Poetry, Witness, Climate Crisis, Social Justice: Through the Portals of Epic Fantasy and Verse

The Centre for Research in Cultural Studies (CRiCS) invites you to a deep dive through the portals of epic fantasy and verse with poet Renée Sarojini Saklikar (Douglas College) and author Dale Tracy (Kwantlen Polytechnic). Moderated by Angela Failler (UWinnipeg), Renée and Dale will explore infrastructure in poetry and the working of epic forms, using scholarly and poetic approaches to how climate fiction and verse coincide with social justice. Renée’s recently released Bramah’s Discovery will be featured in this conversation. Bramah’s Discovery is the third in her trilogy of cli-fic epic fantasy in verse novels, collectively known as THOT J BAP (The Heart of This Journey Bears All Patterns).

This event is free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be served.

CRiCS is located on the 3rd floor of Centennial Hall. See map for detailed directions.

Renée Sarojini Saklikar is the author of six books, including the award-winning Children of Air India and Listening to the Bees. Her essays and short fiction have appeared in literary magazines and anthologies, including Exile Editions, Chatelaine, The Capilano Review, and Pulp Literature. She was Poet Laureate for the City of Surrey (2015-2018), co-founded Lunch Poems at SFU, and teaches Creative Writing at Douglas College. Bramah’s Discovery is the third volume of her epic fantasy in verse series, THOTJBAP. Renee Sarojini is grateful to work, create, and live in East Vancouver on the traditional territory of the Coast Salish peoples.

Dale Tracy is the author of the full-length poetry collection Derelict Bicycles (Anvil Press, 2022); several chapbooks, including Lines That Open (Surrey Art Gallery, 2023); and the scholarly monograph With the Witnesses (McGill-Queen’s UP, 2017). Her poetry and scholarship have appeared or are forthcoming in Canadian Literature; The Malahat Review; The Fiddlehead; The Goose: A Journal of Arts, Environment, and Culture in Canada; and the Special Issue on the Creative Humanities for University of Toronto Quarterly, among other publications. She is a faculty member in the English Department at Kwantlen Polytechnic University and lives on the unceded and ancestral territories of the Kwantlen, Katzie, Semiahmoo, and Tsawwassen First Nations.

Angela Failler is Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies and former Canada Research Chair in Culture and Public Memory at the University of Winnipeg. Her research is focused on how practices of culture and public memory are used to grapple with “difficult knowledge” and the ongoing effects of historical traumas and injustice. She leads a long-term study on public memory and cultural afterlife of the 1985 Air India bombings and is a founding member of the Thinking Through the Museum network.

For more information: crics@uwinnipeg.ca