Conversation about Language, Poetry, and Sky Stories
With Jesse Rae Archibald-Barber
Jesse Archibald-Barber is from oskana kâ-asastêki. As an associate professor, he teaches Indigenous Literatures in English at the First Nations University of Canada, specializing in Saskatchewan Indigenous literary history and early Indigenous literatures in Canada. He is the co-editor of Performing Turtle Island: Indigenous Theatre on the World Stage (University of Regina Press, 2019) and the editor of kisiskâciwan: Indigenous Voices from Where the River Flows Swiftly (University of Regina Press, 2018). He is also a creative writer who published short stories and poems in journals and anthologies. acâhkos nikamowini-pîkiskwêwina/The Star Poems: A Cree Sky Narrative (Your Nickel’s Worth Publishing, 2023) is his first collection of poetry.
Marie-Eve Bradette is an assistant professor in the Department of Literature, Theatre and Film at Université Laval, and holds the Maurice-Lemire Teaching Leadership Chair in Indigenous Literatures in Quebec since June 2022. Her current research addresses the plurilingualism of First Peoples’ literatures in Quebec as a modality for envisioning a multi-faceted literary history. She is also interested in the representation of Indigenous women and girls, gendered violence and the (re)signification of feminine knowledge, particularly in residential school literature. Her work has appeared in several journals, including Studies in Canadian Literature/Études en littérature canadienne, Les Cahiers du CIÉRA, @nalyses, Captures, Voix plurielles, and Voix et Images. Her book Langue(s) en portage: résurgence littéraire et langagière dans les littératures autochtones féminines was published in 2024 by Presses de l’Université de Montréal.