91��ɫ

Position

Full Professor

Academic Editor at 91��ɫ Press

Education

• PhD (University of Tasmania)
• BA (University of Tasmania)

Contact Information

• Office: AA 3006 
• Telephone: (709) 864-8055 
• Email: fpolack@mun.ca
• Website: /faculty/fpolack/

Research Interests

Energy and Environmental Humanities, Island and Ocean Studies, Settler Colonialism, Newfoundland and Labrador Literary and Cultural Studies, Australian Literature

Selected Publications

Books and Edited Collections

• Fiona Polack and Danine Farquharson, editors. Cold Water Oil. Routlege, 2021.
• Fiona Polack, editor. Tracing Ochre: Changing Perspectives on the Beothuk. University of Toronto Press, 2018.
• Petrocultures Research Group. After Oil. West Virginia UP, 2016.

Articles and Book Chapters

• �Heading Offshore: Introducing Cold Water Oil.� Cold Water Oil, edited by Fiona Polack and Danine Farquharson. Routledge, 2021, pp.1-20.
• �Encountering the Nonhuman in North Atlantic Oil Catastrophes.� Cold Water Oil, edited by Fiona Polack and Danine Farquharson. Routledge, 2021, pp.40-60.
• �Corporate and Worker Photographs of the Offshore Oil Industry: The Case of the Ocean Ranger,� Journal of Canadian Studies, vol.53, no.1, 2019, pp. 152-77.
• �Introduction: De-Islanding the Beothuk.�  Tracing Ochre: Changing Perspectives on the Beothuk, edited by Fiona Polack, University of Toronto Press, 2018, pp. 3-29.
• �Shanawdithit and Truganini: Converging and Diverging Histories.�  Tracing Ochre: Changing Perspectives on the Beothuk, edited by Fiona Polack, University of Toronto Press, 2018, pp. 321-344.
• �Offshore Rig� (co-written with Danine Farquharson). Fueling Culture: 100 Words for Energy and Environment, edited by Imre Szeman, Jennifer Wenzel, and Patricia Yaeger, Fordham UP, 2017, pp. 252-254.
• �The Politics of Energy Sources.�  Improving Democratic Governance in Newfoundland and Labrador, edited by Alex Marland and Lisa Moore, ISER Books, 2017, pp. 311-313.
• �Juxtaposing Contemporary Writing from Canada and Australia.� Journal of the Association for the Study of Australian Literature, vol. 15, no. 3, 2015, .
• �Reading Shanawdithit�s Drawings: Transcultural Texts in the North American Colonial World.� Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History, vol. 14, no. 3, 2013. Project Muse, .
• �Amelia Curran�s Newfoundland Painting.� Keats-Shelley Journal, vol. 60, 2011, pp. 25-29.
• �Art in the Bush: Romanticist Painting for Indigenous Audiences in Tasmania and Newfoundland.� Nineteenth-Century Contexts, vol. 33, no. 4, 2011, pp. 333-351.
• �Memory against History: Figuring the Past in Cloud of Bone.� English Studies in Canada, vol. 35, no. 4, 2009, pp. 53-69.
• �Taking the Waters: Abjection and Homecoming in The Shipping News and Death of a River Guide.� Journal of Commonwealth Literature, vol. 41, no. 1, 2006, pp. 93-110.
• �Home Births: Women and Regional Space in The Sound of One Hand Clapping and Waiting for Time.� Australasian-Canadian Studies, vol. 22, no. 2, 2004, and vol. 23, no. 1, 2005, pp. 181-208.
• �Writing and Rewriting the Island: Tasmania, Politics, and Contemporary Australian Fiction.� Message in a Bottle: Proceedings from an International Conference, Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada, June 28-30, 1998, edited by Laurie Brinklow, Frank Ledwell, and Jane Ledwell, Institute of Island Studies, U of Prince Edward Island, 2000, pp. 215-229.
• �Place and Space: Views from a Tasmanian Mountain.� Imagining Australian Space: Cultural Studies and Spatial Inquiry, edited by Ruth Barcan and Ian Buchanan, U of Western Australia P, 1999, pp. 145-157.

