UBC English professor Margery Fee teaches science fiction, science and technology studies and indigenous literatures. In February of 2015, she was selected as the 2015-2017 Brenda and David McLean Chair In Canadian Studies. She has taught indigenous literatures since 1996. She is also the former Editor of Canadian Literature: A Quarterly of Criticism and Review (2007-2015) and an Associate Editor of the Dictionary of Canadian English on Historical Principles (2nd online edition). Before she came to UBC in 1993, Margery Fee taught in the English department at Queen's University, where she was also Director of the Strathy Language Unit, which conducts research into Canadian English and English usage. At UBC, she has served as Associate Dean of Arts (1999-2004), Graduate Advisor at the Centre for Women's and Gender Studies (2005-07), and Director of Canadian Studies, Director of Arts One, and Director of Intercultural and Community Programs (First Nations Languages, Musqueam 101, Humanities 101) (2005-2008). She was Director of the African Studies Minor (2005-2007). She is a member of the Arts Tenure and Promotion Committee (2011-13) and the UBC Press Editorial Board.

Fee has edited Silence Made Visible: Howard O'Hagan and Tay John (ECW, 1992), which includes a rare O'Hagan interview conducted by Vancouver novelist Keith Maillard in 1979.

Margery Fee's Literary Land Claims: The "Indian Land Question" from Pontiac's War to Attawapiskat (Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2015) examines how land ownership figures in the work of both Indigenous and non-Indigenous people, including John Richardson, E. Pauline Johnson, Archibald Belaney (Grey Owl), Louis Riel and Harry Robinson. Her survey from 1832 to the late 1970s includes John Richardson's novels about Pontiac's War and the War of 1812, fiction which incorporates the impact of broken British promises to indigenous nations. She concludes with Okanagan storyteller Harry Robinson's storytelling in which the inability and unwillingness of new settlers to share the land forces Coyote to make a deal with the King of England. Fee maintains the myth of "savage Indians" requiring "civilized Canadians" to develop land persists despite the apparent advances made by the Idle No More movement and the Indian Residential School Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Polar Bear (Univ. of Chicago, 2019) is a natural and cultural history of the largest land-dwelling carnivore on earth. These creatures, that can measure up to three meters in length and weigh up to fifteen hundred pounds are iconic in many ways: a symbol of the climate change debate, and images that decorate fountains and building cornices across the world. Polar bears sell soda pop, and are featured in children's books, on merry-go-rounds and as stuffed toys. Margery Fee delves into the evolution, species, habitat, and behaviour of the Polar bears as well as the animal's portrayal in art, literature, film and advertising.

BOOKS

Polar Bear (Univ. of Chicago, 2019) $19.99 978-1-78914-146-7. 104 illustrations.

Literary Land Claims: The "Indian Land Question" from Pontiac's War to Attawapiskat (Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2015) $38.99 978-1771121194

Edited. Silence Made Visible: Howard O'Hagan and Tay John (ECW, 1992). 978-1550221671. Collection of essays, life chronology, annotated bibliography of his works, an interview with Keith Maillard, two short memoirs, etc.

[BCBW 2019]