Doctoral Fellows

Robert Zacharias
2006-

Robert Zacharias is a SSHRC Doctoral Fellow and a PhD student at the School of English and Theatre Studies at the University of Guelph. He has a Bachelor of Education degree and a Master's degree in English Literature, both from the University of Manitoba, and has taught secondary English and Fine Arts. He is currently the University of Guelph's ACCUTE representative, and has presented at conferences at the Université de Montréal, York University, University of London, and the University of Manitoba. His interests lie in contemporary Canadian literature, postcolonialism, and poststructural theory, as well as theories of globalization. His current research on the "state of exception" in Canadian historical literature focuses on questions of sovereignty and nationalism within a context of globalization.

Paul Danyluk
2006-

Paul Danyluk studied English and Creative Writing at York University before completing an MA at Simon Fraser University with a focus on print culture and Canadian literature. Diverse interests have allowed him to present research about Graham Greene's childhood at a graduate student conference in Calgary, critique the transmission history of an 18th Century Scottish ballad imitation in Vancouver, and talk about Black British Columbian literature and orature at the Autoethnography Conference at Wilfred Laurier University. Currently a SSHRC doctoral student at the University of Guelph, Paul is examining contemporary Canadian performance poetry as it intersects with theories of sound performance, ethnicity, race, and politics.

Cory Lavender
2007-

Cory St. Elmore Lavender was born and raised in Liverpool, Nova Scotia. He studied English Literature at Mount Saint Vincent University before attending McMaster University where he wrote his MA thesis on the poetry of George Elliott Clarke. A doctoral student in the School of English and Theatre Studies at the University of Guelph, Cory's current research involves an exploration of Black Loyalist Nova Scotia and its literature.

Amany Al-Sayyed
2008-

Amany Al-Sayyed holds an MA in English from UBC. Her doctoral research involves an examination of representations of Muslim narratives coming from the Middle East, especially memoirs and autobiography as circulated to a Euro-American audience during the war on terror. Her recent work has looked at the trope of the veil-hijab as a military document for Empire, a trope that provides a vital space for self-negotiation for the subject “out of place,” but which is also exploited at various levels of representation in our colonial present. Outside of academia, she has worked as a freelancer for mainstream and alternative media, and has contributed to Muslim magazines and newspapers in Canada.