When I look back at my undergrad at Queen’s from where I sit now, I can’t believe it.
Especially not my last semester: I took six courses, all of which were fourth-year English seminars (six of the ten I took total—couldn’t help myself). The publication I co-founded, Quilt , published its second Volume, and it’s amazing. But, if you don’t believe me, at the very least take a gander at some of the illustrative and design work. It is bound to stun:
Additionally, an acknowledgment that, unbeknown to me, the rest of the team crafted and stitched in at the last moment, is something I’ll forever cherish.
One of the great pleasures of the semester was being a panelist at the 2022 Queen’s Giller Prize Event, and honouring Giller Prize winner Omar El Akkad and his novel What Strange Paradise. Myself, Omar, Professor and poet Juliane Okot Bitek, and Religious Studies Professor Shobhana Xavier were fortunate enough to sit down and discuss the novel.
You can watch the full event (which was live-streamed) below, or start around 1:20:48 to see a few words I had to say about Omar here:
Also, feel free to check out my “Panelist Reveal” on Instagram:
Finally, here are some of my favourite photos from the night:
The final things I’ll mention regarding the semester are some literary conferences I participated in.
One was Inquiry at Queen’s (I@Q) which is a university-wide undergraduate research conference. I was asked by a couple of my professors to present two separate projects/papers: one pertaining to Indigenous literature (a panel that featured the author of Crow Winter Karen McBride), and the other to Batman. Quite a range. The citations are below, and feel free to click the links to read my published abstracts:
- “Grief, Tradition, and Settler Colonialism: Recommending Karen McBride’s Crow Winter.” Panel with Karen McBride (author of Crow Winter), Inquiry@Queen’s Undergraduate Research Conference, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON., 11 March 2022,
https://ojs.library.queensu.ca/index.php/inquiryatqueens/article/view/15496. - “Batman as Modern Revenge Tragedy: The Shakespearean Dark Knight.” Inquiry@Queen’s Undergraduate Research Conference, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON., March 2022, https://ojs.library.queensu.ca/index.php/inquiryatqueens/article/view/15502.
I also presented at Queen’s Undergraduate Conference in Literature (QUCL) on diasporic poetry. Citation:
- “The Diasporic Poet in Gianna Patriarca’s Italian Women and Other Tragedies and Vivek Shraya’s even this page is white.” Queen’s Undergraduate Conference in Literature, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON., Mar. 2022.
My Instagram post advertising the above:
I meant to make this blog post earlier in the summer, and upon logging on to prepare to post a class-related “blog essay,” I found most of what you see above in my “drafts.” Better late than never, I think. Cheers to the end of an era, and to all that’s to come.
