaching. A descendent of mostly Scottish, British, and French settlers, I was born and raised on the east coast of the country known as Canada. This personal history, combined with the strong sense of place I developed growing up on the Atlantic ocean, continues to play an important role in my learning (and unlearning) today. As a scholar grounded in feminist and postcolonial theory, I have always been interested in the politics of the body and embodied ways of knowing. This interest led me to study smell, a sense that is both extremely powerful and chronically undervalued as a form of knowledge in the Western world. Attending to these subtleties of sensory experience, my teaching and research focus primarily on literary representations of "Canada" as a story, idea, and national formation built and sustained through settler colonialism. Now that I live and work on Treaty Six territory, I increasingly focus on how these dynamics play out in relation to local issues (e.g. environmental injustice) and contexts (e.g. the Alberta oil sands).
Research
Interests
Western academia tends to privilege knowledge produced through the visual and auditory senses, so I like to "follow my nose" when pursuing new research. More than a mere background feature of mood or atmosphere, literary scents play a powerful role in evoking memories, emotions, and learned associations, revealing more about cultural, historical, political, and ethical values than meets the eye. My research interests include literary representations of smell in Canadian diasporic women's writing, olfactory encounters with the Alberta oil sands, and the poetics and ethics of breathing in settler atmospheres.
Contributions
Early research contributions include my article “Diffuse Connections: Smell and Diasporic Subjectivity in Larissa Lai’s Salt Fish Girl," which appeared in the journal Canadian Literature and received an Honourable Mention for the Don D. Walker Prize. Since taking up my current position, I have received numerous internal grants and have been a co-applicant on the SSHRC IDG-funded project "Literary Biodiversities in Western Canada" (2022-24).
I recently published my article "'Stinking as Thinking' in Warren Cariou’s 'Tarhands: A Messy Manifesto'" in a special issue of Canadian Literature on “Poetics and Extraction." I also published my essay "'Literary Biodiversity and You!': Restorying Biodiversity Through Bitumen" in a Canadian Literature Reader's Forum on "Literary Diversities." My book chapter on the poetics and ethics of breathing in Rita Wong's poetry was published in the edited collection Living and Learning with Feminist Ethics, Literature, and Art (University of Alberta Press, 2024). I also recently co-edited (with Kit Dobson) a special issue of the journal Canada and Beyond: A Journal of Canadian Literary and Cultural Studies entitled "Everything is Awful? Ecology and Affect in Literatures in Canada." The issue includes an introduction written with Kit Dobson and an interview with Canadian Cli-Fi author Rebecca Campbell. I am currently working on a manuscript on smell in contemporary Canadian literature.
I have written about my research for the media (this essay was published on the Augustana website, in the Camrose Booster, and in Augustana's Alumni Circle magazine) and I have been interviewed about my research on CHED 880 and CBC Radioactive.
Mentorship
One of the most fulfilling aspects of my job is mentorship. In addition to sitting on PhD committees in the Faculty of Arts, I have supervised over a dozen Research Assistants and a number of independent undergraduate research projects at Augustana. Some of these students have published their original research (see, for example, Shelby Paulgaard's essay "Force-Feeding: Consumption and Sexuality in Frank G. Paci's Black Madonna" in the University of Alberta's undergraduate journal Spectrum). I also like to explore creative forms of knowledge mobilization with students. Supported by SSHRC funding, my student Shelby Paulguaard and I co-curated "immersed," a visual exhibition of Rita Wong's poetry, at the Augustana Library in 2023.
Teaching
Methods and Approach
I teach a variety of courses in the Augustana "core" and the Creativity and Culture program. To support students' diverse learning needs, I combine lectures with in-class discussions and facilitate activities (collaborative exercises, journaling, reflection, free-writing, etc.) that allow students to hone their critical thinking, reading, writing, and oral communication skills in a variety of ways. I also support the development of students' writing skills through staged assignments, writing workshops, and peer review. As a responsive instructor committed to the ongoing improvement of my teaching, I participate in teaching workshops, stay up-to-date on current pedagogical theory and practice, and refine my courses each year. I recently received the University of Alberta COVID-19 Remote Teaching Award (2021-22) and the Augustana Teaching Leadership Award (2023) for my teaching. I have also presented at numerous teaching workshops and conferences, shared my insights about inclusivity in teaching on a teaching podcast, and published on the scholarship of teaching and learning.
Courses
I teach a variety of courses, from First Year Seminars and introductory Critical Reading, Critical Writing courses to upper-year courses on literatures of Canada, Postcolonial literature and theory, and diasporic literatures. I invite students to join me in the following courses:
- AUIDS 101 (First Year Seminar): Stop and Smell the Roses
- AUENG 102: Critical Reading, Critical Writing (Science Fictions and Tales of Technology)
- AUENG 298: Special Topics: Imaginary Homelands: Diasporic Literatures in English
- AUENG 280: Canadian Literature To 1950
- AUENG 281: Canadian Literature Since 1950
- AUENG 382: Postcolonial Literature and Theory
- AUENG 460 (Capstone): Consuming Difference: Food and Multiculturalism in Canadian Literature
Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SOTL)
In addition to presenting at pedagogical workshops and conferences, I have contributed to scholarship of teaching and learning (SOTL) through publications such as "Confronting CanLit's 'Dumpster Fire' Through Backward Course Design" (invited for the "Special Projects" section of the Canadian Literature website), “What if Grassroots Don’t Take Root?: Reflections on Cultivating Communities of Practice” (co-authored with Gavan Watson) in Transformative Dialogues: Teaching and Learning Journal, and “Stop and Smell the Roses: Incorporating Smell as a Multisensory Learning Tool in the University English Classroom" in Teaching Innovation Projects.
Courses
AUENG 102 - Critical Reading, Critical Writing
English 102 has two objectives. The first is to train students in the practices of analytical reading and critical thinking. To that end, we will read engaging literary texts in several genres. The second objective is to help students develop effective communication skills, particularly their writing abilities. To develop writing techniques, we will workshop grammatical skills which will provide the necessary building blocks for university-level writing. Prerequisite: ELA 30-1 or AUENG 101.
AUENG 280 - Unsettling Early Stories of Canada
Focusing on writing about the land known as Canada prior to its formation as a nation, this course traces and complicates the emergence of early literatures of Canada. Situating readings within their social, historical, and political contexts, we will study diverse literary and cultural texts from a variety of genres, including Indigenous stories, European explorer narratives, travelogues, domestic manuals, political pamphlets, poetry, short stories, novels, and essays. In addition, we will read contemporary writers who speak back to early texts and will consider the role of popular media, advertising, art, and colonial policies. Topics will include indigeneity, settler colonialism, immigration, race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, class, ability, religion, regionalism, and environment.
AUENG 281 - Canadian Literature since 1950
Development of literature in English in Canada from the middle of the twentieth century to the present, an age that some have termed postmodernist. The course focuses on the rise and fall of realism in fiction and also the emergence of distinctively Canadian voices among our poets. Included are works by Laurence, Atwood, Wiebe, Munro, Davies, Birney, Page, Purdy, and Layton. Prerequisites: 3 units in English at the 100-level. Note: Not to be taken by students with credit in AUENG 381.
AUENG 460 - Selected Topics in English Studies
Advanced study of selected authors, works, periods, and critical approaches. Focus and content of each course are determined by student and faculty interests, and vary from year to year. Prerequisites: Third-year standing.
AUIDS 101 - First Year Seminar
Selected topics that highlight the interdisciplinary nature of the Liberal Arts and Sciences. This seminar-style class is the first course in Augustana's Core. The focus and content of each course are determined by faculty interests, and vary from year to year.