Visiting Fellows are scholars with academic positions in other post-secondary institutions who are physically visiting at 快播视频, including visiting scholars from Canada, short-term international visiting scholars, and Visiting Professors in Canadian Studies. Visiting Fellows are members of the Centre for the duration of their stay at the Robarts Centre and no more than one year at a time (renewable). Their appointment process to the Centre and degree of administrative support will vary but will necessarily involve the approval of the Director.
External Associates are scholars and community members who collaborate with at least one Faculty Associate of the Centre, and whose work actively support the public outreach and engagement missions of the Centre. These associates are external to 快播视频 and are granted special membership to the Centre by the Director for a two-year term (renewable). They receive minimal administrative support from the Centre, subject to approval by the Director.
Visiting Fellows and Visiting Professor in Canadian Studies 2025-26
Pilar Cuder-Dom铆nguez听
School of Humanities, University of Huelva (Spain), 2025-26 Robarts Visiting Professor in Canadian Studies.
Pilar Cuder-Dom铆nguez is a Professor of English at the University of Huelva (Spain). Her research interests are the literary representations of intersections of gender, genre, nation, and race. She is the author of three books and editor of eight collections of essays. Her latest publications have discussed the work of writers of Black and Asian ancestry in Canada, drawing from critical race studies and postcolonial and feminist theories:
- "'Many pasts to access': Recent Dystopian Fiction by Asian North American Women Writers." Utopian Studies 35.2-3 (2024): 542-548.
- "Esi Edugyan: Black Fugitivity and the Possibility of a Second Life." The Routledge Handbook of Black Canadian Literature. Ed. Andrea Davis and Leslie Sanders. Routledge, 2024.444-457. doi.org/10.4324/9781003156574鈥32
- "Undoing slavery鈥檚 anonymity: The politics of identification in twenty-first century Black Canadian poetry". Literature, Critique, and Empire Today 59.2-3 (2024): 378-392.
She has also co-edited a Special Issue on 鈥淐ultures of Empathy鈥 for the European Journal of English Studies available at
For more information, please visit https://orcid.org/
Email: picuder@uhu.es
Anna Czarnowus
Humanities, University of Silesia
Anna Czarnowus is Associate Professor at the University of Silesia, Katowice (Poland). She has published widely on medievalisms. She co-edited (with M. J. Toswell) Medievalism in English Canadian Literature: From Richardson to Atwood (D.S Brewer 2020). Her interest in Canadian medievalism is about how the European Middle Ages influenced the shaping of the settler culture.
Furthermore, she has worked on medievalism in fantasy fiction, and also in New Zealand and Eastern Europe. She co-edited (with Carolyne Larrington) Memory and Medievalism in George R.R. Martin and Game of Thrones: The Keeper of All Our Memories (Bloomsbury 2022), (with Janet M. Wilson) New Zealand Medievalism: Reframing the Medieval (Routledge 2024), and (with Laurel Ryan) Medievalism and Slavic Popular Culture (Arc Humanities 2025). Her most recent chapter, Arthur in Central and Eastern Europe, is forthcoming in The Cambridge History of Arthurian Literature and Culture, edited by Andrew Lynch and Raluca Radulescu.
Email: anna.czarnowus@us.edu.pl
Paul Halferty
Drama Studies, University College Dublin/ Director, UCD Dobbin Centre for Canadian Studies
J. Paul Halferty is an Assistant Professor in Drama Studies at University College Dublin, Ireland, where he also serves as Director of the UCD Dobbin Centre for Canadian Studies and Director of the Master鈥檚 in Theatre Practice, which is co-convened with The Gaiety School of Acting, Ireland鈥檚 National Theatre School. A theatre historian and queer theatre and performance studies scholar, his research explores the intersection of theatre and identity鈥攑rimarily sexual, gender, national, and racial.
