Getting to Know Your CMNS Faculty: Jas Morgan

Jas Morgan is an assistant professor in the School of Communication. Their areas of expertise include kinship, Indigenous narratives in film and television, Indigenous documentary cultures, Indigenous social media and internet, digital media, digital publishing, cultural heritage and governance, Indigenous feminist policy, and trans Indigenous thought. Their current research studies Indigenous identity and appropriation in Canadian galleries, museums and art festivals, and the community-based transgender Indigenous digital media creators who sustain creative kinship outside institutional contexts.

We caught up with Jas to learn more about the newest professor in our School.

Could you tell us about your academic journey?

I was trained as an Art Historian. I received my MA in Art History from Concordia University, and my PhD from McGill University in Art History and Communications in 2021. I have an undergraduate degree in Women’s Studies and Indigenous Studies. My work is grounded in the intersections between feminist theory and Indigenous Studies theory, and the study of Indigenous digital media. My feminist critical theory has appeared in publications such as Canadian Art magazine, where I was Editor-at-Large, and critiqued galleries, museums, and art festivals for Indigenous identity fraud and appropriation, and for their imperialist and colonial governance structures. My cultural policy paper “Cultures of Exploitations” discusses the exploitative relationship between the Canadian arts and culture sector and Indigenous communities.

Why did you choose this profession?

I had great people to look up to along the way. Outside of a Canadian and colonial understanding of heritage under the humanities, Cree-Métis peoples from families in Saskatchewan have sacred laws and cultural life that have provided Cree ways of relating to this world. My work unfolded naturally as I sought out deeper connection to the cultural lives of communities. I love being in community with people at all levels—students, faculty, and local community—to think about ways to protect and preserve our cultural traditions and life.

Tell us about your current areas of research?

My areas of research include Indigenous and Cree-Métis kinship, Indigenous narratives in film and television, Indigenous documentary cultures, Indigenous social media and internet, digital media, digital publishing, cultural heritage and governance, Indigenous feminist policy, and TransNDN thought.

My current book project is about Indigenous identity and appropriation in Canadian galleries, museums and art festivals—through a lens of the rise of masculinism and misogyny in “Indigenous Art”—and the community-based transgender Indigenous digital media creators who sustain creative kinship outside institutional contexts.

What is your proudest career achievement so far?

The publication of my first book, nîtisânak. I was quite young when I published nîtisânak. Yet, that book opened up so much space for connection and community between Indigenous queer, trans, and Two-Spirit peoples that I hadn’t even anticipated.

What projects are you currently working on?

My article “Cultures of Indigenous Futurism” argued that Indigenous trans and Two-Spirit peoples use digital media methods to vision their realities, express kinship, and imagine better possible futures for their communities. I’ve also championed collaboration, rather than “study,” in research with Indigenous and trans peoples, and explored how digital media can provide a method for collaborative research with communities (The Conversation 2022). I believe that strategic partnerships between community and researchers, when done in a way that genuinely, not performatively, expands, not extracts, from the capacity of communities. I am currently developing an Indigenous feminist policy think tank, that will be governed by communities. I’m also in the early days of developing trans digital media archives that are governed by Indigenous communities, through collaborations between trans digital media creators and my production company.

What is your favourite thing about teaching?

While it might be cliche, learning from the students. Academics don’t give their students enough credit for introducing them to new ways of thinking. For me, university is a lifelong project of learning, wherein we are constantly educating each other about new fields and theories.

What would you say is your main motivation for your work?

Collaboration with other writers, artists, and creators. Creation has traditionally been viewed as an isolated practice in Western societies, centered around the ego of a singular artist. However, Indigenous creation brings communities together. Collaborative practice is a way of instilling a sense of personhood in the foundation of everything I do in the academy.

What do you enjoy doing outside of work?

I fancy myself something of a Real Housewives intellectual. You can also catch me at a small gallery or reading, or on my way back home to the prairies to see my niece and mom.

What books do you currently have on your nightstand?

Bunny by Mona Awad; The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid; and Bloodmarked by Tracy Deonn.