Featured Researcher: An Interview with Lauren Beck
The CEMVC has been up to lots of great things since we last checked in, so we’ve decided to interview our top researcher, Dr. Lauren Beck. Lauren, the director at the CEMVC, holds the Canada Research Chair in Intercultural Encounter and the rank of Professor of Hispanic Studies & Visual and Material Culture Studies at Mount Allison University, Canada. Throughout her career, she has accomplished a lot of research in early modern visual culture and word and image studies, particularly in the Atlantic world. She pursues questions arising from race, gender, and place of origin in the settler-colonial milieu.
While chatting with Lauren, we thought we would check up on some of the exciting news she has to share with us, including publications, grants and more!
Q: What’s one accomplishment you’d like to share with us today?
A: I recently figured out how to use my air fryer without setting off the fire alarm. Love air-fried kale!
Haha! Who doesn’t love it? Speaking of love, we’d also love to highlight that she has been working hard to be considered for grants such as the SSHRC Insight Development Grant, the SSHRC Knowledge Synthesis Grant, the SSHRC Insight Grant, and the NFRF Exploration Grant!
Q: Speaking of grants and projects, which one has been your recent favorite? Why is that?
A: I am having a lot of fun with a project that sees me visit the capitols of the Americas, whether at the provincial or state level, or at a national level, to assess how identity is reflected in the art and monumental architecture of these places. It’s been a pet project of mine over the last few years and will mature into one of my next book projects.
Q: And speaking of books, do you have any publications coming out soon?
A: Yes! I have two collaborative books that will appear in early 2024. The first, Mitji—Let’s Eat: Mi’kmaq Recipes from Sikniktuk is a culinary and food history of Indigenous recipes from this region as told by Elders, who also share their food stories.
The second, Abiayalan Pluriverses: Bridging Indigenous Studies and Hispanic Studies, connects scholars and artists in North and South America to think about how teaching and research relating to the Indigenous Americas can be better connected and reflected in our professional practices.
How exciting! We cannot wait to read all about these new recipes just in time for the holidays! We are very eager to get our hands on that cookbook!
Q: Which recipe from the cookbook, Mitji – Let's Eat: Mi’kmaq Recipes from Sikniktuk, is your favourite? Tell us more!
A: It’s hard to pick just one recipe, but one of the more memorable ones also resulted in a marriage proposal (which I won’t reveal more about!) is the stuffed salmon recipe. When we made it for the first time at my co-author’s home, it was also one of the most beautiful recipes in the book.
Wow! We will have to feast our eyes on that one when it comes out in early 2024! What a way to celebrate the new year!
Q: Speaking of indigeneity, we heard you are working on a big project recently that features 17 different Indigenous and settler scholars, tells us more about that.
A: That project resulted in a collection of essays through which scholars think about ways that literature and art can be read or viewed using Indigenous methodologies and epistemologies. We all learned a lot from that project, which I mentioned previously: Abiayalan Pluriverses: Bridging Indigenous Studies and Hispanic Studies, which focuses on how teaching and research relating to the Indigenous Americas can be better connected and reflected in our professional practices.
Q: What are your thoughts on placenames in the Americas?
A: They’re sexist and colonial and racist—it’s time to do something about them.
Q: As you have been focusing on indigeneity and decolonization in the Global South, what are some changes you would like to see happen in the future regarding decolonization in modern ways?
A: The Global South, as opposed to the Global North, points to the harms reproduced in modern times by the colonial agendas of the past, and these are also replicated today by corporations, extractionism, a lack of regard for how climate change impacts the Global South, and so on.
The tricky thing is that most of our academic disciplines privilege knowledge about and from the Global North. A fundamental reorganization of academia as we know it must happen in order to address these issues at a scholarly level. VMCS is one such way we are attempting to accomplish this.
Q: As you are our Visual and Material Culture expert, and we are always seeing new ways to indigenize learning, how do you think we could continue to learn ways of indigenizing western visual and literacy canons? Could you give us an example?
A: Something I think about when framing out a research question or a teaching moment that relates somehow to the Indigenous world (which most things do!), is how to challenge students or colleagues to see a situation, a value, an ingredient, a person, etc., from more than one perspective. Some people call this two-eyed-seeing—being an important methodology to understanding the world around us. As scholars I think we have a critical role to play in meditating on questions relating to identity, decolonization, and so on, regardless of our areas of specialization.
Two-eyed-seeing is a great methodology for understanding as outsiders how the world churns around us and how it affects Indigenous communities in our areas, we cannot wait to hear more about this from you in the coming new year!
Q: Finally, as our last question, we’d like to congratulate you on your upcoming fellowship with the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, what is it about?
A: I have been really itching to get back to a certain project, that due to the pandemic, I had to put on hold. It is about Indigenous experiences and perceptions of Europe before 1800. This spring I get to spend time reconnecting with this project at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC.