Leanne Betasamosake Simpson is a renowned Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg scholar, writer and artist, who has been widely recognized as one of the most compelling Indigenous voices of her generation. Her work breaks open the intersections between politics, story and song—bringing audiences into a rich and layered world of sound, light, and sovereign creativity.
Working for two decades as an independent scholar using Nishnaabeg intellectual practices, Leanne has lectured and taught extensively at universities across Canada and the United States and has twenty years experience with Indigenous land based education. She holds a PhD from the University of Manitoba, and teaches at the Dechinta Centre for Research & Learning in Denendeh.
Chris Andersen is an associate professor, the associate dean (research), and the director of the Rupertsland Centre for Métis Research in the Faculty of Native Studies at the University of Alberta. He is also the current editor of aboriginal policy studies, an online, peer-reviewed journal dedicated to publishing on Métis, non-Status Indian, and urban Aboriginal issues in Canada and abroad. He is co-editor of Indigenous in the City: Contemporary Identities and Cultural Innovation (UBC Press, 2013).
Shiri Pasternak is an Assistant Professor in Criminology at Ryerson University in Toronto. She is the author of the award-winning book Grounded Authority: the Algonquins of Barriere Lake Against the State, published by the University of Minnesota Press in 2017, about the Algonquins’ rejection of the federal land claims policy in Canada from the perspective of Indigenous law and jurisdiction. Pasternak is also the Research Director for the Yellowhead Institute, a First Nations-focused think tank based in the Faculty of Arts at Ryerson University.
Rinaldo Walcott is a Professor in the Women and Gender Studies Institute, University of Toronto, author of Queer Returns: Essays on Multiculturalism, Diaspora, and Black Studies, and coauthor of BlackLife: Post-BLM and the Struggle for Freedom.
Desmond Cole is a Canadian journalist, activist, author, and broadcaster who lives in Toronto, Ontario. Cole hosts a weekly radio program on Newstalk 1010. He was previously a columnist for the Toronto Star and has written for The Walrus, NOW Magazine, Torontoist, The Tyee, Ethnic Aisle, Toronto Life, and BuzzFeed.
Glen Coulthard (PhD – University of Victoria) is a member of the Yellowknives Dene First Nation and an associate professor in the First Nations and Indigenous Studies Program and the Department of Political Science. Glen has written and published numerous articles and chapters in the areas of Indigenous thought and politics, contemporary political theory, and radical social and political thought. He lives in Vancouver, Coast Salish Territories.
Glen’s book, Red Skin, White Masks: Rejecting the Colonial Politics of Recognition (University of Minnesota Press), was released in August 2014 to critical acclaim. His co-edited book, Recognition versus Self-Determination: Dilemmas of Emancipatory Politics, was released in spring 2014 by UBC Press. H
Sue Goyette is a Canadian poet and novelist. Born in Sherbrooke, Quebec, Goyette grew up in Saint-Bruno-de-Montarville, on Montreal's south shore.
Her first poetry book The True Names of Birds (1998) was nominated for the 1999 Governor General's Award, the Pat Lowther Award and the Gerald Lampert Award. Goyette's first novel, Lures: A Novel (2002), was nominated for the 2003 Thomas Head Raddall Award. She has also written another poetry collection, Undone (2004), and won the 2008 CBC Literary Award in poetry for the poem "Outskirts". The poetry collection of the same name, Outskirts won the Atlantic Poetry Prize in 2012. Goyette's fourth poetry collection, Ocean, was published in 2013 by Gaspereau Press.
