Meet our researchers

Our researchers are individual scholars writing books, or directors of international research teams (and everything in between). They probe the nature of the individual as it may be revealed by art, philosophical enquiry, cross-cultural understanding, or language. They explore aspects of human behaviour (even in its extremes in the study of the Holocaust), and the factors which influence that behaviour (such as gender, or culture). Here is a sample of some of the research projects our faculty members are pursuing.

Nicholas Bradley

Associate professor

English

Nicholas Bradley is an associate professor in the Department of English. His research areas include twentieth- and twenty-first-century poetry, Canadian literature and American literature, and the literature of the Pacific Northwest.

Lynne Marks

Professor

History

Lynne Marks's research areas are Canadian history, gender history, and the social history of religion. She is the 2017 recipient of UVic’s university-wide Award for Excellence in Graduate Student Supervision and Mentorship.

Sada Niang

Professor

French

Sada Niang, a professor in the Department of French, is fascinated by the possibilities presented by the cinema to African artists: “You have the images, the colours; you have the possibility of having people speak in their own languages; you have the possibility of integrating local music and popular arts.”

Helga Thorson

Professor

Germanic and Slavic Studies

Germanic Studies professor Helga Thorson was awarded UVic’s university-wide Award for Excellence in Teaching for Experiential Learning in 2017. Every other summer, Thorson teaches the I-witness Field School, in which students travel to Central Europe to study the memorialization of the Holocaust.

James Young

Professor

Philosophy

James O. Young, a professor in the Department of Philosophy, received UVic’s Humanities Award for Research Excellence in 2016, one year after he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. When asked about these distinctions, he remarked that he was “pretty bloody pleased.”