Katherine McLeod, PhD

Education

• Postdoctoral Fellowship, SpokenWeb, Concordia (2014-2015)
• SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellowship, TransCanada Institute / U of Guelph (2010-2012)
• PhD (2010) - University of Toronto
• MA (2005) - University of British Columbia
• BA Hons. (2003) - University of British Columbia

Currently Teaching

Fall 2023
ENGL 244 Quebec/Montreal Writing in English
ENGL 354 Studies in Contemporary Literature
ENGL 379 Contemporary Canadian Poetry

Winter 2024
ENGL 244 Quebec/Montreal Writing in English
ENGL 233 Critical Reading
ENGL 662 New Methods of Scholarly Publishing: The Podcast

Past Courses Taught

ENGL 453 Advanced Studies / Canadian Writing: Performing Literary Archives
ENGL 378 Modern Canadian Poetry
ENGL 374 Canadian Fiction to 1950
ENGL 370 Canadian Literature
ENGL 260 Intro to Literary Study
ENGL 244 Quebec/Montreal Writing in English
ENGL 233 Comedy
ENGL 233 Critical Reading

Dr. Katherine McLeod researches Canadian literature through sound, performance, and archives. She is writing a book that is a feminist listening to recordings of women poets on CBC Radio (under contract with Wilfrid Laurier University Press). Based on research for this book, she has been awarded SSHRC funding for her project "Literary Radio: Developing New Methods of Audio Research" (Insight Development Grant). She has published on poetry, performance, and archives in books such as Moving Archives (2020) and in leading peer-reviewed journals such as Canadian Literature. She has co-edited with Jason Camlot the book CanLit Across Media: Unarchiving the Literary Event (2019). In the Spring of 2023, her most recent work appeared in the triple-issue of English Studies in Canada edited by Katherine McLeod and Jason Camlot, “New Sonic Approaches in Literary Studies.”

In 2020-2021, she held the position of Researcher-in-Residence at the Concordia Library with her project, “Listening to the Library.” She also been creating an interdisciplinary practice at the intersection of dance and poetry as a dancer and academic, which has resulted in a combination of performances and a recent co-authored publication with Emily Christina Murphy in Feminist Modernist Studies (Vol. 5, 2022).

As an affiliated researcher with SpokenWeb, she produces ShortCuts—a monthly series about archival audio—for The SpokenWeb Podcast, and she is the co-host with Hannah McGregor of The SpokenWeb Podcast.

Books

CanLit Across Media: Unarchiving the Literary Event. Co-edited with Jason Camlot. McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2019.

Articles

“Pandemic Listening: Critical Annotations on a Podcast Made in Isolation.” Co-written with Jason Camlot. Canadian Literature 245 (2021): 67-87.

“Listening to the Archives of Phyllis Webb.” In Moving Archives. Ed. Linda Morra. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2020. 113-131.

“Poetry on TV: Unarchiving Phyllis Webb’s CBC-TV Program Extension (1967).” CanLit Across Media: Unarchiving the Literary Event. Edited by Jason Camlot and Katherine McLeod. McGill-Queen's University Press, 2019.

Co-written with Jason Camlot and Deanna Fong. "Clipping the Poetry Series: Selections from the Sir George Williams Poetry Series, 1965–1974." Jacket2. 24 October 2018.

“Radio Poetics: Publishing and Poetry on CBC’s‘Anthology.’” Public Poetics: Critical Issues in Canadian Poetry and Poetics. Eds. Bart Vautour, Travis Mason, Erin Wunker and Christl Verduyn. Wilfrid Laurier UP. 2015.

“Water Music: A Close-Listening to The Blue Roofs of Japan.” Listening for the Heartbeat of Being. Eds. Brent Wood and Mark Dickinson. McGill-Queen’s UP, 2015.

“Filming Music: Adapting Transnational Sound in The English Patient and Fugitive Pieces.” Double-Takes: Intersections between Canadian Literature and Film. Ed. David Jarraway. Ottawa: U of Ottawa P, 2013. 299-315.

