Dr. Kathleen Venema Preparing for Retirement
Fri. Oct. 10, 2025
On October 3rd, the English Department gathered together to celebrate the career of Dr. Kathleen Venema as she prepares for retirement. Dr. Venema is a much-loved teacher and colleague as well as a distinguished researcher and writer. Dr. Venema brought considerable prior teaching experience to UW when she began teaching in the English Department in 2001. In addition to regularly teaching courses in Canadian Literature, First-Year English, and the core Honours Program course in texts and cultures, Dr. Venema developed new courses in Peace and War (co-taught with Dr. Debbie Schnitzer), Biblical Texts and Cultural Studies, and Representations of Disability. In 2015, Dr. Venema became the first member of the English Department to take the Walls to Bridges Program training, through which she then taught a UW course at the Headingley Women’s Correctional Centre. Since then, Walls to Bridges has become an important part of the English Department’s teaching commitments, thanks to Dr. Venema’s initiative and dedication to combining literary studies with social justice. In addition to her teaching, Dr. Venema has published important research on illness, aging, disability, and care as well as on early Canadian literature. In 2018, she published Bird-Bent Grass. A Memoir, in Pieces (Wilfrid Laurier UP), which was shortlisted for the 2019 Alexander Kennedy Isbister Award for Non-fiction. During her retirement, Dr. Venema will continue as a Senior Scholar at UW to work on her ongoing project on graphic narratives of caregiving at end-of-life. The English Department wishes Dr. Venema a wonderful retirement!
