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Becoming a Golden Hawk means more than just cheering on our (really good) varsity teams – it means being a student who cares about your community, who works hard in the classroom, and who takes advantage of all the learning opportunities that can happen outside the classroom, too.
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I received my PhD in Language, Culture and Teaching from York University in 2009 and my MA in Sociology and Equity Studies from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto in 1998. My areas of study during my graduate training were critical anti-racism practices in higher education, and studies of learning from histories of racialized conflict.
My research and teaching are interdisciplinary and consider the dynamics of conflict and social change. Working primarily in the field of research-creation, my projects explore the relations between visual culture and martial politics as well as how communities craft creative modes of relationality and survival in response to practices of state securitization. I have several ongoing research projects in the field of critical security studies.
I am currently in the midst of a five-year research project that explores discourses of preparedness and public safety in the context of the history of emergency measures in Canada. Funded by a SSHRC Partnership Engage Grant, I am collaborating with the Diefenbunker: Canada's Cold War Museum, to preserve and analyze historic civil defence materials. You can read about that work here.
In addition to my academic work, I curate aesthetic projects that archive the ways in which visual encounters with conflict and loss and emerge as new forms of futurity, materiality and placemaking. You can read more about my research-creation projects and art writing on my personal website.
- Faculty of Arts Teaching Scholar Award 2013.
- Faculty Merit Award 2015 and 2019.
I am Graduate Faculty in the MA Programs in Communication Studies and in Religion, Culture and Global Justice. My areas of theoretical interest are: psychoanalysis, critical race theory, postcolonialism, poststructuralism, curriculum theory and research-creation.
Research and Art Criticism
- 2021. D. Georgis and S. Matthews. The Trouble With Research Creation: Failure, Play and Possibility in Aesthetic Encounters. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education.
- 2020. The Emergence of Emergency. TOPIA: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies Vol 4: 61-69.
- 2020. Poetics at the Perimeter of Vison. They are lost as soon as they are made, Karen Zalamea. Vancouver, BC: 175-181.
- 2019. Watching the Watchers. Philip Cheung: Arctic Front. Circuit Gallery/Prefix ICA, January 10 – February 2, 2019.
- 2018. Matthews, S., I. I. Diaz and M. Faraj. Prepper Pedagogy: Civil Defense, Emergency Preparedness and Nation Building. October 18, 2018. Antipode Foundation.
Curatorial Work
- 2019. Variations on Black, Queer and Otherwise: Works by Abdi Osman. June 5-July 27, The Art Museum, University of Toronto.
- 2019. How to notice what cannot be seen/að sjá það sem hulið er. September 14-28, Herhúsid and The Herring Museum, Siglufjörður, Iceland.
Teaching 2021/2022
GS201: Theories of Global Studies
GS333: War, Memory, Popular Culture
GS431: Narratives of/about Violence
Contact Info:
Office location: DAWB 5-119
Office hours: By appointment.
Languages spoken: English