Janice Vis is a PhD candidate, course instructor, and award-winning creative writer in the department of English and Cultural Studies at McMaster University, located on lands of the Haudenosaunee and the Anishinaabe Nations.
Her research engages with several academic fields, including the Environmental Humanities, Critical Animal Studies, and Composition Theory. Broadly, she asks: “how do plants, animals, and places shape the stories we tell?” and “how do the stories we tell shape our relationships with plants, animals, and places?” She works most intimately with non-human creatures who incite feelings of fear, disgust, and haunting—she’s fascinated spider webs, snakes, and night-crawlers—and her work ponders how we can learn to live alongside discomfort in both our physical and psychic landscapes, often adopting experimental and genre-bending literary forms to re-think storytelling practises.
Janice’s research is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Her publications, awards, and teaching experience can be found below. She’s always happy to connect over Instagram at @janice.elaine.vis or over email at janice.vis@mcmaster.ca.
— ACEDEMIC PUBLICATIONS —
Cactus: Thoughts on Home, Grammar, and Personhood in The Trumpeter: Journal of Ecosophy, volume 37. 16 Dec 2022, pp 94-104.
The Plants are Plotting: Political Orders in Ostenso’s Wild Geese in Canada and Beyond: A Journal of Canadian Literary and Cultural Studies, issue 11. 21 Oct 2022, pp. 95-113.
To See Space: Following Caterpillars in Pivot: A Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies and Thought, volume 8.1. 20 Oct 2022, pp. 26-33.
— CREATIVE AND PUBLIC WRITING —
Unsightly Relations: A Meditation On (Not) Being Disgusted by Insects, in Network in Canadian History & Environment, Oct 2023.
Dear Time, in missive mag. March 2023, pp. 23-24.
The Check-In in Five Minute Lit. January 2023.
Storms Above in Dreamers Creative Writing, Spring 2022, pp. 26-27.
This is a story of two obituaries, in Spooky Gaze, issue 1, 8 Jan 2022.
A Short Guide to a Writer’s Imaginary Critics, The Artifice, 27 Sept 2021.
Memories of Poison in Glass Buffalo, 2017, pp. 34–36.
— TEACHING CONTRACTS —
COURSE INSTRUCTOR for ENGL 2Z03, McMaster University, Hamilton ON, Winter 2024 DOWNLOAD THE SYLLABUS
SENIOR TEACHING ASSISTANT for ENGL 1F03, McMaster University, Hamilton ON, Winter 2023
TEACHING ASSISTANT for ENGL 2CW3, McMaster University, Hamilton ON, Fall 2022
TEACHING ASSISTANT for ENGL 1F03, McMaster University, Hamilton ON, Spring 2021
TEACHING ASSISTANT for ENGL 1H03, McMaster University, Hamilton ON, Winter 2021
TEACHING ASSISTANT for CHRTC 342, University of Alberta, Edmonton AB, Fall 2019
TEACHING ASSISTANT for CHRTC 203, University of Alberta, Edmonton AB, Summer 2019
TEACHING ASSISTANT for CHRTC 242, University of Alberta, Edmonton AB, Summer 2019
TEACHING ASSISTANT for CHRTC 341, University of
Alberta, Edmonton AB, Spring 2019
— TUTORING, RESEARCH & EDITORIAL CONTRACTS —
INSTRUCTIONAL RESOURCE TEACHING ASSISTANT, McMaster University, Hamilton ON, Winter 2023
RESEARCH ASSISTANT, Conference Administrative Support, McMaster University, Hamilton ON, Summer 2023
WRITING TUTOR at McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, 2022
WRITING TUTOR at McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, 2021
EDITORIAL INTERN for Glass Buffalo Magazine, Edmonton AB, Summer 2019
PROJECT EDITOR for the project Popular Print Edmonton, University of Alberta, Edmonton AB, 2016-2017
RESEARCH ASSISTANT AND WRITER for the project Popular Print Edmonton, University of Alberta, Edmonton AB, 2015-2017
For more details about Janice’s past work or to see a complete copy of Janice’s CV, please get in touch.
— CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS & GUEST LECTURES —
More-Than-Human Sociality in CMST 2BB3, McMaster University, April 2024.
The Unsightly and the Disgusting: (Un)happy Relations at Narratives of Sustenance in Broken Times Conference, McMaster University, June 30 2023.
Re-seeing Space at York EGSA Conference, York University, May 5 2022.
Hatching in Habitat Studies (Or, how I became obsessed with a bird) at Methodology in Humanities Research, McMaster University, Feb 18 2022.
Redside Dace Don’t Live Here Anymore at Canada in Time of Crisis Graduate Student Conference, Trent University, Oct 4-6 2021.
Listening to Leeks in Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass in ENGL 1H03, McMaster University, 2021.
Popular Print & Reading in everyday Life in ENGL 384, University of Alberta, 2016.
Everyday Life Print Objects at Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, Calgary, AB, May 30-31 2016.
Reading & Popular Culture at Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, Calgary, AB, May 30-31 2016.
— AWARDS, FELLOWSHIPS, AND SCHOLARSHIPS —
2022-2025 SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
2020-2024 Harry Lymann Hooker Scholarship, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
2023-2024 Susan Crean Award for Creative Nonfiction
2021-2022 Ontario Graduate Scholarship, Government of Ontario, Canada
2020-2021 Ontario Graduate Scholarship, Government of Ontario, Canada
2019-2020 Sarah Nettie Christie Master of Arts Scholarship, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
2019-2020 Larry McKill Graduate Award, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta. Canada
2016-2017 Meryle and Alder Clark Scholarship, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta. Canada
2016-2017 Jason Lang Scholarship, Government of Alberta, Canada
2015-2016 Louise McKinney Post-Secondary Scholarship, Government of Alberta, Canada
2015-2016 Norton Drama Prize, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta. Canada
2014-2015 Louise McKinney Post-Secondary Scholarship, Government of Alberta, Canada
2014-2015 Prize in the Social & Cultural History of Genre, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
2013-2014 Jason Lang Scholarship, Government of Alberta, Canada
2013-2014 Faculty of Arts Academic Excellence Scholarship, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
2013-2014 Florence MacKenzie Memorial Entrance Scholarship, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Janice Vis 