Cheryl Suzack

Professor Cheryl Suzack (Batchewana First Nations) is a Full Professor at the Department of English. She is cross-appointed to the Aboriginal Studies Program and teaches courses for English and Aboriginal Studies on comparative Indigenous literatures, comparative Indigenous studies, and Indigenous decolonization with a focus on gender issues and Indigenous women. She also holds a non-budgetary cross-appointment at the Faculty of Law.

Prof. Suzack obtained her BA (Honours) in English and Political Science and MA English at the University of Guelph in 1993 and 1995, respectively. She received a BEd degree from Nipping University in 1996 and her PhD in English at the University of Alberta in 2004.

Professor Suzack's research focuses on Indigenous law and literature with a particular emphasis on writing by Indigenous women. In her book, Indigenous Women's Writing and the Cultural Study of Law, she explores how Indigenous women's writing from Canada and the United States addresses case law concerning tribal membership, intergenerational residential school experiences, and land claims. Her current project analyzes Justice Thurgood Marshall's papers in the context of Indian civil rights claims from the 1960s. She is a co-editor (with Greig Henderson and Simon Stern) of “The Critical Work of Law and Literature,” University of Toronto Quarterly (Fall 2013) and a co-editor and contributor (with Shari Huhndorf, Jeanne Perreault, and Jean Barman) to the award-winning collection, Indigenous Women and Feminism: Politics, Activism, Culture (UBC 2010). 

Professor Suzack has completed a book length study, Indigenous Women’s Writing and the Cultural Study of Law, and is starting a new project on Justice Thurgood Marshall’s Indian law cases. Past projects include editing special issues for Topia: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies, Ariel: A Review of International English Literature, and English Studies in Canada.