Irene Gammel and Jason Wang

Below the Radar

In this episode, we are joined by Irene Gammel and Jason Wang from Toronto Metropolitan University. During the COVID-19 Pandemic, Irene and Jason held webinar series at the Modern Literature & Culture Research Centre. In this episode Irene and Jason share personal anecdotes and insights on how the pandemic has affected their lives, research, and cultural practices. They emphasized the importance of creative expressions, personal storytelling, and cultural documentation in navigating uncertain times and fostering a sense of community and solidarity. The speakers also discussed the surge of anti-Asian sentiment during the pandemic, highlighting the need for educational curricula, grassroots movements, and empathy across cultures to address the issue. Resources: Irene Gammel: https://www.torontomu.ca/english/about-us/faculty-and-staff/faculty/gammel-irene/ Jason Wang: https://mlc.torontomu.ca/people/jason-wang Modern Literature and Culture Research Centre: https://mlc.torontomu.ca/ MLC Pandemic Webinar Series: https://mlc.torontomu.ca/news/webinars/pandemic-webinar-series Creative Resilience and COVID-19 — Figuring the Everyday in a Pandemic: https://mlc.torontomu.ca/creative-resilience-and-covid-19 Bios: Irene Gammel Since coming to Toronto Metropolitan University in 2005, Dr. Irene Gammel has held positions as professor of English, Canada Research Chair in Modern Literature and Culture (2005; renewed 2011), and director of the Modern Literature and Culture Research Centre. She is the author and editor of fourteen books, including the internationally acclaimed Baroness Elsa: Gender, Dada and Everyday Modernity (MIT Press) and Looking for Anne of Green Gables (St. Martin’s Press), as well as over 50 peer-reviewed articles and chapters. Irene Gammel is well-known for her scholarship on gender and modernism. Her research has helped uncover the earliest roots of modern and feminist performance art, contributed to the consolidation of L.M. Montgomery Studies as an academic field, and claimed women's confessional discourses as a sub-discipline of autobiographical studies. As the Director of the Modern Literature and Culture (MLC) Research Centre, she has hosted and curated numerous exhibitions, symposia, and workshops; her passion is training students at all levels through experiential methods. Jason Wang Dr. Jason Wang holds a Ph.D. in Communication and Culture (York University, 2021), an M.A. in Literatures of Modernity (Ryerson University, 2013), and a B.A. Honours with double majors in Communication Studies and Psychology (York University, 2012). He specializes in studying how modernist and contemporary literature and culture encode power, politics, and social values. His doctoral dissertation, “Urban Walking: Configuring the Modern City as Cultural and Spatial Practice” (defended with distinction), explored the aesthetics of spatial politics and the politics of spatial aesthetics in urban literature and culture from the early twentieth century to the post-industrial era. Dr. Wang is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the MLC Research Centre (2021-2023), working with Dr. Gammel on a volume of essays exploring creative resilience and COVID-19. A member of the Executive Team at the MLC Research Centre, Jason oversees the CFI-funded research space of the MLC Research & Innovation Zone (RIZ), provides technology leadership for the CWAHI (hybrid) conference, and is cohost of the MLC Pandemic Webinar Series.