Before returning to graduate school, Dr. Halferty taught acting at the Randolph Academy for the Performing Arts and worked as Assistant Producer at da da kamera and the Six Stages Festival in Toronto. He has taught at 快播视频, the University of Toronto, and Brock University, primarily in the areas of theatre history, acting, and gender and sexual diversity studies. He is co-editor, with Dr. Cathy Leeney, of Analysing Gender in Performance (Palgrave, 2022), and his scholarly work has been published in Theatre Research in Canada, Canadian Theatre Review, and the anthology Queer Theatre in Canada. He is also Associate Editor and contributor to TRANS(per)FORMING Nina Arsenault: An Unreasonable Body of Work (Intellect, 2012).
He is currently completing a monograph, Political Stages: Toronto Gay Theatre, 1967鈥1985, forthcoming from McGill鈥換ueen鈥檚 University Press in 2026. From 2007 to 2013, he served on the board of directors of Toronto鈥檚 Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, acting as its president from 2008 to 2012. He currently serves on the editorial board of Theatre Research in Canada/ Recherches th茅芒trales au Canada and is a board trustee for Associate for Canadian Studies in Ireland, the Ireland Canada University Foundation, and the Gaiety School of Acting. In addition to his academic research, he also works as a dramaturge.
Email: paul.halferty@ucd.ie
Tomasz Soroka
Institute of American Studies and Polish Diaspora, Jagiellonian University
Tomasz Soroka, Ph.D., is a political scientist, a Canadian studies scholar, and an assistant professor at the Institute of American Studies and Polish Diaspora, Jagiellonian University, Krakow, PL. He earned his doctoral degree in humanities (political science) in 2010. His publications cover various topics related to the political, legal, and cultural evolution of Canada. Currently, in his research, he focuses on Canada鈥檚 language policies and laws. He has been an awardee of grants and scholarships offered by the International Council of Canadian Studies and Polish academic institutions. As a visiting scholar, he has conducted research at Canadian universities: the University of Ottawa, University of Toronto, McGill University, Carleton University, and 快播视频. Thanks to the Erasmus+ and CEEPUS mobility programs, he has lectured at the universities of Catania, Veliko Tarnovo, Zadar, Maribor, and Coimbra.
Email: tomasz.soroka@uj.edu.pl
Paul Thomas
Geography, University of Wisconsin- Madison
Paul Thomas is a PhD student in the geography department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His dissertation research follows the migration trajectories of Indian students in Canada. His PhD dissertation is built on his 3.5-year-long research at the National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bengaluru, India, where he studied the migration-development-inequality nexus in Kerala, India.
Email: pthomas22@wisc.edu
Past Visiting Fellows and Visiting Professors in Canadian Studies (*)
(Click on link for pdf file)
External Associates
Patrick Connor
Ph.D.
Patrick J. Connor received his Ph.D. in History from 快播视频 in 2012. He was subsequently an R. Roy McMurtry Fellow in Canadian Legal History. His research has focused on the history of crime and punishment in nineteenth century Canada, with an emphasis on executive clemency and pardons. Having recently relocated to Nova Scotia, he is currently writing a book about food, cooking, and eating in nineteenth century Halifax.
Email: lefthist@yahoo.ca
Debashree Dattaray
Comparative Literature/ Centre for Canadian Studies, Jadavpur University
Debashree Dattaray is professor in the Department of Comparative Literature at Jadavpur University, India and is also coordinator of the Centre for Canadian Studies, Jadavpur University. She has been awarded a Fulbright Alumni Award 2019, the Shastri Mobility Programme (McGill University), CICOPS Fellowship (University of Pavia), a Fulbright-Nehru Visiting Lecturer Fellowship (UC Berkeley), the Erasmus Mundus Europe Asia Fellowship (University of Amsterdam) and Fulbright Doctoral Fellowship (SUNY, Stony Brook).
Her areas of research are Environmental Studies, Indigenous Studies, Comparative Literature and Digital Humanities. She is author of Oral Traditions of the North East: A Case 快播视频 of Karbi Oral Traditions (JU 2015) and has co-edited At the Crossroads of Literature and Culture (Primus 2016), Following Forkhead Paths: Discussions on the Narrative (Setu 2017), Ecocriticism and Environment: Rethinking Literature and Culture (Primus 2017), Literature and the Other Arts (JU Press 2023), Finding Philosophers in Global Fiction (Bloomsbury 2024).
