Meet Dana Mount!

I spend my few bits of free time these days dreaming up reading lists for my future courses. A reading list is a lot like a playlist: you want it to have a theme, a mood. It should excite people, and maybe even surprise them. But you don’t want to hear my playlists, because I’m pretty hopeless when it comes to music, really. What I do know is books. More specifically (because by this point in our education and careers, we professors get pretty specific), I know postcolonial environmental literature.

I’m Dana Mount, and I’m (delighted to be!) the new professor in World and Indigenous Literatures here at CBU. I’ll tell you a bit about how I came to be where I am today. It’s a story of someone who tried to avoid studying English but kept coming back to it.

Upon leaving high school I was pretty determined to Save the Planet. I enrolled in the Bachelor of Environmental Studies program at York University where I met a bunch of wonderful people who were also pretty determined to Save the Planet. Turns out many of them had a lot more hands-on determination than me. I kept gravitating towards questions about why we were in the state of crisis that we were in, what informed our attitudes towards the environment.

My focus on cultural attitudes towards the environment led me to want to study theories of power and structure in society. I undertook a Masters of Arts in the School of Women’s Studies, also at York University. There I studied theories of race and racism, labour history, gender and sexuality, global development and politics. I met a lot of inspiring people who are working to end oppression.

Throughout these two degrees, though, what sustained me was being able to take courses on literature where I could finally see these larger ideas being expressed, argued, and illuminated in ways theory alone was unable to do. I signed on for a PhD in the Department of English and Cultural Studies at McMaster University. I met a lot of people who are passionate about reading and who believe in the power of writing. There I combined my interest in world and indigenous issues, environmentalism, and literature.

And it is that combination that I bring with me here at CBU. Next year I hope to be offering courses in postcolonial literature and theory. I’m working on the reading list right now, and yes, I take requests. Feel free to drop by (CC228) or email me, dana_mount@cbu.ca.