“‘Oui, let’s scat’: Listening to Multi-Vocality in George Elliott Clarke's Jazz Opera, Québécité.” Africadian Atlantic: Essays on George Elliott Clarke. Ed. Joseph Pivato. Toronto: Guernica Editions, 2012. Republication.

“Choreographic Poetics: Dance Adaptations of Michael Ondaatje’s Writing.” Open Letter: Convergences, Collaborative Expression 15.1 (Fall 2012): 31-57.

“(Un)Covering the Mirror: Performative Reflections in Linda Griffiths’s Alien Creature: A Visitation from Gwendolyn MacEwen and Wendy Lill’s The Occupation of Heather Rose.” Solo Performance: Critical Perspectives on Canadian Theatre in English. Ed. Jenn Stephenson. Toronto: Playwrights Canada P, 2010. 141-154. Republication.

“‘Oui, let’s scat’: Listening to Multi-Vocality in George Elliott Clarke's Jazz Opera, Québécité.” Mosaic: A Journal for the Interdisciplinary Study of Literature 42.1 (Spring 2009): 133-150.  

“(Un)Covering the Mirror: Performative Reflections in Linda Griffiths’s Alien Creature: A Visitation from Gwendolyn MacEwen and Wendy Lill’s The Occupation of Heather Rose.” Theatre and Autobiography: Writing and Performing Lives in Theory and Practice. Eds. Sherrill Grace and Jerry Wasserman (Talon, 2006). 89-104.

Reviews

“Between I and I.” Review of I & I by George Elliott Clarke, Blood is Blood by Endre Farkas and Carolyn Marie Souaid, and Err by Shane Rhodes. Canadian Literature. canlit.ca. 17 April 2012.

“Dialoguing.” Review of Talk by Michael Nathanson, The Heretic by John Murphy, Skydive by Kevin Kerr, Courageous by Michael Healey. Canadian Literature (Spring 2012): 169-170.

Rev. of The Sleeping Life by Kerry Ryan and Away by Andrea MacPherson. Journal of Canadian Poetry 25 (2010): 115-124.

“Your Street as a Song.” Rev. of ‘The Great Canadian Song Quest’ (CBC Radio 2). Spacing Magazine (Winter 2011): 74-75.

“Canadian Jazz Opera in America.” Canadian Theatre Review 142 (Spring 2010): 94-97.

Rev. of Expressway by Sina Queyras and The Subway by Philip Quinn. Spacing Magazine (Summer-Fall 2009): 75.

“Savouring Jazz.” Review of Québécité by George Elliott Clarke. Canadian Literature: Autumn 2005, 186: 123-24.

Invited lectures and talks

“Collective Listening.” Resonant Practices and Communities of Sound: SpokenWeb Symposium, SFU, 29 May 2019.

“Poetry - Here, Now, and Then”: A Talk on Audio-Visual Literary Archives of Phyllis Webb. Keynote Lecture. Comparative Canadian Literature Conference, Université de Sherbrooke and Université Laval. 17 March 2017.

“The Sound of Literature.” Pages Unbound Literary Festival. Toronto, 10 May 2015.

“Broadcasting CanLit: Listening in/to the CBC Radio ‘Anthology’ Archives.” TransCanada Institute Postdoctoral Fellows Lecture Series. University of Guelph. 6 March 2012.

“Canadian Sound Poetry: Issues of Recording, Performance, and Listening.” Sound Unbound: Psycho-Acoustics, Sonic Pressures, and the Aural Avant-Garde. University of Toronto Scarborough. University of Toronto. 16 Nov 2009.

Selected conference presentations

"Affecting Voices: What does shifting the ground of CanLit sound like?" Where from Here Conference (U of Guelph), 16 September 2022. 

“Unarchiving the Gendered Voice: Affective and Embodied Listening.” Co-presented with Jason Camlot on the panel “The Feminist (Affective) Archive: Past & Present.” ACCUTE, 29 May 2021.

