Nyssa Komorowski

PhD Candidate
nyssa.komorowski@mail.utoronto.ca

Campus

  • Downtown Toronto (St. George)

Fields of Study

  • North American
  • Modern/Contemporary
  • Indigenous
  • Book History

Areas of Interest

  • Research-creation methodologies
  • Haudenosaunee epistemologies and history
  • Indigenous clothing and self-fashioning
  • Indigenous collections
  • Book history, textual theory
  • Indigenous methodologies, "research as ceremony"
  • Craft, i.e., beading, wampum
  • Performance art
  • Costumes and performance dress
  • E. Pauline Johnson Tekahionwake

Working Dissertation

Title

On the Land Imaginary of a Layered Cosmos: Land Relations, Wampum, and Haudenosaunee Performance on Turtle Island and British North America

Supervisors

Elizabeth Legge

Description

The ‘land imaginary’ is the collective vision of land remade as an image, summoned in poetic or tactile expressions, and/or performed in time and space. Individuals and their social groups in Northeastern North America have long related to land, media, and each other through this land imaginary. I am interested in both Haudenosaunee and settler ways of forming relationships with land through art, and in the exchanges of images, materials, and culture made between these two groups over time since the late-eighteenth century in the process of forming or maintaining land relations. How are these relationships facilitated by creative means? How have ever-changing relationships between Haudenosaunee nations and the imperial powers that have occupied North America been mediated by the land imaginary? I will explore these queries while looking at a variety of different media from Turtle Island / British North America, a place that exists in layers comprised of distinct peoples and cultures, with points of contact and exchange throughout. Philosophical groundwork I use to explore the land imaginary of this layered place stems from Indigenous methodologies and philosophical thought, combined with environmental humanities approaches and a specialization in book history and print culture. I orient crafted ‘belongings’,  printed texts, and both theatrical and diplomatic performances as strategies by which settler and Haudenosaunee artists, writers, orators, and travellers have articulated creative relationships to places and re-presented those places to audiences.

Biography

Nyssa Komorowski (member of Oneida Nation of the Thames) is a SSHRC-funded PhD Candidate at the University of Toronto in Art History and Book History and Print Culture. Her doctoral dissertation research investigates the creative work of E. Pauline Johnson Tekahionwake, with a focus on Haudenosaunee epistemologies, research-creation methodologies, and interdisciplinary approaches between book history and art history. Her SSHRC-funded MA research focussed on how images of the stereotypical ‘Indian’ were used by settler-colonials in the nineteenth century, and on Indigenous land relations, ancestral relationships with the earth, and animacy of the land. She is also a visual artist who makes illustrations and exhibits murals and installations of special projects. Her BFA was completed at OCAD University in cross-disciplinary art with a specialization in publications, and she won the program medal upon graduation. She completed a certificate program specializing in dark room photography processes at Haliburton School of the Arts and earned an advanced degree in art at Fanshawe College, graduating both programs with honours.

Selected Publications

  • Article: “The Seashells that Saved the World.“ C Mag. August 2024.
  • Book chapter: “Haudenosaunee Creation as Ecocritical Method in Shelley Niro’s La Pieta Series” in Ecocritical Methods in Art History. Manchester University Press. Forthcoming.
  • Conference review: “New Directions in Indigenous Book History.” Early American Literature. 2024.
  • Peer-reviewed book chapter: “Plurality, Collaboration, and Synthesis in the Publication of Haudenosaunee History” in Storytelling, Identity Formation, and Resistance in North American Indigenous Culture. John Benjamins Publishing Company. Forthcoming.
  • Student journal: “A Flaysome Web: Weaving the Female Gothic into a Feminist Theory of the Virtual Text,” in Panic at the Discourse 3 no. 1, “Science Fiction from the Margins.” Forthcoming.

Honours, Awards & Grants

  • 2022-25 — Canada Graduate Scholarship Doctoral, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
  • 2020-21 — Canada Graduate Scholarship – Masters, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
  • 2015 — Program Medal, Cross-Disciplinary Art: Publications, OCAD University

Professional Affiliations

  • American Society for Environmental History (ASEH)
  • Native American and Indigenous Studies Association (NAISA)
  • Association of Canadian College and University Teachers of English (ACCUTE)
  • Society for the History of Authorship, Reading & Publishing (SHARP)

Education

BFA, OCAD University
MA, University of Toronto

Presentations

“Landscape Literacy and Haudenosaunee Wampum.” Society for the History of Authorship, Reading, and Publishing (SHARP) Conference. University of Reading, Berkshire, UK.
“Syllabic Type at Massey College.” Annual Conference, American Society for Environmental History. Denver, Colorado.
“Stroud and Brooch: The Visual Representation of 18th-Century Kanien’kehà:ka in the Outlander Series.” Panel: Representations of Indigenous Communities. Outlander Conference. University of Glasgow, Scotland. 2023.
“Ukwehuwe Stories: A Philosophy and History of Being in the World.” Indigenous Learning Forum, American Philosophical Society. Co-presenting with Dr. Jennifer Komorowski. Virtual Presentation. 2024.
Guest Lecture: “Northeastern Woodlands Ecology and Ecological History” Philosophy, Culture, and Values, Prof. Jennifer Komorowski. Toronto Metropolitan University. 2024.

Administrative Service

Acquisitions Committee, Art Museum at University of Toronto, 2023-present
Advisory Board Member, Art Museum at University of Toronto, 2022-present
Events Committee Member, Book History and Print Culture Collaborative Specialization, University of Toronto

Cohort

  • 2021-2022