She is on the Editorial Board of Littcrit: An Indian Response to Literature, Lagoonscapes: The Venice Journal of Environmental Studies, and Environment, Senses and Emotions (University of Exeter Press) and is Series Editor for Environmental Humanities and Indigeneity (Peter Lang) ().
She is Principal Investigator of an ICSSR Major Research Project on 鈥淒igital Empowerment and Traditional Knowledge Systems: A Case 快播视频 from Bankura and Purulia, West Bengal鈥.
She is nominated member for Jadavpur University for the India Member鈥檚 Council, Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute and is the Zonal Representative (East) for the Indian Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies (IACLALS).
Email: debashree.dattaray@jadavpuruniversity.in
Janet Friskney
Ph.D.
Janet B. Friskney is a book historian with a particular specialty in Canadian publishing history. The author of New Canadian Library: The Ross-McClelland Years (2007), Dr. Friskney has also introduced and edited Thirty Years of Storytelling: Short Fiction by Ethelwyn Wetherald (2011), served as associate editor to volume three of the History of the Book in Canada (2007), and wrote the introduction to Formac鈥檚 2012 reprint of Helen Milecete Duffus鈥檚 The Strawberry Girls. Her article literature includes studies related to the Methodist Book and Publishing House / The Ryerson Press, Canadian bible and tract societies, and the history of library and publishing services for the blind in Canada. Her post-secondary education includes an honours B.A., summa cum laude from 快播视频, an M.A. in Canadian Heritage & Development Studies from Trent, a Ph.D. in Canadian history from Carleton University, a post-diploma certificate in Book and Magazine Publishing, with honours, from Centennial College, and a certificate in Access to Information and Protection of Privacy, with distinction, from University of Alberta. She has taught courses in publishing history at York and Simon Fraser University, has held a Tremaine Fellowship from the Bibliographical Society of Canada, and has been a co-applicant on two successful SSHRC Connection Grants.
Email: jbfriskney@yahoo.ca
Irene Gammel
English, Toronto Metropolitan University
Irene Gammel is a Professor of English at Toronto Metropolitan University in Toronto. She is the executive director of the Modern Literature and Culture Research Centre, held the Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Modern Literature and Culture, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. She is the author and editor of sixteen books, including the acclaimed Baroness Elsa: Gender, Dada and Everyday Modernity (MIT Press) and Looking for Anne of Green Gables (Sutherland House), as well as over 60 peer-reviewed articles and chapters.
Email: gammel@toronto.mu.ca
Elaine Gold
Director, Canadian Language Museum
Elaine Gold is the Director of the Canadian Language Museum. She initiated the Museum鈥檚 founding in 2011, directs the creation of its exhibits and oversees its operations. She brings to her work at the CLM a PhD in Linguistics, decades of teaching at the University of Toronto, an MA in Art History and strong experience in arts administration and curatorial work. She has lived in central, western and northern Canada, and is dedicated to promoting and protecting this country's rich language heritage. Dr. Gold was awarded the Canadian Linguistic Association鈥檚 2019 National Achievement Award in recognition of her outreach work through the Museum.
Website:
Email: director@languagemuseum.ca
Darnel Harris
Master of Environmental Studies, 快播视频
Darnel Harris is a planner and community advocate breaking down barriers to practical mobility for all ages and abilities. He has a passion for space animation, mobility and sustainability. His research and outreach efforts have been recognized by the German Government, and he produced Toronto鈥檚 1st Annual Cargo Bike Championship this summer to showcase the difference cargo bikes can make. Darnel is Executive Director of Our Greenway, a coalition of businesses, residents and community groups in Toronto's northwest seeking to build a 21 kilometers of mobility paths protected by raingardens, connecting people to places and new opportunities all year round..
