Vikki Visvis
170 St. George Street, Toronto, ON M5R 2M8
Campus: St. George
Bio
Vikki Visvis received her PhD in English language and literature from the University of Toronto in 2004. Vikki has been an instructor at the UC Writing Centre since 2005. She is also currently a lecturer at U of T for the Department of English, where she teaches Canadian literature. Vikki has additionally taught intensive academic writing courses (such as ENG100H1 Effective Writing, ENGB02H3 Critical Writing about Narrative, WRR103H1 Writing Essays, and WRR203H1 Foundations of Written Discourse) both for the Department of English and for the Writing and Rhetoric Program at Innis College. She also has experience as an ELL (English Language Learner) tutor and has worked at other writing centres on campus. She has published scholarly articles on Canadian and American fiction by Frances Itani, Elizabeth Hay, David Bergen, Dionne Brand, Joseph Boyden, Michael Ondaatje, Kerri Sakamoto, Eden Robinson, and Toni Morrison. In 2013, Vikki was the recipient of Arts and Science Student Union's Ranjini (Rini) Ghosh Excellence in Teaching Award, and in 2022, she was co-winner of the Margaret Procter Award for Excellence in Writing Instruction.
Education
- BA, Sydney University
- MA, University of Toronto
- PhD, University of Toronto
Publications
Journal Articles
"Deaf Canada: Disability Discourses and National Constructs in Frances Itani's Deafening." Canadian Literature, vol. 243, 2020, pp. 81-100.
"The Sounds of North: Political Efficacy and the ‘Listening Self' in Elizabeth Hay's Late Nights on Air." Canadian Literature, vol. 225, no. Summer, 2015, pp. 29-45.
"Postcolonial Trauma in David Bergen's The Time in Between." ARIEL: A Review of International English Literature, vol. 44, no. 2-3, 2013, pp. 169-94.
"Traumatic Forgetting and Spatial Consciousness in Dionne Brand's In Another Place, Not Here." Mosaic, vol. 45, no. 3, 2012, pp. 115-31.
"Culturally Conceptualizing Trauma: The Windigo in Joseph Boyden's Three Day Road." Studies in Canadian Literature/Études en littérature Canadienne vol. 35, no. 1, 2010, pp. 224-43.
- - -. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism, edited by Lawrence J. Trudeau, vol. 393, Gale Cengage, 2016, pp. 146-55.
"Traumatic Representation: The Power and Limitations of Storytelling as ‘Talking Cure' in Michael Ondaatje's In the Skin of a Lion and The English Patient." ARIEL: A Review of International English Literature, vol. 40, no. 4, 2009, pp. 89-108.
"Alternatives to the ‘Talking Cure': Black Music as Traumatic Testimony in Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon." African American Review, vol. 42, no. 2, 2008, pp. 255-68.
"Trauma Remembered and Forgotten: The Figure of the Hysteric in Kerri Sakamoto's The Electrical Field." Mosaic, vol. 40, no. 3, 2007, pp. 67-83.
"Beyond the ‘Talking Cure': The Practical Joke as Testimony for Inter-Generational Trauma in Eden Robinson's ‘Queen of the North.'" Studies in Canadian Literature/Études En Littérature Canadienne, vol. 29, no. 2, 2004, pp. 37-61.
Edited Entries
"Joseph Boyden." Contemporary Literary Criticism, general editor, Lawrence J. Trudeau, vol. 393, Gale Cengage, 2016, pp. 123-185.