Jane Griffith

Dr. Jane Griffith is an Associate Professor in the School of Professional Communication and analyzes past and present narratives of settler colonialism—in particular, narratives of language, education, time, place, and water. Her book, Words Have a Past: The English Language, Colonialism, and the Newspapers of Indian Boarding Schools (University of Toronto Press), uncovers the history of printing presses in Indian boarding schools. Her second book, under contract, focuses on hydroelectricity and professional communication. Dr. Griffith has presented internationally, and her work can be found in journals such as the Canadian Journal of Communication, Decolonization: The Journal, and Cultural Studies<=>Critical Methodologies. Dr. Griffith currently holds a SSHRC Insight Grant. She is a past Fulbright Scholar as well as a winner of an International Council for Canadian Studies award.

Research Interests

I am able to supervise graduate students interested in projects on settler colonial studies (historical and present-day), narratives of education, critical public relations, Canadian studies, and archival research.

Selected Publications

• Words Have a Past (University of Toronto Press)
• Unbuilt Environments and the Place of Settler Colonial Communications: A Case Study of Nineteenth-Century Medicine Hat (Canadian Journal of Communications)
• Settler Colonial Archives: Some Contexts (Settler Colonial Studies)
• Do some work for me: Settler colonialism, professional communication, and representations of Indigenous water (Decolonization: The Journal)
• Hoover Damn: Land, Labor, and Settler Colonial Cultural Production (Critical Studies<=>Critical Methodologies)