Larissa Lai Named Jackman Humanities Institute 12–Month Faculty Research Fellow

UC faculty member and Richard Charles Lee Chair in Chinese Canadian Studies, Larissa Lai, has been named a Chancellor Jackman Twelve-month Faculty Research Fellow in the Humanities for the 2026-27 academic year.

Twelve-month Faculty Research Fellows are central members of the Jackman Humanities Institute Circle of Fellows. They are University of Toronto tenured faculty members by the time of their fellowship, chosen for their distinction in achievements relative to their career stage, the excellence of their proposed project, and its relation to the annual theme for 2026-27, Doubles, Doppelgangers.

Professor Lai's Fellowship Research Project, The False Creek Agent, is a murder mystery about a Chinese Canadian real estate agent called Raymond Mah, who is found interred in one of the supporting pillars of a Vancouver livework condo building in the early 2000s. As a former musician and "one-hit wonder," he is a figure of recursive oppositions, between Hong Kong and Canada, between British colonialism and Chinese reclamation, between punk and pop, between an artistic life and a financially viable one. Will the rabbit-like detective, secret agent Valeria Wu, with help from her twins, be able to work out who killed him, and why?