Sarah Henzi

Education

• Licence ès Lettres (Université de Genève)
• MA (Université de Montréal) 
• PhD (Université de Montréal)

Biography

Sarah Henzi is a settler scholar and Assistant Professor of Indigenous Literatures in the Department of French and the Department of Indigenous Studies at Simon Fraser University. Her research focuses on Indigenous literatures, popular culture, and new media, in both English and French. Before coming to SFU, as an Assistant Professor at Université de Montréal, she directed the first graduate program in Indigenous Literatures and Media in Québec (2017-2020). Prior to that, she was a sessional instructor at SFU (2014-2016), a Visiting Scholar at McGill University's Institute for the Study of Canada (2015-2016), and an FQRSC-funded Postdoctoral Fellow in the First Nations and Indigenous Studies Program at the University of British Columbia (2013-2014).

Networking and creating opportunities for collaboration are an important part of Sarah’s work. Since 2021, she has served on the Executive Committee of the LLC Indigenous Literatures of the United States and Canada Forum, Modern Language Association (MLA). She also served on the Indigenous Literary Studies Association (ILSA) Council for six years, as Secretary (2017-2021) and as Early Career Representative (2015-2017). She was Assistant Editor for the journal Canadian Literature (Francophone Writing) (2016-2021), as well as an Editorial Member for Studies in American Indian Literatures (SAIL) (2017-2022).

Amongst others, Sarah has contributed to the Oxford Handbook on Indigenous American Literatures (2014), the Routledge Companion to Native American Literature (2015) and Learn, Teach, Challenge: Approaching Indigenous Literatures (2016), and has publications in Translation Studies, Lettres québécoises, Canadian Literature, Recherches amérindiennes du Québec, the Canadian Review of Comparative Literature, Quebec Studies, Studies for Canadian Literature, the London Journal of Canadian Studies, and Australasian Canadian Studies.

Her translation into English of Innu writer An Antane Kapesh, whose books were the first to be published in French by an Indigenous woman in Québec, Eukuan nin matshi-manitu innushkueu / I am a Damn Savage – Tanite nene etutamin nitassi? / What Have You Done to My Country?  was published in 2020 (Wilfrid Laurier UP) and awarded the prestigious Cole Foundation Award for Translation (QWF) in 2021.

Research Interests

• Indigenous Literatures
• Indigenous Studies
• Popular Culture
• New Media
• Translation

Selected publications

• Sarah Henzi. “Indigenous Languages Matter.” Translation Studies. Vol. 17, Issue 1, 2024: 185-189.
• Sarah Henzi. “‘And Whom We Have Become’: Indigenous Women’s Narratives of Redress in Québec.” Studies in Canadian Literature. Vol. 46, no. 2, 2021: 186-212 (Awarded the 2022 Herb Wyile Prize in Canadian Literature, Studies in Canadian Literature).
• Linda M. Morra and Sarah Henzi. On the Other Side(s) of 150: Untold Stories and Critical Approaches to History, Literature, and Identity in Canada. Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2021 (Awarded the 2021 Canadian Studies Network Award for Best Edited Collection).
• An Antane Kapesh. Eukuan nin matshi-manitu innushkueu / I am a Damn Savage – Tanite nene etutamin nitassi? / What Have You Done to My Country? Translation and Critical Afterword by Sarah Henzi. Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2020 (Awarded the 2021 Cole Foundation Award for Translation).
• Sarah Henzi. “Irreconcilable ‘Myths of Métissage’: Indigeneity and Settler 
  Colonialism in Québec.” In: 150 Years of Canada: Grappling with Diversity 
  since 1867, Ursula Lehmkuhl and Elisabeth Tutsckek (eds.) Waxmann Series, 2020: 159-178.
• Sarah Henzi. “Francophone Indigenous Writing in Québec.” In: The Oxford Handbook of Indigenous American Literatures, James H. Cox and Daniel Heath Justice (eds.) Oxford University Press (US), [2014] 2020: 655-674.
• Sarah Henzi. “Narratives of Indigenous Place(s), Space(s) and Citizenship(s).” In Indigenous Places and Colonial Spaces: The Politics of Intertwined Relations, Nicole Gombay and Marcela Palomino-Schalscha (eds.) Routledge Series on Space, Place and Politics, Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, 2018: 72-87.
• Henzi, Sarah. “Entre orature et écriture: souveraineté, décolonisation et culture populaire autochtones.” Canadian Literature 230/231, Fall/Winter 2016/2017: 198-213.
• Sarah Henzi. “‘A Necessary Antidote’: Graphic Novels, Comics, and Indigenous Writing.” Canadian Review of Comparative Literature. Vol. 43, Issue 1, March 2016: 23-38.