Petra Fachinger

Petra Fachinger is a Professor in the Department of Comparative Literature at Queen's University. Her research integrates social justice frameworks with literary analysis, focusing on Indigenous-settler relations, diaspora studies, and climate crisis narratives. She holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of British Columbia (UBC) and is a polyglot with proficiency in Latin, Spanish, Mandarin, and Anishinaabemowin.

Her work critically examines intersections between literature and societal issues such as environmental justice, cultural reclamation, and colonial legacies. Recent projects include analyzing Indigenous-settler dynamics in Young Adult literature and exploring climate fiction's role in depicting ecological crises. She has supervised numerous MA and PhD students, co-mentoring across disciplines like English (ENGL) and Cultural Studies (CUST).

Publications span journals like Canadian Literature, Studies in Canadian Literature, and Journal of Canadian Studies, with a book Rewriting Germany from the Margins (2001). Her research bridges global diasporic narratives with localized Indigenous struggles, emphasizing transformative reconciliation practices over liberal assimilation models.

Notable areas of focus include Anishinaabemowin language revitalization in literature, multidirectional memory in Japanese Canadian internment narratives, and the healing potential of Métis storytelling. She has also contributed translations of religious texts and analyses of German-Jewish diaspora literature.