Conference Presentations and Lectures

• �Introducing St. John�s Harbour: Energy Amphitheatre,� co-presenters Rachel Jekanowski, Danine Farquharson and Dean Bavington, Energy In/Out of Place: Virtual Energy Humanities Research-Creation Workshop, 15-19 June, 2020.
• �Islanding an Oil Rig: Where is Hibernia?� International Small Island Studies Association Global Island Studies Webinar, 24 June, 2020.
• �Hibernia,� Northeast and Atlantic Region Environmental History Forum, Boston University, Boston, 22 June, 2019.
• �Offshore Oil: Local and Global,� Past, Present and Future Petrocultures in Newfoundland and Labrador, Nexus Centre for Interdisciplinary Research, 91��ɫ, St. John�s, 5 February, 2019.
•  �Rigs and Islands,� Petrocultures 2018: Transitions, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, 2 September, 2018.
• �Archiving Loss: Photographs of the Ocean Ranger.� CROSS: Canada�s Responsibility to Our Shining Seas: Ethics, Community, Culture, 1867-2067, 12 May 2017, Dalhousie University, Halifax.
• �Is Newfoundland and Labrador a Petroculture?� Asking the Big Questions: What Might a Sustainable Post-Oil Newfoundland and Labrador Look Like?, 4 November 2016, 91��ɫ of University, Canada.
• �Time, Risk and the Public.� Petrocultures 2016: The Offshore, 1 September 2016, 91��ɫ of University, Canada
• �The Rhetoric of Catastrophe: Commissions of Public Inquiry into Offshore Oil.� Cultures of Energy 5 Research Symposium, CENHS, 23 April 2016, Rice University, USA.
• �Tony Birch�s Blood, and Oil.� Literary Networks Convention, 7 July 2015, University of Wollongong, Australia.
• �Oceans, Rivers, Tributaries: Comparing Settler Texts Now.� Worlds Within: Annual Conference of the Association for the Study of Australian Literature, 10 July 2014, University of Sydney, Australia.
• �Tales of Absence: Ken Pittman�s Shanaditti: Last of the Beothuks and Tom Haydon�s the Last Tasmanian.� American Association for Australasian Literary Studies 2014 Conference, 26 April 2014, Portland State University, USA.
• �Shanawdithit and Truganini: Converging and Diverging Histories.� Traces of Ochre: A Symposium, 17 June 2013, 91��ɫ of University, Canada.
• �Regional Textualities: Interpreting Shanawdithit�s Annotated Sketches.� Contested Regional Identities: The 19th Atlantic Canada Studies Conference, 5 May 2012, University of New Brunswick (at Saint John), Canada.
• �Mirror Islands: The Colonial Histories of Tasmania and Newfoundland.� Gilbert Higgins 91��ɫ Lecture for the Newfoundland Historical Society, 23 February 2012, Marine Institute, 91��ɫ of Newfoundland, Canada.
• �Romancing Annihilation in Nineteenth-Century Narratives of Tasmania and Newfoundland.� Reading across the Pacific: The American Association for Australasian Literary Studies 2012 Conference, 17 February 2012, The Delta Hotel, Toronto, Canada.
• �Reading Shanawdithit�s Drawings.� Aboriginal Studies Seminar Series, 29 November 2011, 91��ɫ of Newfoundland, Canada.
• �The Currans and the Colonies: Shelley�s Circle and the Settlement of Newfoundland.� Romanticism and the Tyrannies of Distance Conference, 10 February 2011, University of Sydney, Australia.
• �Different Islands, Same Stories-Settler and Indigenous Encounters in Tasmania and Newfoundland.� 18 August 2010, Boyd�s Cove Beothuk Interpretation Centre, Canada.
• �Ambivalence in Robert Drewe�s The Savage Crows.� 12 February 2007, Department of English, 91��ɫ of Newfoundland, Canada.
• �Of Knots and Rivers: Tasmania and Newfoundland.� Invited presentation. University of Tasmania Colonialism and Its Aftermath Seminar Series, 16 February 2001, Ross, Australia.

Current Research Projects

• Rigs and Islands, SSHRC Insight Grant-funded project on ocean-based place making
• Cold Water Oil, a collaborative research project with Danine Farquharson that examines cultural figurations of the North Atlantic offshore oil and gas industry:

Other Professional Activities

• Academic Editor, 91��ɫ Press (https://memorialuniversitypress.ca/)

Regularly Taught Courses

Undergraduate

• English 2122: World Literature in English
• English 3009: Literature and Environment
• English 3160: Empire and After
• English 3161: Australian Literature
• English 4891: Imagining Islands

Graduate

• English 7087: Petrofictions
• English 7003: Theory for Our Times

Honours And Graduate Supervision 

Energy and Environmental Humanities, Island Studies, Ocean Humanities, Post-Colonial Literatures, Settler Colonialism, Newfoundland and Labrador Literatures and Cultures,