This Place

Welcome to my corner of the web. I was born in Cumberland, BC, on Vancouver Island, K’ómoks First Nation territory. Since 2003 I’ve been living on the unceded territory of the Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk) on the island of Tiohtiá:ke, or Montreal, Quebec. I’m a scholar, writer and curator of Dutch and English descent.

I’m currently Assistant Professor, Journalism and Mass Communication at the American University in Bulgaria – the best place I’ve had the privilege to work as a professor, ever.

Since completing a PhD in Communication Studies at Carleton University in December 2013 my research and teaching has focused on documentary media, film festivals, curating, settler/Indigenous film and media, alternative media, social movements and media, and what I call “screen ethics.” My dissertation interrogated the various cultural, political and ethical contexts that converge at the Hot Docs International Film Festival. A book version of my diss has been under construction for some time (now in post-peer review stage) and will be published by McGill-Queen’s University Press.

My newest publication is a timely collection of essays, interviews and roundtable discussions co-edited with the inimitable Dana Claxton and titled Indigenous Media Arts in Canada: Making, Caring, Sharing (published by Wilfird-Laurier University Press).

I’m the co-founder (with Svetla Turnin) and Director of Programming of Cinema Politica, a non-profit grassroots exhibition and dedicated distribution film organization that has been going strong since 2003.

I’m a Contributing Editor with POV Magazine where my work is published with some frequency. Plenty more books, chapters and articles are listed in my writing section.

If you want to contact me by email, type my first and last name together along with the @ symbol, followed by iCloud dot com. You can also sign up below to receive my relatively infrequent newsletter.