“technoscores for voice-movement.” Co-presented with Emily Christina Murphy.

Listening, Sound, Agency: An International SpokenWeb Symposium. 21 May 2021.

“Listening to the Listening: The Ghost Reading Series, 2018-2019.” Resonant Practices and Communities of Sound: SpokenWeb Symposium, SFU, 30 May 2019.

“Making Shadows with Recorded Sound: A Response to Gwendolyn MacEwen’s Audio Archives.” Co-presented with Emily Christina Murphy. Text / Sound / Performance–Making in Canadian Space. University College Dublin, Ireland, 25 April 2019.

“UnquietArchives: What Remains of Voices on the Radio.” Collection Thinking, Concordia University, 12-14 June, 2018.

“Broadcasting/ Podcasting: Towards an Embodied Criticism.” On the panel “Podcasting and the Transformation of Scholarly Communication,” ACCUTE, 27 May 2018.

“Magic Archives: Lost Performances of Gwendolyn MacEwen.” Resurfacing: Women Writing across Canada in the 1970s. Mount Allison University & Université de Moncton, 26-28 April 2018. 

“Whalley, Weaver and Webb: Re-Listening to CBC Radio Literary Programming through the Canadian Writers’ Conference, 1955.” The Centenary Conference in Honour of the Birth of George Whalley. Queen’s University, 26 July 2015.

"Dancing the Avant-Garde: Dance Adaptations of Canadian Sound Poetry.” Avant-Canada Conference and bpNichol Symposium. Brock University, November 2014.

“‘What did you say?’ Recorded Sound and the Analog/Digital Paradigm.” Co-presentation with Linda Morra. “Archive Futures.” Université de Montreal, June 2013.

“Acoustic Archives: Listening to the CBC Radio Archives of Anthology” Society for Cinema &Media Studies. Chicago, March 2013.

“Radio Poetics: Publishing and Poetry on CBC’s ‘Anthology’” Public Poetics: Critical Issues in Canadian Poetry and Poetics. Mount Allison University, Sackville NB, September 2012.

“Radio Modernism in Canada.” Exile’s Return: An Editing Modernism in Canada (EMiC) Colloquium. Paris, France: Université Sorbonne Nouvelle-Paris 3, June 2012.

“Gwendolyn MacEwen Introduces”: Canadian Women’s Writing on the Radio. Canadian Women Writers Conference: Space/Place/Play and Canadian Writing Research Collaboratory (CWRC). Toronto: Ryerson University, October 2011.

“Listening Across: Revisiting Polyphonic Spaces in Glenn Gould’s ‘The Idea of North’ and Robert Bringhurst’s Ursa Major: A Polyphonic Masque for Speakers and Dancers.” Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Music in Canada Symposium. Sackville: Mount Allison U, June 2011.

“Poetry On Air - CBC Radio Archives.” ACCUTE. Fredericton: U of New Brunswick, May 2011.

“Making It New, Now (?): Listening to the Avant-Garde in Performances by Gerry Shikatani and Nobuo Kubota.” ACCUTE. Concordia: May 2010.

“Filming Music: Adapting Transnational Sound in The English Patient and Fugitive Pieces.” Double-Takes: Intersections between Canadian Literature and Film. U of Ottawa.May 2009.

“Adapting the Avant-Garde: Bodies, Cultures and Texts in ‘The Four Horsemen Project.’” The Oral, the Written, and Other Verbal Media. U of Saskatchewan, June 2008.

“Enter the Reader: Steve McCaffery’s Evoba: The Philosophical Investigations 1976-78.” ACCUTE. UBC: June 2008.

“Sounds Like Canada: Situating Postmodern Listening within Canadian Soundscapes.” Re:Reading Postmodernism - A Symposium. University of Ottawa: May 2008. 

Research-Creation and Performance

“An Archival Remix.” [Invited performance] Co-presentation with Emily Murphy.

