Spring 2025 at AU Press

Newly announced in the Writing in Residence series

My Works, Ye Mighty | February 2025

Christian Bök

My Works, Ye Mighty expands upon the conceptual literature of Christian Bök, particularly his ongoing project, entitled The Xenotext. Based upon work conducted during his tenure as the Writer-in-Residence at Athabasca University, this essay addresses the concept of “scale” in poetry, meditating on this topic with an abundance of imagery; moreover, his essay appears, alongside an epic poem, especially written by him for this publication.

Christian Bök is the author of Eunoia (Coach House Books, 2001), a bestselling work of experimental literature that has won the Griffin Prize for Poetic Excellence (2002). Crystallography (Coach House Press, 1994), his first book of poetry, has been nominated for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award (1995). Nature has interviewed Bök about his work on The Xenotext (making him the first poet ever to appear in this famous journal of science). Bök has also exhibited artworks derived from The Xenotext at galleries around the world; moreover, his poem from this project has hitched a ride, as a digital payload, aboard a number of probes exploring the Solar System (including the InSight lander, now at Elysium Planitia on the surface of Mars). Bök is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and he teaches at Leeds Beckett University in the UK.

Newly announced in the Our Lives: Diary, Memoir, and Letters series

Safarnameh: A Traveller’s Journey Along the Hippie Trail | March 2025

Trevor Harrison

Safarnameh—an Urdu word meaning an account of a journey—is the story of Trevor Harrison’s overland trip from Turkey to India, a route taken by somewhere between 2 million and 6 million young people from Western countries during the 1960s and 1970s, until the Iranian Revolution and subsequent regional conflicts rendered the overland trek impossible. This first-person account amplifies, sometimes confirms, and occasionally challenges prevailing images of those who made the journey to India during that time.

Based extensively on written observations made at the time, the book explores the physical, psychological, and emotional impact of travelling and its lingering echoes. Woven throughout the book are comments and insights drawn from forty-eight in-depth interviews with people from several different countries who made the overland journey to India during roughly the same period. Though framed around a personal memoir, Safarnameh situates one individual’s experience in the broader historical, cultural, and socio-political context of the time.

Trevor W. Harrison is a professor emeritus of sociology at the University of Lethbridge and former director of the Parkland Institute, a policy think tank located at the University of Alberta. Known for his wide-ranging interests, he is the author, editor, or co-editor of ten academic books. These include Of Passionate Intensity: Right-Wing Populism and the Reform Party of Canada (1995); The Trojan Horse (1995); The Return of the Trojan Horse (2005); Twenty-First Century Japan (2008); Against Orthodoxy: Studies in Nationalism (2011); Prairie Bohemian: The Life in Music of Frank Gay (2015); and, most recently, Anger and Angst: Jason Kenney’s Legacy and Alberta’s Right (2023). He is also the author of a book of poetry, Another Voice (Friesen Press, 2016). In recognition of his multiple achievements over the course of his career, he was the recipient of the 2023 Distinguished Academic Award from the Confederation of Alberta Faculty Associations.

Becoming Métis in Northern Alberta | May 2025

Patricia A. McCormack

In recent years, much has been written about the Métis of southern Canada, those at Red River and the historic buffalo hunters of the Plains. Whether implicitly or explicitly, these groups have come to define the identity and culture of all Métis in the Northwest. This book challenges the prevailing discourse about “Métis-ness” by considering the circumstances of the northern Métis, many of whom white Canadians thought seemed little different from “Indians,” or First Nations, until government policies made a distinction between Métis and First Nations peoples to deal with them separately and on different terms. In so doing, it draws upon literature related to ethnogenesis, a topic often overlooked by those writing about the development of Métis identities.

In addition, Becoming Métis in Northern Alberta examines the evolution of legal distinctions between First Nations and Métis—the “dual paradigms” model operative today. It shows how the dominant discourse about “the Métis” has informed legislation and policy vis-à-vis Métis communities, with a special focus on Alberta. It also reviews a series of key pieces of legislation (federal and provincial) and judicial decisions that have had an impact on the situation of northern Métis, notably those in northeastern Alberta.

Patricia A. McCormack studied the histories and cultures of the western Subarctic and northwestern Plains from the earliest days of contact with Europeans to the present day. She worked for First Nations and Métis organizations in legal cases and environmental impact hearings and was considered an expert on the Alberta treaties. After retiring from the Faculty of Native Studies, University of Alberta, in 2012, she continued to publish and operate Native Bridges Consulting. Her most recent projects were ethnohistories of northern Indigenous dogs and northern bison.

Newly announced in the Issues in Distance Education series

Women and Leadership in Distance Education in Canada | June 2025

Edited by Cindy Ives, Pamela Walsh, and Rebecca Heiser

Women and Leadership in Distance Education in Canada incorporates narrative accounts from leaders who have served at all levels of Canadian distance education programs and institutions. It speaks to the perspectives and insights of women relevant to their research and experiences with leadership in distance education and builds on a preliminary exploration of the ‘glass cliff’ experiences of women leaders in Canadian universities. Throughout, contributors offer their practical recommendations for current and future leaders in the field of distance education.

Cindy Ives is a full professor of distance education at Athabasca University, where she teaches courses at the masters and doctoral levels, supervises students, and has been a key player in many of AU’s innovative online and open initiatives. Pamela Walsh is an associate professor of distance education at Athabasca University, where she teaches and supervises graduate students. Rebecca E. Heiser is a doctoral student at Athabasca University studying quality dimensions and output indicators for transnational open, online and distance education.

With contributions by Amy Burns, Katy Campbell, Lorraine Carter, Elizabeth Childs, Lynn Corcoran, Kristine Dreaver-Charles, Patti Dyjur, Cynthia Eden, Margaret Edwards, Natalie Green, Michelle Harrison, Jenni Hayman, Christina Hendricks, Sandy Hughes, Diane Janes, Erin Keith, Victoria Kennedy, Jennifer Lock, Sarah MacRae, Kathleen Matheos, Michelle Mitchell, Tannis Morgan, Kimberly Myrick, Sophia Palahicky, Jasmine Pham, Megan Pickard, Sherry Rose, Anne-Marie Scott, Afsaneh Sharif, Tammy Soanes-White, Kimberly Stewart, Denise Stockley, Lori Wallace, and Connie (Levina) Yuen.