BRENNAN
MCCRACKEN
Education
PhD, English, Concordia University, Montreal, QC (2021-present)
MA, English, Concordia University, Montreal, QC (2019-21)
BA, First Class Honours, University of King’s College, Halifax, NS (2015-19)
Publications
Reviews (selected)
“Review: MUTEK – HYBRID – Cutting Edge Canada,” Musicworks no. 139, Spring/Summer 2021
“Review: Everyseeker – Emergent Response,” Musicworks no. 237, Fall 2020’
“Review: All I Ask by Eva Crocker,” Maisonneuve, Summer 2020
“Review: U is for Upside Down House by Jordan Moffatt,” Maisonneuve, Winter 2019
“Review: NDN Coping Mechanisms by Billy-Ray Belcourt,” Maisonneuve, Fall 2019
“Review: OBEY Convention XII,” Musicworks no. 134, Fall 2019
Reporting and public-facing criticism (selected)
“With the floe” [interview with Leanne Betasamosake Simpson and review of Theory of Ice], Maisonneuve, Summer 2021
“Debby Friday’s energy potential,” Musicworks no. 138, Winter 2021
“Markus Lake’s motion emotion,” Musicworks no. 237, Fall 2020
“Long Note: Glenn Copeland’s Musical Rebirth,” This Magazine, 2018
“Arielle Twist’s becoming,” The Coast, 2018
“Against the stream” [on Jenny Odell’s How to Do Nothing], Maisonneuve, Spring 2019
“Joseph Shabason’s patient unravelling,” Musicworks no. 132, Winter 2018
“Resistant Voices: Ursula Johnson vs. everydau cultural appropriation,” Visual Arts News, Summer 2018
“Jeremy Dutcher: A beautiful archive of our people,” The Coast, 2018
Sappy Times Correspondent [with Sean Michaels], Sappyfest, Sackville, NB, 2015
Articles (non peer-reviewed)
“‘I had been my whole life a bell’: Phenomenology as eco-literary practice,” HINGE: A Journal of Contemporary Studies vol. 25, 2019
“Resituating representation: Photographs and violence in The Edward Curtis Project,” HINGE: A Journal of Contemporary Studies vol. 24, 2018
Presentations
Guest lectures
“Alienated ‘playbour’: Cultural materialism and game studies,” ENGL 255 – Video Games and/as Literature, Concordia University, Montreal, QC (2020)
Conference presentations
“Common calamities: Rewriting ecologies of literary production,” Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment, Portland, OR (2023)
“Glissant’s ecology,” Strategies of Critique: Care and Cure, Toronto, ON (2023)
“Ecology as (decolonial) form in Leanne Betasamosake Simpson’s Noopiming,” American Comparative Literature Association, Chicago, IL (2023)
“Decolonial ecology and literary form,” Speculative Life Research Cluster Symposium, Montreal, QC (2022)
“Olga Tokarczuk’s ‘tender narrator’ and anthropocentric critique,” Canadian Association of Postcolonial Studies, Virtual (2022)
“‘In embryo and tendency’: Self as system in the romantic fragment,” The Poetics of the Fragment Conference, Centre for Expanded Poetics, Montreal, QC (2021)
“Intimate immensity: The phenomenological landscape of Claire-Louise Bennett’s Pond,” Excavations – McGill Graduate English Conference, Montreal, QC (2020)
“‘I had been my whole life a bell’: Phenomenology as eco-literary practice,” Annual Atlantic Undergraduate English Conference, Fredericton, NB (2019)
“‘I had been my whole life a bell’: Phenomenology as eco-literary practice,” Conference of the Contemporary, Halifax, NS (2019)
“All alone, together: Public vs. private in Baudelaire and Benjamin,” Conference of the Contemporary, Halifax, NS (2019)
Honours and awards
Fellowships and scholarships
2023-26 - SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship
2023-26 - FRQSC Doctoral Fellowship
2021-25 - Concordia University Doctoral Fellowship
2021 - Concordia University Merit Award
2021 - Ruth and David Steinberg PhD Scholarship
2019 - Figura-NT2 Master’s Scholarship
2019 - Concordia University Faculty of Arts and Science Fellowship
2019 - Concordia University Merit Award
2015 -University of King’s College Entrance Scholarship
Other honours and awards
2023 - Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship (nominee)
2021 - Miriam Aaron Roland Graduate Fellowship (nominee)
2021 - Best Canadian Music Writing 2021, Invisible Publishing
2019 - Contemporary Studies Thesis Prize (finalist), University of King’s College
2018 - Best Canadian Music Writing 2018, Invisible Publishing
Affiliations and work experience
Academic affiliations
Member, Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment (2023 - present)
Member, American Comparative Literature Association (2023-present)
