The Frost Centre for Canadian and Indigenous Studies at Trent University Speculates Canada

I have had the incredible opportunity this year to study with the Frost Centre for Canadian and Indigenous Studies at Trent University. This programme questioned all of my notions about Canada and encouraged me to explore new ideas about what is Canadian and what makes up the notion of ‘Canada’ itself. It was a perfect fit for my research on Canadian Speculative Fiction, situating Canada in a new way, making it a perpetual question that is consistently re-situating itself.

Canadian Studies at Trent University IS fundamentally speculative. It doesn’t always look at speculative fiction, though there are a growing number of us who do, but it does speculate about Canada, and imagine possibilities about Canada.

I am currently working on my PhD with the Frost Centre and have never before had such an incredible learning experience and an incredible ability to look at Canada from an interdisciplinary viewpoint. I feel fortunate to have had the opportunity to work with such incredible, supportive people who are both interested in helping students to feel comfortable while at the same time pushing the boundaries of their imaginations and getting them to think outside any boxes they have imposed on their own knowledge. I wanted to send a “thank you” out there to all of the faculty, staff, and students that I have worked with and also to encourage others to consider the Frost Centre for Canadian and Indigenous Studies (and Canadian Studies at Trent University in general) if they are interested in pushing the boundaries of Canada and speculating a new Canada.

Trent University has an undergraduate programme in Canadian Studies, a master’s degree in Canadian and Indigenous Studies, and a PhD in Canadian Studies that is shared jointly with Carleton University. You can check out the Frost Centre at http://www.trentu.ca/frostcentre/ and you can explore Trent’s Undergraduate Canadian Studies programme at http://www.trentu.ca/canadianstudies/ . This is a great place to speculate the boundaries of Canada and expand your notions of Canadian identity. This programme has been my home and I wanted to share a new way to speculate Canada with others.