My name is Sam McKegney, and I’m a settler scholar of Indigenous literatures. My teaching and research seek to register the ways in which Indigenous literary artists: (1) interrogate ongoing settler colonialism; (2) imagine modes of sociality that exceed the confines of the settler state; and (3) provoke extra-textual responses from Indigenous, settler, and diasporic readers that might contribute to decolonization. I’m fascinated and troubled by the study of masculinity and sport—particularly hockey—in settler colonial contexts.
I am the author of two monographs concerned with Indigenous literary art and the editor of a collection of interviews on the subject of Indigenous masculinities. I am a founding member and Past President of the Indigenous Literary Studies Association and the principal investigator for the Indigenous Hockey Research Network.
Indigenous literatures; Indigenous masculinities; hockey culture and Canadian nationalism; Indigenous governance and its pursuit through art; carceral composition; literary activism; Canadian literature.
Carrying the Burden of Peace: Reimagining Indigenous Masculinities through Story
Masculindians: Conversations about Indigenous Manhood
Magic Weapons: Aboriginal Authors Re-Making Community after Residential Schooling
- “Called to Relationship and Reckoning through Story: Reflections on Reading, Teaching, and Writing about Residential School Literatures” (co-authored with Michelle Coupal). Studies in Canadian Literature, 2021.
- “Manufacturing Compliance with Anti-Indigenous Racism in Canadian Hockey: The Case of the Beardy’s Blackhawks” (McKegney, Henry, Koch, and Rathwell. Canadian Ethnic Studies, 2021.
- Opportunities Denied: The divergent resonance of opportunity for Indigenous and non-Indigenous hockey players with the non-disbanded Beardy’s Blackhawks” (Rathwell, Henry, and McKegney). Sociology of Sport, 2021.
- “‘Some people don’t unlearn those things’: A Conversation on Hockey, Racism, and Belonging.” (Davina McLeod with Sam McKegney). Canadian Ethnic Studies, 2021.
- “‘We still need the game. As Indigenous people, it’s in our blood’: A Conversation on Hockey, Residential School, and Decolonization.” (Eugene Arcand [aski kananumohwatah] with Sam McKegney and Mike Auksi). Canadian Ethnic Studies, 2021.
- “Indigenous Studies in the US and Canada” (co-authored with Aubrey Hanson). Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Literature, 2020.
- Policy Paper on Anti-Racism in Canadian Hockey (Szto, McKegney, Dawson, Auksi). Hockey In Society, 2020.
- “Decolonizing the Hockey Novel: Ambivalence and Apotheosis in Richard Wagamese’s Indian Horse” (co-authored with Trevor Phillips). Writing the Body in Motion: A Critical Anthology on Canadian Sport Literature. Reprinted in Hockey: Challenging Canada’s Game/Au-delà du sport national, 2018.
Canadian Post-Multiculturalism
Canadian Contemporary Conceptual Poetics
Women’s Hockey Literature
Anxiety and Settler Affect
Ky Pearce (Cultural Studies), Rural Queer and Indigenous Studies
Darren Zanussi (Cultural Studies), Reconciliation in Rural Ontario