Email: dharrisplanning@gmail.com
Brian Hotson
M.T.S., independent scholar
Brian Hotson is an independent scholar and journal editor. His work includes decolonization, social and spatial justice, and writing centre studies. He has published in the Journal of College Science Teaching, Canadian Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, Discourse and Writing/R茅dactologie, and The Writing Center Journal, among others. He is the co-editor and co-founder of the journal, SKRIB: Critical Studies in Writing Programs and Pedagogy.
Email: brw.hotson@gmail.com
Ged Martin
Professor Emeritus, University of Edinburgh and former director, Centre of Canadian Studies, University of Edinburgh
Ged Martin is a graduate of Cambridge who has spent half a century studying Canadian history, often in comparison with other parts of the British empire. He has written about the Durham Report, Confederation, Kingston in Ontario, Saint John in New Brunswick, the alcohol problem of John A. Macdonald, the marital difficulties of Alexander Campbell and the spiritualist adventures of Mackenzie King. Ged Martin likes to pose unusual questions: his recent work has asked: who could speak French in English Canada? and how much did Canada 'pay' First Nations for the prairies? (The inverted commas indicate a notional calculation, since no purchase money changed hands.)
Email: gedmartin@hotmail.com
Kate Moo King-Curtis
M.A. in Humanities, art therapy student (DTATI Candidate), Research Associate
Kate is a recent graduate with extensive experience in the arts and film industries in Canada and the US. In 2022, she earned an MA in Humanities from 快播视频, completing an MRP titled 鈥淎 Multistoried Artist: Holistic Self-Reflexivity in Childhood Studies,鈥 which developed an analytical model using childhood art artifacts, autoethnographic tools, and research-creation.
In 2021, she completed 鈥淵outh Support Imaginings,鈥 an arts-based research project with youth for 快播视频鈥檚 Children, Childhood, and Youth Honours BA program.
Kate is affiliated with the Robarts Centre鈥檚 Children and Young People Interdisciplinary Research Network (CYPIRN), where she engages in collaborative research to build knowledge with, for, and about diverse young people in Canada.
As an art therapy advocate, Kate is pursuing post-graduate studies in Art Therapy at the Toronto Art Therapy Institute to conduct practice-based, participatory research with young people and their communities. A multiracial/multistoried woman, she is dedicated to amplifying diverse voices and knowledge keepers in creative arts therapies in Canada. Through her contributions to the Canadian Art Therapy Association鈥檚 Envisage column, Rooted Storytellers, she works toward inclusivity and representation in the histories shaping the field of art therapy.
Future Goals: Participatory research in art therapy to develop AR/AI tools with and for children and youth.
Research Interests: Art therapy, mental health, children and youth studies, arts-based methods, youth agency in research, intersectionality, technological equity, critical race theory
Email: kmoocurtis@gmail.com
Sharifa Patel
Ph.D. English and Cultural Studies
Sharifa Patel holds a PhD in English and Cultural Studies from McMaster University. Her research examines representations of violence in Muslim families in Canadian news media and challenges settler-colonial notions of family and kinship in Canadian immigration policies. Sharifa is affiliated with the Robarts Centre at 快播视频 and is also a co-managing editor of the online journal, Feral Feminisms.
Email: sharifapatel10@gmail.com
Jen Preston
Ph.D. Social and Political Thought
Dr. Jen Preston holds a PhD in Social and Political Thought from 快播视频. Her research focuses on oil and gas extraction in Canada and its relationship to settler colonialism. Her research has been published in journals such as Race & Class, Cultural Studies, and Nouveaux Cahiers du socialisme
Email: jenpreston@gmail.com
Altaf Qadeer
Ph.D.
Altaf Qadeer is a scholar of multiple fields. He is a member of NARST, USA (a global organization for improving science education through research). He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA), UK. He is also a member of the European Science Education Research Association (ESERA). He has served as the Adjunct Professor and Site-Coordinator at 快播视频, Canada (for B.Ed., teacher practicums). He is also an external associate with the Robarts Center for Canadian Studies and the York Centre for Asian Research at 快播视频. He also participated in a workshop Educating Global Citizens through the professional education program of Harvard Graduate School of Education. He has made research contributions for science education and worked as an educator for a long period. He was also a member of the Master of Teaching, MT Partnership Advisory Committee (OISE), University of Toronto and a member of ICDE (which is a key partner with UNESCO).
