NOVEMBER 2026 cOURSE WITH pATRIZIA zANELLA

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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 Material: Please read the novel The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline (Georgian Bay Métis) before the course. We recommend the Jacaranda edition so page numbers match for everyone. 

Additional short articles and a detailed course description will be sent to participants later.

Complete the form below to register for the course.