Dr. Tavleen Purewal

Biography

Tavleen Purewal works on contemporary Canadian literature with particular research commitments to Black Canadian literature, Indigenous studies, critical race studies, and affect theory. She is currently progressing on her monograph, "Torn Intimacies: Inscriptions of Indigeneity in Contemporary Black Canadian Literature," which examines ostensibly negative Black feelings, non-belonging, misrecognition, and disorientation within the context of unexpected intimate articulations of Black-Indigenous co-resistance. The chapters of her work analyze figures such as Lorena Gale, Lawrence Hill, George Elliott Clarke, Dionne Brand, Cecily Nicholson, and Wayde Compton, contemplating how contemporary Black Canadian literature is affectively inscribed by the relations between Black and Indigenous communities in Canada. Tavleen's research suggests new analytics for studying differently racialized communities in the context of settler colonialism, focusing on the formal strategies employed by contemporary Black, Indigenous, and Asian Canadian writers to resist colonial forms of intimacy and to foster cross-racial affiliations. Her articles on racialized writing and social protests have appeared in Canadian Literature, ARIEL, and in book chapters such as in "Pictura: Essays on the Works of Roy Kiyooka" and "Call Response-Ability: Black Canadian Works of Art in Politics and Relation."

Research Interests