nielsene


Emilia Nielsen

Photo of Emilia Nielsen

Associate Professor
Coordinator, Health & Society (HESO)

Office: 734 Ross Building South
Phone: 416 736 2100 Ext: 77813
Email: nielsene@yorku.ca
Primary website: Personal Website
Secondary website: HESO Faculty Profile


Emilia Nielsen's scholarly writing has appeared in academic journals such as Canadian Literature, Disability Studies Quarterly, Mosaic: A Journal for the Interdisciplinary Study of Literature, Performance Research, Studies in Canadian Literature as well as in literary journals across Canada. Surge Narrows (Leaf Press, 2013), her debut poetry collection, was a finalist for the League of Canadian Poets’ Gerald Lampert Memorial Award. Her second collection of poetry, Body Work (Signature Editions, 2018), won a Fred Cogswell Award for Excellence in Poetry, and was a finalist for Lambda Literary Award and the League of Canadian Poets’ Pat Lowther Memorial Award. She is the author of the scholarly text Disrupting Breast Cancer Narratives: Stories of Rage and Repair (University of Toronto Press, 2019), winner of a Elli Köngäs-Maranda Prize.

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Degrees

PhD, Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice, University of British Columbia
MA, Department of English, University of New Brunswick
BFA, Department of Writing, University of Victoria

Research Interests

Health , Arts and Culture, Medical and Health Humanities, Critical Disability Studies, Feminist Queer Crip Cultural Studies, Research-Creation, Lifewriting, Poetry and Poetics

Current Research Projects

Life Writing and Life Altering Illness: Engendering Counternarratives of Chronic Illness

    Summary:

    While biomedical research into the management of chronic disease is well established, the experiential knowledge of patients remains undervalued as a means of understanding the impact of living with chronic illness. Many chronic illnesses disproportionately affect women, yet an intersectional analysis is too often absent when calculating the societal impact of disease (Driedger & Owen, 2008; Moss & Dyck, 2002; Wendell, 2001). Therefore, in this two-year research-creation project, I will examine life writing by women diagnosed and treated or living with a chronic illness in order to better understand the personal challenge it presents to quality of life—physically, emotionally, spiritually and economically.

    See more
    Role: Principal Investigator

    Funders:
    SSHRC IDG
Books

Publication
Year

Disrupting Breast Cancer Narratives: Stories of Rage and Repair. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press. Print.

2019

Body Work. Winnipeg, MB: Signature Editions. Print.

2018

Surge Narrows. Lantzville, BC: Leaf Press. Print.

2013

Book Chapters

Publication
Year

“Chronically Ill, Critically Crip?: Revisiting the Poetry and Poetics of Dissonant Disabilities.” Living the Edges: A Disabled Women's Reader. D. Driedger (Ed.). Toronto: Inanna Publications.

2021

Journal Articles

Publication
Year

“Chronic Poetics and the Poetry of Chronic Illness (in a Global Pandemic).” Canadian Literature. Special Issue: Pandemics. 245: 48-64. Print.

2021

“The Problem of Standardized Breast Cancer Narratives.” Special Feature: Medicine & Society / Humanities | Encounters. CMAJ: Canadian Medical Association Journal. November 25: E1-E2. Print.

2019

“Transforming Disabling Trauma through Care Work and Collective Affinity: Mental Disability and ‘a Shared Queerness’ in Cereus Blooms at Night. ” Special Section: Care Ethics. Studies in Canadian Literature. 44.1: 181-197.

2019

“Chronically Ill, Critically Crip?: Poetry, Poetics and Dissonant Disabilities.” Disability Studies Quarterly. 36.4: n. pag. Web.

2016

“Queering Breast Cancer’s Affective Narratives: The Summer of Her Baldness and The L Word.” Special Issue: Queer/Affect. Mosaic: A Journal for the Interdisciplinary Study of Literature. 48.1: 49-64. Print.

2015

“Counternarratives of Breast Cancer and Chronic Illness: Performing Disruption, Patienthood and Narrative Repair.” Special Issue: “On Medicine.” Performance Research. 19.4: 97-106. Print.

2014

“Feeling Angry: Breast Cancer Narratives, Cancer Prevention and Public Affects.” Canadian Woman Studies. Special Issue: Women and Cancer. 28.2/3: 117-122. Print.

2011

“Unfulfilled Promises: Troubling Trafficked Women in Eastern Promises.” Re-public: Re-imagining Democracy. Special Issue: Sexing Borders: n. pag. Web.

Translated into Greek: “Ανεκπλήρωτες υποσχέσεις: Προβληματισμός για το εμπόριο γυναικών στην ταινία Eastern Promises.” Re-public: Re-imagining Democracy. Special Issue: Φύλο και σύνορα.: n. pag. Web.

