Brendan McCormack

Brendan McCormack is a Sessional Lecturer in the Department of English Language and Literatures at the University of British Columbia, where he teaches and researches Canadian and Indigenous literatures. His work explores the intersections of literary nationalisms, multiculturalism, and the relationship between public policy and literary arts, with broader interests in settler colonial studies, diaspora, environmental humanities, and pedagogy.

• Education: BA from University of Victoria, MA from Carleton University, PhD from UBC in English Language and Literatures.

Research Interests center on narrative theory, Indigenous literary studies, and decolonial frameworks. He examines how contemporary Canadian and Indigenous authors use storytelling to address public and private conflicts, including climate change, colonialism, and identity politics.

Teaching focuses on first-year English courses like ENGL 100, emphasizing close reading, narrative analysis, and critical conversations about history, gender, and ecology. He co-edits the open-access educational resource CanLit Guides as Assistant Editor for the journal Canadian Literature.

Course Themes include:

• Storying Conflict through Canadian and Indigenous texts
• Narrative structures in crisis contexts
• Politics of history, identity, and belonging
• Formal elements of literary genres