His research is published in the International Journal on Math, Science and Technology Education, the Journal of Physics Education and the George Eckert Institute Germany (Leibniz Institute for Educational Media). His creative approaches include, Creativity Inspired Science & Inventions (CISI), Citizen Education Science (citizen science + education), research journals for children (in simple form), MATHMAT, Multiple dimensions of environment, CLIMOWATCH, Safety education for all, multilingual power to enrich global interactions, Human Intelligence Inspiring Education (HIIE), citizen poetry. The Toronto Star has also published his ideas. He is a recipient of a New Pioneers Award.
His work about languages is published by FID4SA, Heidelberg, Germany. He presented at the international symposium on STEM education, ISSE, 2016 and the International LUMAT Symposium, Finland. An interconnected approach to creativity, success and happiness is also one of his contributions. One of his research projects is included in the book: The Languages and Linguistics of South Asia- A Comprehensive Guide. His publications also include: The future possibilities for the science of education and the art of learning (creativity, education, making inventions, economic aspects) and some ideas on Living in Multiple Nets - Pathways to empower creativity. He has also written about protecting our cognitive environment along with our physical environment, his work was published in 2000. He also writes poetry in English and Urdu.
Website:
Email: dr.altafqadeer@gmail.com
Elia Rasky
Ph.D. Political Science
Elia Rasky is a recent graduate of the doctoral program in Political Science at 快播视频, where he specialized in Canadian public policy. He recently completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), a public policy think tank, focusing on research related to artificial intelligence (AI) governance and regulation in Canada. Elia鈥檚 research interests encompass Canadian political and economic history, international political economy, and technology and innovation policy. As an independent scholar, he is currently researching the design, implementation, and impacts of AI policy in Canada. Elia is dedicated to exploring important questions around science, technology, and the future of the Canadian economy in a rapidly changing world.
Alexis Hieu Truong
Criminology, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ottawa
Alexis H Truong is Assistant Professor in the Criminology Department at the University of Ottawa. His research focuses on themes of mental health, violence towards women, transitions into adulthood and popular culture in Canada and Japan. He also specializes in research methods, both qualitative and quantitative. Prior to starting his tenure-track appointment, he was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Goldsmiths College, University of London (UK, Fonds de recherche Soci茅t茅 et Culture [FQRSC] Postdoc Scholarship, 2016-2017) in the Sociology Department and was also associated with Sophia University for his fieldwork (Tokyo, 2010-2011) while he completed his PhD at the University of Ottawa (Canada, ON) in Sociology (FQRSC Doctoral Scholarship). He also holds a master鈥檚 in social work, and currently is a member of the Centre for Research on Educational and Community Services (CRECS) and a member of The Sociological Review鈥檚 editorial board.
Currently, Professor Truong is principal investigator on a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Insight Development Grant exploring the effect of psychiatrization on transitions into adulthood of youths in Canada. He is also co-researcher on two SSHRC funded Partnership Engage Grants: the first one is looking at stigma experiences while accessing public health services for women with borderline personality disorders who have also experienced sexual violence or intimate partner violence; the second grant is looking at emotional difficulties experienced by community organisations鈥 healthcare workers in the context of the COVID-19 response, and especially those working with marginalized populations experiencing homelessness, handicaps and mental health-related issues. Professor Truong鈥檚 research also looks at the place and role of popular culture and leisure practices in the lives of young adults, and how it fosters social insertion. One article on this theme has been published in the International Journal of the Sociology of Leisure, where he explores three pathways taken by youths participating in costume play practices in Tokyo (Japan). He has also recently published with one of his master鈥檚 students, Anne M Goodall, in the Journal of Community Safety 快播视频 and Well-Being. on the therapeutic effects of participation in tabletop roleplaying games such as Dungeons & Dragons.
Email: ah.tuong@uottawa.ca