2008

Conference Papers

Publication
Year

“Disability Poetry and Crip Poetics: Reading Body Work.” Creating Space X, The Canadian Association for Health Humanities, Hamilton, ON, April 12-13

2019

“Exploring the Poetry and Poetics of Chronic Illness: Precarity, Care, Collective Affinity.” Creating Space X, The Canadian Association for Health Humanities, Hamilton, ON, April 12-13

2019

“The Poetics and Ethics of Living with Chronic Illness: Exploring Feminist, Queer, Crip Canadian Poetry.” Indigenous, Canadian and Québécois Feminist Production Today, Banff Centre for the Arts, AB, October 11-14

2018

“Rereading Cereus Blooms at Night: Explicating Figures of Care.” Canadian Literature Centre Research Seminar, Edmonton, AB, February 27

2017

“Conceptualizing Indigenous ‘Graphic Medicine’: Telling Feminist Stories in Decolonizing Graphic Novels.” National Women’s Studies Association, Montreal, QC, November 13-16

2016

“Chronically Ill, Critically Crip?: Querying Disability Poetry and Poetics.” Pacific Rim International Conference on Disability and Diversity, Honolulu, HI, May 18-19

2015

“‘The Angry Breast Cancer Survivors’: Creating Justice Through Sharing Stories.” National Women’s Studies Association, San Juan, PR, November 13-16

2014

“Breast Cancer at the Edge of Cultural Politics: Cancer Rage, Gender Rage.” Sexuality Studies Association, Victoria, BC, June 1-2 2013, Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences

2013

“Feminist Bioethics, Narrative Ethics and Disruptive Breast Cancer Narratives: Claiming the Subjective Edge.” Women’s and Gender Studies et Recherches Féministes, Victoria, BC, June 1-4 2013, Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences

2013

“Resisting Breast Cancer’s Normative Script: Catherine Lord’s The Summer of Her Baldness.” Thinking Gender 2011, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, February 11

2011

Conference Proceedings

Publication
Year

“Queerness in the Heterotopia: Unbecoming, Contingents, and the Archive.” Views from the Edge. Vancouver: Centre for Women’s and Gender Studies, University of British Columbia. 16.1: 78-90. Print.

2008


Current Courses

Term Course Number Section Title Type
Winter 2024 AP/SOSC4142 3.0 M Health and Creative Resistance ONLN
Winter 2024 AP/SOSC2112 3.0 M Graphic Medicine ONLN



Emilia Nielsen's scholarly writing has appeared in academic journals such as Canadian Literature, Disability Studies Quarterly, Mosaic: A Journal for the Interdisciplinary Study of Literature, Performance Research, Studies in Canadian Literature as well as in literary journals across Canada. Surge Narrows (Leaf Press, 2013), her debut poetry collection, was a finalist for the League of Canadian Poets’ Gerald Lampert Memorial Award. Her second collection of poetry, Body Work (Signature Editions, 2018), won a Fred Cogswell Award for Excellence in Poetry, and was a finalist for Lambda Literary Award and the League of Canadian Poets’ Pat Lowther Memorial Award. She is the author of the scholarly text Disrupting Breast Cancer Narratives: Stories of Rage and Repair (University of Toronto Press, 2019), winner of a Elli Köngäs-Maranda Prize.

Degrees

PhD, Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice, University of British Columbia
MA, Department of English, University of New Brunswick
BFA, Department of Writing, University of Victoria

Research Interests

Health , Arts and Culture, Medical and Health Humanities, Critical Disability Studies, Feminist Queer Crip Cultural Studies, Research-Creation, Lifewriting, Poetry and Poetics

Current Research Projects

Life Writing and Life Altering Illness: Engendering Counternarratives of Chronic Illness

    Summary:

    While biomedical research into the management of chronic disease is well established, the experiential knowledge of patients remains undervalued as a means of understanding the impact of living with chronic illness. Many chronic illnesses disproportionately affect women, yet an intersectional analysis is too often absent when calculating the societal impact of disease (Driedger & Owen, 2008; Moss & Dyck, 2002; Wendell, 2001). Therefore, in this two-year research-creation project, I will examine life writing by women diagnosed and treated or living with a chronic illness in order to better understand the personal challenge it presents to quality of life—physically, emotionally, spiritually and economically.

    Project Type: Funded
    Role: Principal Investigator

    Funders:
    SSHRC IDG

All Publications


Book Chapters

Publication
Year

“Chronically Ill, Critically Crip?: Revisiting the Poetry and Poetics of Dissonant Disabilities.” Living the Edges: A Disabled Women's Reader. D. Driedger (Ed.). Toronto: Inanna Publications.