Member, Association of Canadian College and University Teachers of English (2019 - present)
Member, Canadian Association for Postcolonial Studies (2019 - present)
Affiliate member, Centre for Expanded Poetics, Montreal, QC (2019 - present)
Affiliate member, Speculative Life Research Cluster, Milieux Institute for Arts, Culture, and Technology, Montreal, QC (2019 - present)
Research experience
Research assistant to Dr. Cynthia Quarrie (2023 - present)
Coordinator, Critical Anthropocene Research Group, Milieux Institute for Arts, Culture, and Technology (2022 - present)
Research assistant to Dr. Jill Didur (2022 - present)
PhD research-creation course design residency, Milieux Institute for Arts, Culture, and Technology (2021)
Research assistant to Dr. Hsuan Hsu (2021)
Member, Critical Anthropocene Research Group, Milieux Institute for Arts, Culture, and Technology (2020 - present)
Member, Colonial, Racial, and Indigenous Ecologies Reading Group, Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Society and Culture (2020-21)
Invited participant, TRANSITIONS research intensive, Milieux Institute for Arts, Culture, and Technology (2019)
Other work and community involvement
Juror, Polaris Music Prize (2020 - present)
Social Media Assistant, Milieux Institute for Arts, Culture, and Technology (2020-21)
Writer and Program Assistant, Blue Metropolis Festival, Montreal, QC (2020)
Vice-President (Administrative), Student Association of Graduates in English, Concordia University, Montreal, QC (2019-20)
Intern, Maisonneuve (2019)
Treasurer, Canadian Federation of Students – Nova Scotia (2018-19)
President, King’s Students’ Union (2017-18)
Student Life Vice-President, King’s Students’ Union (2016-17)
Teaching and evaluation
Instructor
ENGL 341 – Modern Fiction, Concordia University (2023 S)
ENGL 241 – The Novel, Concordia University (2022 F)
ENGL 341 – Modern Fiction, Concordia University (2022 S)
ENGL 210 – Introduction to Essay Writing, Concordia University (2021 F)
CCOM 206 – Communication for Engineers, McGill University (2021-22 FW)
Teaching Assistant
Teaching Assistant to Dr. Nicola Nixon, ENGL 260 – Introduction to Literary Study, Concordia University (2021 W)
Teaching Assistant to Dr. Stuart Macmillan, ENCS 282 – Technical Writing and Communication, Concordia University (2021-22 FW)
Teaching Assistant to Dr. Kelsey Blair, ENGL 255 – Video Games and/as Literature, Concordia University (2020 F)
Teaching Assistant to Dr. Daniel O’Leary, ENGL 260 – Introduction to Literary Study, Concordia University (2019 F)
Teaching Assistant to Prof. Kate Bligh, ENGL 224 – The Creative Process, Concordia University (2019 F)
Evaluator
Marker, Engineering Writing Test, Concordia University (2021 - present)
Marker, ENCS 6721 - Technical Writing and Research Methods for Engineers and Computer Scientists, Concordia University (2021 W)
Marker, ENCS 5721 – Composition and Argumentation for Engineers and Computer Scientists, Concordia University (2020 F)
Marker, English Exit Exam, Ministère de l’éducation de Québec (2019 - present)
Certifications
Graduate Certificate in University Teaching, Centre for Teaching and Learning, Concordia University, Montreal, QC (2019)
Graduate coursework
ENGL 800 – The Poetics of the Untimely: From Negritude to the Haitian Revolution, Dr. Nathan Brown (2023 W)
ENGL 627 – The Contemporary (Re)turn to Ethics, Dr. Cynthia Quarrie (2022 F)
ENGL 801 – Sonic Approaches in Literary Studies, Dr. Jason Camlot (2022 F)
ENGL 602 – Dante and Modern Literature, Dr. Stephen Ross (2022 S)
INDI 820 – Research-Creation as Method (co-designed and facilitated with Dr. Bart Simon and PhD students from Milieux Institute) (2022 W)
ENGL 800 – Satiric Affects, Dr. Danielle Bobker (2021 F)
ENGL 640 – Towards a Genealogy of Autofiction, Dr. Marcie Frank (2021 W)
ENGL 623 – Romanticism, Ecocriticism, and the Anthropocene, Dr. Jonathan Sachs (2021 W)
ENGL 604 – Literary Listening as Cultural Technique, Dr. Jason Camelot (2020 F)
ENGL 623 – Slow Time, Fast Time, Dr. Jonathan Sachs (2020 W)
ENGL 601 – The Wild, Dr. Jesse Arsenault (2020 W)
ENGL 668 – Aesthetic Theory: Romantic, Modernist, Contemporary, Dr. Nathan Brown (2019 F)
ENGL 665 – Postcolonial Environmental Humanities, Dr. Jill Didur (2019 F)
Languages
Fluent in English
Working proficiency in French (Diplôme d’études en langue française, niveau B2, Centre international d’études pédagogiques)
References
Available upon request