Modernist Studies Association, Toronto, 18 Oct 2019.

“Performing the Archive: A Remix.” Performed with Jason Camlot. Blue Metropolis International Literary Festival, Montreal, 5 May 2019.

“Poésie Flamenco.” The Words and Music Show. Performed as a dancer in this show, with River Guri (poet), Alvaro Echánove (singer), Henry Garf (guitarist). La Vitrola, Montreal, 17 March 2019. 

“Poésie Flamenco.” Mile End Poets’ Festival. Directed and performed in this show, with River Halen Guri (poet), Alvaro Echánove (singer), Henry Garf (guitarist). Resonance Café, Montreal, 24 November 2018.

“Making Shadows with Recorded Sound: Dance as Criticism, in response to Gwendolyn MacEwen (a performance).” Resurfacing: Women Writing across Canada in the 1970s. Mount Allison University & Université de Moncton, 26-28 April 2018.

Podcast Episodes Produced

Podcast Episodes Produced

Full episodes (1 hour) of The SpokenWeb Podcast

“Talking about Talking, ft. jamilah malika, Jessica Karuhanga, & special guest Faith Paré.” Produced by Katherine McLeod. The SpokenWeb Podcast, 3 May 2021.

“How are we listening, now? Signal, Sound, Silence.” Produced by Jason Camlot and Katherine McLeod. The SpokenWeb Podcast, 4 May 2020.

“Stories of SpokenWeb.” Produced by Cheryl Gladu and Katherine McLeod. The SpokenWeb Podcast, 3 October 2019.

ShortCuts episodes (10-15 min) produced for The SpokenWeb Podcast

“ShortCuts 2.10 Alone Together, ft. archival audio of Tanya Davis.” 19 July 2021.

“ShortCuts 2.9: Situating Sound, ft. archival audio of Dionne Brand.” 21 June 2021.

“ShortCuts 2.8: Contrapuntal Poetics, ft. archival audio of Alexei Perry Cox.” 17 May 2021.

“ShortCuts 2.7: Moving, ft. archival audio of Phyllis Webb.” 19 April 2021.

“ShortCuts 2.6: Listening Together, ft. archival audio of Margaret Avison.” 15 March 2021.

“ShortCuts 2.5: Connections, ft. archival audio of Muriel Rukeyser.” 15 Feb 2021.

“ShortCuts 2.4: You Are Here, ft. archival audio of Muriel Rukeyser.” 18 Jan 2021.

“ShortCuts 2.3: Audible Time, ft. archival audio of Muriel Rukeyser.” 21 Dec 2020.

“ShortCuts 2.2: The Poem Among Us, ft. archival audio of Muriel Rukeyser.” 16 Nov 2020.

“ShortCuts 2.1: Introducing ShortCuts.” 19 Oct 2020.

“ShortCuts 1.7: [Audio of the Month] As Though Her Voice Was Dancing, ft. archival audio of

Gwendolyn MacEwen.” 20 July 2020.

“ShortCuts 1.6: [Audio of the Month] From Poetic Surveillance to an Avant-Garde Dinner Fit

for a Queen.” Ft. audio of bill bissett presented by guest producer Mathieu Aubin. 15

June 2020.

“ShortCuts 1.5: [Audio of the Month] Then and Now, ft. archival audio of Daphne Marlatt.” 18

May 2020.

“ShortCuts 1.4: [Audio of the Month] Dorothy Livesay Listening to the Radio.” 20 April 2020.

“ShortCuts 1.3: [Audio of the Month] Where Does the Reading Begin? Ft. archival audio of

Kaie Kellough.” 16 March 2020.

“ShortCuts 1.2: [Audio of the Month] Improvising at a Poetry Reading, ft. archival audio of

Maxine Gadd.” 17 Feb 2020.

“ShortCuts 1.1: [Audio of the Month] Daryl Hine’s Point Grey.” 20 Jan 2020.