2021

Books

Publication
Year

Disrupting Breast Cancer Narratives: Stories of Rage and Repair. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press. Print.

2019

Body Work. Winnipeg, MB: Signature Editions. Print.

2018

Surge Narrows. Lantzville, BC: Leaf Press. Print.

2013

Journal Articles

Publication
Year

“Chronic Poetics and the Poetry of Chronic Illness (in a Global Pandemic).” Canadian Literature. Special Issue: Pandemics. 245: 48-64. Print.

2021

“The Problem of Standardized Breast Cancer Narratives.” Special Feature: Medicine & Society / Humanities | Encounters. CMAJ: Canadian Medical Association Journal. November 25: E1-E2. Print.

2019

“Transforming Disabling Trauma through Care Work and Collective Affinity: Mental Disability and ‘a Shared Queerness’ in Cereus Blooms at Night. ” Special Section: Care Ethics. Studies in Canadian Literature. 44.1: 181-197.

2019

“Chronically Ill, Critically Crip?: Poetry, Poetics and Dissonant Disabilities.” Disability Studies Quarterly. 36.4: n. pag. Web.

2016

“Queering Breast Cancer’s Affective Narratives: The Summer of Her Baldness and The L Word.” Special Issue: Queer/Affect. Mosaic: A Journal for the Interdisciplinary Study of Literature. 48.1: 49-64. Print.

2015

“Counternarratives of Breast Cancer and Chronic Illness: Performing Disruption, Patienthood and Narrative Repair.” Special Issue: “On Medicine.” Performance Research. 19.4: 97-106. Print.

2014

“Feeling Angry: Breast Cancer Narratives, Cancer Prevention and Public Affects.” Canadian Woman Studies. Special Issue: Women and Cancer. 28.2/3: 117-122. Print.

2011

“Unfulfilled Promises: Troubling Trafficked Women in Eastern Promises.” Re-public: Re-imagining Democracy. Special Issue: Sexing Borders: n. pag. Web.

Translated into Greek: “Ανεκπλήρωτες υποσχέσεις: Προβληματισμός για το εμπόριο γυναικών στην ταινία Eastern Promises.” Re-public: Re-imagining Democracy. Special Issue: Φύλο και σύνορα.: n. pag. Web.

2008

Conference Papers

Publication
Year

“Disability Poetry and Crip Poetics: Reading Body Work.” Creating Space X, The Canadian Association for Health Humanities, Hamilton, ON, April 12-13

2019

“Exploring the Poetry and Poetics of Chronic Illness: Precarity, Care, Collective Affinity.” Creating Space X, The Canadian Association for Health Humanities, Hamilton, ON, April 12-13

2019

“The Poetics and Ethics of Living with Chronic Illness: Exploring Feminist, Queer, Crip Canadian Poetry.” Indigenous, Canadian and Québécois Feminist Production Today, Banff Centre for the Arts, AB, October 11-14

2018

“Rereading Cereus Blooms at Night: Explicating Figures of Care.” Canadian Literature Centre Research Seminar, Edmonton, AB, February 27

2017

“Conceptualizing Indigenous ‘Graphic Medicine’: Telling Feminist Stories in Decolonizing Graphic Novels.” National Women’s Studies Association, Montreal, QC, November 13-16

2016

“Chronically Ill, Critically Crip?: Querying Disability Poetry and Poetics.” Pacific Rim International Conference on Disability and Diversity, Honolulu, HI, May 18-19

2015

“‘The Angry Breast Cancer Survivors’: Creating Justice Through Sharing Stories.” National Women’s Studies Association, San Juan, PR, November 13-16

2014

“Breast Cancer at the Edge of Cultural Politics: Cancer Rage, Gender Rage.” Sexuality Studies Association, Victoria, BC, June 1-2 2013, Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences

2013

“Feminist Bioethics, Narrative Ethics and Disruptive Breast Cancer Narratives: Claiming the Subjective Edge.” Women’s and Gender Studies et Recherches Féministes, Victoria, BC, June 1-4 2013, Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences

2013

“Resisting Breast Cancer’s Normative Script: Catherine Lord’s The Summer of Her Baldness.” Thinking Gender 2011, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, February 11

2011

Conference Proceedings

Publication
Year

“Queerness in the Heterotopia: Unbecoming, Contingents, and the Archive.” Views from the Edge. Vancouver: Centre for Women’s and Gender Studies, University of British Columbia. 16.1: 78-90. Print.

2008


Current Courses

Term Course Number Section Title Type
Winter 2024 AP/SOSC4142 3.0 M Health and Creative Resistance ONLN
Winter 2024 AP/SOSC2112 3.0 M Graphic Medicine ONLN