Biography

Dr. Gary Boire received his Ph.D and MA in English Literature from McMaster University and his BA from the Université de Montréal (Loyola College).  He has taught at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, the University of Kent at Canterbury in England, and Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario, where he began his administrative activity as Chair of the Department of English and Film Studies in 2000.  He has served as Founding Dean of the Faculty of Graduate Studies, Acting Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences, and International Liaison Officer at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay and, most recently, as Vice President Academic at the University of Regina in Saskatchewan.  Dr. Boire has completed the Senior University Administrator’s Course (SUAC) at the Centre for Higher Education and Research Development (University of Manitoba) and the Institutes for Educational Management course (IEM) at Harvard University.

Professor Boire has taught a variety of undergraduate and graduate courses, including 18th century British literature, Canadian poetry and fiction, postcolonial film, and postcolonial theory.  He has a special affection for first year teaching (especially his “Introduction to Literature” course) and his graduate seminar on law, literature, and postcoloniality.  His interests in radical pedagogy, Franz Fanon, Michel Foucault, and social class inform his approach to teaching.

His current research interests are focused on the Law and Literature movement, particularly on the representations of legal mechanisms in postcolonial and Aboriginal literature and film.  Although he has published studies of Morley Callaghan, George Ryga, and Aboriginal “erasure” in Canadian literature, his most representative work includes: “Symbolic Violence: Law, Literature, Interpretation.”  Ariel 36, 1-2, (January-April 2004), 231-245; “Transparencies: Of Sexual Abuse, Ambivalence, and Resistance.” Essays on Canadian Writing, 20th Anniversary Issue 51-52 (1993-94): 211-32; “Legalizing Violence: Fanon, Romance, Colonial Law.” Law and Literature: Current Legal Issues, Vol. 2. Eds. Michael Freeman and Andrew Lewis.  Oxford University Press, 1999; and “Eyre and Anglos.”  Reprinted in Contemporary Literary Criticism Series, Vol. 115. Eds. Debbie Schmitt and Jeff Hunter. Detroit: Gale Research. 1999.   Extracts in Harold Bloom, ed., Asian American Women Writers.  Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 1997, 78-79; Reprinted in whole in Asian Literature. Ed. Larry Trudeau. Detroit: Gale Research. 1997.

Dr. Boire has been an active academic citizen: he most recently chaired the provincially mandated working group on First Nations University of Canada in 2009-2010; he has served on the Saskatchewan Academic Health Sciences Network; and he is a member of the Board of Directors for the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences.