Keavy Martin Becomes a Member of the College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists

Keavy Martin (BA Queens; MA, PhD Toronto), Associate Professor in English & Film Studies and Adjunct Professor of Native Studies, will become a member of the Royal Society of Canada's College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists on November 27th in Victoria. Martin is an established scholar of Indigenous literatures and literary theory in Canada, and has been with the U of A since earning her PhD from the University of Toronto in 2009.

The Royal Society of Canada (RSC) was established in 1882 as the senior Canadian college of distinguished scholars, artists and scientists. The primary objective of the society is to promote and recognize learning and research for the betterment of Canada and the global community. While election to the RSC is considered the highest honour a scholar can achieve in recognition of contributions made over a career, in 2014 the College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists was launched as the first national system of multidisciplinary recognition of Canada's emerging generation of thought leaders.

For Martin, to be recognized by the RSC so early in her career is a rare and significant achievement. "Being elected to the College of New Scholars means that some of my colleagues out there have faith in me, and I'm really honoured by that," she says. "It's a prestigious affiliation, and I'm excited to meet scholars from across the country working in similar fields."

Martin credits the movie Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner with steering her toward the Inuit language and culture. "I really wanted to learn an indigenous language, and I had recently seen Atanarjuat. I knew the University of Toronto had an Inuktitut language class, and once I started, I was hooked. I wanted to keep learning."

In 2012, Martin published Stories in a New Skin: Approaches to Inuit Literature (University of Manitoba Press), which won the Gabrielle Roy Prize for best new work of literary criticism in English, and is the first book to study Inuit literature in three decades. She is also the lead editor on a new edition of Mini Aodla Freeman's autobiographical Life Among the Qallunaat (University of Manitoba Press). Freeman, an Inuit elder and residential school survivor, worked with Martin (along with co-editors Julie Rak and Norma Dunning) to restore original material and phrasing cut from the 1978 edition. According to Martin, it was a labour of love. "I came across the book as a graduate student when I was doing my research on Inuit literature, and it was such a stunning, powerful, funny, insightful story," she says. "It's a meaningful project for me because I had a chance to work closely with Mini and know that she is happy with the final version. It really brings two streams of my work together: the Inuit literature focus, and the question of reconciliation and residential school history in Canada.&rdquo

In 2014, Martin helped to coordinate the University of Alberta response to the final Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) event in Edmonton, and leads the current, SSHRC-funded project Beyond Reconciliation: Indigenous Arts and Public Engagement after the TRC. Last year, she organized the Tâpwê! Indigenous Writers Gathering, which brought together Indigenous writers from across the country, and spent two years working with the City of Edmonton's Aboriginal Relations Office to help conceptualize a solution to the controversial Grandin LRT Station mural.

Martin acknowledges that her scholarly activities, in part, are inspired by living and working on Treaty 6 land, where her family has resided for generations. "What originally started as something interesting and important in a political sense really became something personal," she says. "I began to know more people in the community and to feel more responsibility. The more than I know about the history of this place, the more I feel I have to engage with that history and what's going on now, in the present, and bring that learning to my classrooms."