Matthew Tétreault, PhD

  • Assistant Professor

    Faculty of Arts
    Department of Indigenous Studies
    205C Isbister Building
    183 Dafoe Road
    University of Manitoba
    Winnipeg, MB R3T 2N2

    Phone: 204-474-6023
    matthew.tetreault@umanitoba.ca

    Preferred pronouns: he/him

     

Currently accepting graduate students - yes

  • Master's
  • PhD

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Teaching

  • INDG 2020 - The Métis in Canada

Biography

I am Métis and French-Canadian, from Ste. Anne, Manitoba, and I am a scholar, creative writer, and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Indigenous Studies at the University of Manitoba. 

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My main research area is in Métis literature and literary history, and more broadly speaking, in Métis Studies. I am particularly interested in outlining Métis literary history and drawing out the shifts and ruptures in Métis culture and language(s) across the multilingual body of Métis writing, and in tracing the emergence of Métis poetics as I parse out the complex relationships between Métis storytelling, literature, and oral cultures. I am equally interested in mobilizing research creation and also maintain a creative writing practice informed by academic research. For instance, my novel, Hold Your Tongue, draws from academic research as it explores francophone Métis experiences in southeast Manitoba through narrative fiction.

I hold a BA from the University of Winnipeg where I specialized in Creative Writing, and I hold an MA and a PhD from the University of Alberta, where I wrote for my dissertation, the first literary history of the Red River Métis. I also held a post-doctoral fellowship in the Department of Sociology at the University of Toronto-Mississauga.

Education

  • PhD (English), University of Alberta, 2022
  • MA (English), University of Alberta, 2016
  • BA (English), University of Winnipeg, 2014

Research

Research interests

  • Métis literature and literary history
  • Métis studies
  • Indigenous literature(s)
  • Indigenous literary nationalism
  • Indigenous research creation

Research summary

I study Métis literature and literary history by utilizing Indigenous literary nationalism, and centering concepts of peoplehood and nationhood, in the critical interpretive framework of Métis writing. I am interested in outlining a Métis national literary tradition as part of a broader contribution to Métis Studies. I am also interested in broader Indigenous literature(s) and research creation.

Selected publications

Books

  • Hold Your Tongue: A Novel (Newest Press 2023)
  • What Happened on the Bloodvein: Short Stories (Pemmican Publications 2016)

Peer-reviewed chapters

  • “Circumspection and Celebration: Evocations of the Homeland in Alexandre de Laronde’s ‘La vallée de Qu’Appelle’ and Marie-Thérère Goulet-Courchaine’s ‘Octobre’.” Métis Voices: Our Words, Our Stories, Our Peoples, edited by Celiese Lypka and Aubrey Jean Hanson. University of Manitoba Press. Under Review.
  • (Co-Authored with Stephen Webb) "Toward a Literary Métis Homeland: A Digital Analysis of Gregory Scofield's Louis: The Heretic Poems and Marilyn Dumont’s The Pemmican Eaters." Digital Memory Agents in Canada, edited by Matt Cormier and Amanda Spallacci, University of Alberta Press. Accepted.
  • "Literary Resistance: Situating a National Métis Literature.” National Literature in Multination States, edited by Paul Morris and Albert Braz, University of Alberta Press, 2022, pp. 43-63.

Peer-reviewed articles

  • “Reading Scofield through Riel: Louis: The Heretic Poems as Dissonance.” Studies in Canadian Literature, Vol. 45, No. 1, 2020, pp. 29-48.

Awards

  • 2022 - Governor General's Gold Medal Award for Academic Excellence

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