Dr. Jas M. Morgan is a Toronto-based Cree-Métis-Saulteaux Assistant Professor in Toronto Metropolitan University’s Department of English. Morgan holds a Canada Research Chair in Digital Wahkohtowin and Cultural Governance. Morgan is the Director of Culture and Heritage at Yellowhead Institute and the Facilitator for the Digital Wahkohtowin & Cultural Governance Lab. Morgan’s areas of expertise include Indigenous kinships, Indigenous narratives in film and tv, Indigenous documentary cultures, Indigenous social media and internet cultures, digital media, digital publishing, digital archives and heritage, and Trans Indigenous thought.
Morgan has an extensive background in film and art criticism. Morgan previously held the position of Editor-at-Large for Canadian Art magazine 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 film and art curations, gatherings, and research dealing with themes of gender, sex, and sexuality—and has curated exhibitions and programs at articule in Montreal, Never Apart in Montreal, La Galerie Centrale Powerhouse in Montreal, AceArt in Winnipeg, and InterAccess in Toronto.
Morgan’s research and writing has received many accolades. Morgan is 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. Morgan’s research about queer and trans Indigenous film, archives, and futures has been published by academic journals and publishers internationally such as the Canadian Theatre Review, Fernwood Press, University of Manitoba Press, and Duke University Press.
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
“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