NEW: November 2026 Course With Patrizia Zanella

Registration is now open! Scroll down for more information.

Introduction to Indigenous literatures

Originally from Oberwallis/Haut-Valais, Dr. Patrizia Zanella is a settler scholar of Indigenous literatures. Her teaching and research focuses on contemporary Indigenous literatures from North America, also known as Turtle Island (in reference to several Indigenous creation stories). Patrizia has been reading and writing about Indigenous literatures ever since she spent a BA semester on Tk̓emlúps te Secwépemc territory in Kamloops, British Columbia in 2011. She wrote her MA thesis on Louise Erdrich (Anishinaabe, Turtle Mountain Chippewa) and obtained a PhD from the University of Fribourg for her award-winning dissertation on contemporary border-crossing Indigenous literatures. After two years abroad at the University of Manitoba (on Treaty One Territory and the homeland of the Métis Nation) and at Oregon State University – Cascades (on the ancestral lands of the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs), Patrizia is back in Switzerland working as a senior Swiss National Science Foundation researcher at the University of Lausanne.
Passionate about teaching and bringing Indigenous literatures to a wider audience, Patrizia has been a lecturer at various Swiss universities, a substitute English teacher at high schools and technical schools in Valais, and a regular moderator of public events celebrating Indigenous literatures. Patrizia’s current project is about the exciting movement to revitalize Indigenous languages and how it shapes contemporary Indigenous literatures.
You will get a sense of why Indigenous language reclamation matters through the novel we’ll read together: The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline (Georgian Bay Métis), one of the most widely taught Indigenous texts in Canadian classrooms. The two-day workshop will also introduce participants to a variety of other Indigenous texts that lend themselves well to teaching, from fiction to non-fiction, poetry, and graphic novels. We will discuss works written by First Nations, Métis, Inuit, Native American/American Indian and Alaska Native authors in addition to Indigenous writers from Te Moana-nui-ā-Kiwa, Oceania.
Working in academia, Patrizia is a firm believer that the most radical work of transformation happens in the classroom. Indigenous literatures are all about transforming readers, calling on readers as witnesses, and expanding our imaginaries. They gift us with other ways of seeing the world – as a plurality of worlds –, a gift that comes with the responsibility of carrying those stories forward.
At the end of the workshop, participants will have a better understanding of the historical context of ongoing settler colonialism, the unique place-based principles and practices of Indigenous Nationhood and sovereignty, and the formal breadth of Indigenous literary expressions that are at once deeply political and playful. The goal is to equip teachers with terminology, basic background knowledge, resources, and methodologies that will allow them to readily integrate Indigenous literatures into their curricula. 

Registration 

Course dates and place: Thursday, Nov 26 - Friday, Nov 27 2026 at Gymnase de Beaulieu in Lausanne

Course fee: CHF 300 (SATE members), CHF 350 (non-members), reduced fee of CHF 250 for groups of at least ten people. 

Options for attending: You may attend a single day of the course at a reduced fee of about CHF 200, but because material builds across both days, we recommend attending the full two-day workshop and also staying for the communal dinner on Thursday, November 26.

Complete the form below to register for the course.

Four Plays in Five Days – London Drama Course 2026

Dates: Monday Oct 5th – Friday Oct 9th 2026

This is the continuation of Peter Storfer’s “5 plays in 5 days”. Still in the same spirit but in a slightly new format, you will discover four plays of different periods, see them on stage, get an insight into the process from the page to the stage. Not only will you get an idea of theatre tradition in London but you will also have the opportunity to meet people from the theatre world. Here is the comment of a former participant: “It was a truly wonderful course looking at 4 plays from various angles and going to watch them at different London theatres. We met with 2 actors, a writer and a stage manager! I would recommend it to all our teachers.”
Everybody who is interested in theatre is welcome. For more information and/or enrolment please click on the webpalette link: link: https://www.webpalette.ch/de/kurse/4-plays-in-5-days

Organisers: Susanna Lehmann & Chantal Gruber, Geneva