Jas M. Morgan is a Toronto-based Cree-Métis-Saulteaux SSHRC doctoral scholarship recipient, a McGill University Art History Ph.D. candidate, and an assistant professor in Ryerson University’s Department of English. They previously held the position of Editor-at-Large for Canadian Art and served as the Arts and Literary Summit programmer for MagNet 2019. Morgan’s first book nîtisânak (Metonymy Press, 2018) won the prestigious 2019 Dayne Ogilive Prize and a 2019 Quebec Writer’s Federation first book prize, and has been nominated for a Lambda Literary Award and an Indigenous Voices Literary Award. Morgan is the co-founder of gijiit: a curatorial collective that focuses on community-engaged Indigenous art curations, gatherings, and research dealing with themes of gender, sex, and sexuality. They are a REVEAL Indigenous Art Award recipient, and have been awarded national Magazine Awards in the Essay category for “Stories Not Told” and in the Best-Editorial Package category for “#MeToo and the Secrets Indigenous Women Keep.” For their work as lead editor for the summer 2017 issue of Canadian Art, an issue on the theme of “Kinship,” they were also nominated for a National Magazine Award in the “Best Editorial Package” category. Morgan’s writing has appeared in The Walrus, Malahat Review, Room, GUTS, esse, Teen Vogue, CV2/Prairie Fire, The New Inquiry and other publications.
Recent Academic Lectures
Invited lecturer, Yale University, “On Bodies: Indigenous (new) Feminist Art and its Aunties,” Faculty of Fine Arts, Department of Art History (2018)
Invited lecturer, “The Prairie Wind is Gay Af: nîtisânak,” Vanier College English Symposium, Montreal (2018)
Invited lecturer, “The Prairie Wind is Gay Af: nîtisânak,” University of Manitoba Native Studies Colloquium, Winnipeg (2018)
Recent Lectureships
INDG 401 (Decolonizing Indigenous Nations), Indigenous Studies Program, Institute for the Study of Canada, McGill University
Selected Panel Moderations
“Kinship, Decolonial Love and Community Art Practice,” CROSSROADS: ART + NATIVE FEMINISM, The Feminist Art Project at College Art Association, February 18, 2017, Museum of Arts and Design, New York City. Featuring Dayna Danger, Marcella Ernest, Tarah Hogue and Lyncia Begay.
Selected Academic Publications
For a selection of Morgan’s academic publications please visit their Academia.edu profile
Selected Publicity
“Catch a rising star: These Montreal artists are poised to start the decade with a splash,” Montreal Gazette
“Our Favourite Things,” GUTS
“The Two Spirits of Lindsay Nixon,” The Bridge with Nantali Indongo, CBC
“Colonial patriarchal masculinity’ keeps #MeToo stories inside Indigenous communities,” CBC
“5 Books to check out from our Close Up on Gender series,” CBC
“The Indigenous renaissance was truly here in 2018—and it’s not going anywhere,” CBC
“The Best Queer Books of 2018,” Book Riot
“50 of the Best LGBT Books of 2018,” Autostraddle
“The Value of Art Criticism” (for “Who Benefits from the Indigenous Art Biennial”), Hyperallergic
“Billy-Ray Belcourt’s favourite Canadian book of 2018: nîtisânak by Lindsay Nixon,” CBC
“2018 Best Books of the Year,” Writer’s Trust of Canada
“Moving reconciliation beyond the buzzwords,” The Manitoban
“The 10 best events at literary festival Naked Heart 2018,” NowToronto
“25 works of creative nonfiction to watch for this fall,” CBC
“Meet Indigenous authors and poets at Toronto’s 2018 Word on the Street,” CBC
Interview, This Magazine
“Decolonial love: These Indigenous artists are taking back the self-love that colonialism stole,” CBC
#WOTSTalks Interview, Word on the Street Blog
Interview, At the Edge of Canada
“I’m excited to bring new voices into the arena,” Concordia University
