HRI Research Showcase
HRI Research Showcase Schedule
Monday, October 6th
RIC Atrium, University of Regina
10 – 10:15 am
Welcome and Land Acknowledgement
Dr. Charity Marsh, HRI Director
Opening Remarks
Vice President of Research, Dr. Chris Yost
10:15 – 10:45 am
Dr. j wallace skelton, HRI Research Fellow
Students Speak Back on Names and Pronouns
With community oversight from youth-serving NGOs across Saskatchewan, I will conduct qualitatIve research with 2SLGBTQIA+ and allied young people (14-18) about their experiences of transphobia and homophobia since September 2023, ways young people are resisting transphobia and homophobia, and what 2SLGBTQIA+ youth in Saskatchewan need to thrive. Partner NGOs will support recruitment of young people and host focus groups. Findings will
inform new program offerings, and oppositIon to Bill 137 as well as academic publications. e humanities.
10:45 – 11:15 am
Dr. Aislinn McDougall, HRI Research Fellow
Finding “the carrying stream”: Locating and Defining “Traditional” Irish/Scottish Music in Saskatchewan through Autoethnography and Community Connections
Through an autoethnographic methodology, this project seeks to locate and define traditional Irish and Scottish music in Saskatchewan by making meaningful connections with trad musicians in the province and investigating their relationships to and definitions of “traditional” Irish/Scottish music on the prairies, particularly in the context of local musicians’ own trad compositions. Examining the “authenticity” of such compositions illuminates trad music’s life outside of Ireland and Scotland.
11:15 – 11:45 am
Dr. Sarah Schmalenberger, Fulbright Canada Research Chair
Making Music in a Throwaway Culture
This project uses Music to integrate social, ecological, and economic aspects of Sustainability. Its analytical focus studies the fundamental sources of sound to understand how people select and combine sounds to create music. Guiding this inquiry is the notion of “throwaway culture,” and choosing to confer value on items discarded, neglected, or overlooked in societies. Repurposed, the discarded materials will be included as musical sounds within collaborative composition activities. In creating music that features repurposed resources and unconventional sonic ideas, the project promotes an ethos of stewardship for interacting sustainably with our environments and each other.
11:45 – 12:15 pm
Dr. Emily Eaton, HRI Research Fellow & Dr. Melanie Dennis Unrau, Postdoctoral Fellow
Métis Oral Histories of Tracking Scows on the Athabasca River
This collaboration with McMurray Métis Local 1935 gathers oral histories of tracking scows (flat-bottomed boats) on the Athabasca River (1867 – 1916). The project challenges dominant narratives about the development of Canada’s extractive industries by centring Métis accounts of how they fashioned their livelihood practices at this time of colonization and industrialization. Whereas Métis trackers have featured in stories told by outsiders, this project asks why and how Métis people tell their own stories about tracking.
Researcher Bios
j wallace skelton
j wallace skelton is Assistant Professor of Queer Studies in Education at the University of Regina. j’s currently engaged in several research projects, one learning from parents of trans, nonbinary and two spirit youth who identify as advocates for their children and several projects that are interested in ways trans, nonbinary and two-spirit children and youth resist and are impacted by transphobic movements and legislation. j is interested research with children as co-researchers and in using comics to make academia more accessible
Aislinn McDougall
Aislinn McDougall is an Assistant Professor of Creative Technologies and Design at the University of Regina. She grew up in Lumsden SK, and studied English and Creative Writing at the U of R before completing her MA and PhD in English at Queen’s University where she began research in the field of Digital Humanities. Prior to her appointment at the U of R, she worked as the Visiting Assistant Professor of Digital Humanities at the University of Utah. Her current research looks specifically at the impacts of 21st century digital technologies on the transition from postmodernism to post-postmodernism in literature and media, arguing that “.compostmodernism” is the successor to postmodernism. Her work indicates .compostmodern’s prevalence across content, form, typography, materiality and medium in both print and digital texts, introducing terms like “literary cyber-consciousness” and “.compostmodern textual machinery” to highlight its impact. Her other research interests include digital mapping, digital archiving, digital storytelling, video games and the relationship between poetry and programming.
Sarah Schmalenberger
Sarah Schmalenberger, musicologist and hornist, teaches music history courses for both undergraduate and graduate programs in music. An active professional musician, she also teaches studio French Horn and presents master classes on horn performance in the region. Dr. Schmalenberger conducts original research on a variety of topics exploring the lives of musicians past and present. Her most current research, the Brass Bodies Study, explores the occupational well-being of female brass players. Her earliest published scholarship documents the thriving network of African-American women in the western European concert music tradition during the early twentieth century. Dr. Schmalenberger has also conducted extensive research on the effects of cancer treatment on women musicians with breast cancer. Her findings are published in the journal Medical Problems of Performing Artists. Additional publications include an essay on selected repertoire of Frank Zappa as well as a chapter on all-female rock bands in the Twin Cities.
Emily Eaton
Emily Eaton is a full professor in the Department of Geography and Environmental Studies at the University of Regina, Canada. She studies the oil industry’s influence on rural institutions and culture in oil-producing municipalities and pathways to energy transition that prioritize equity-deserving communities and rectify Canada’s unjust relationship with Indigenous Nations. She is a white settler doing community based research.
Melanie Dennis Unrau
Melanie Dennis Unrau is a poet of mixed European ancestry living on Treaty 1 territory in Winnipeg. A Banting Postdoctoral Fellow in geography and environmental studies at the University of Regina, she is the author of the literary study The Rough Poets: Reading Oil-Worker Poetry (McGill-Queen’s UP, 2024) and the poetry collection Happiness Threads: The Unborn Poems (The Muses’ Company, 2013). Melanie is a former editor of The Goose journal and Geezmagazine. Current projects include co-editing the “Workers of the Warming World Unite” poetry anthology of climate-related work poetry with Fernwood Publishing.