Sherrill Grace

Sherrill Grace completed her graduate studies in English Literature at McGill University in 1974.   After three years teaching at McGill, she joined the English Department at The University of British Columbia in 1977.  She was appointed to the rank of Full Professor in 1987, and she served as Associate Dean of Arts for 3 years, as a UBC Senator for 9 years, and Head of the Department of English at UBC from 1997 to 2002. She was named an Officer of the Order of Canada in January 2014.

Professor Grace’s teaching and research interests lie in the areas of 20th century Canadian Literature and Culture, Drama, Biography and Autobiography, and Interdisciplinary Studies in the 20th Century Literature, Art, Film, Theatre, and Music.  She has published 200 articles and 19 books, including studies of Margaret Atwood, Malcolm Lowry, Literary Expressionism, the 2-volume scholarly edition of Lowry’s letters: Sursum Corda!  The Collected Letters of Malcolm Lowry (1995, 1996), and she has co-edited a collection of Canadian plays called Staging the North and two books on Canadian theatre. Her book, Canada and the Idea of North, was published in 2002, and Inventing Tom Thomson appeared in 2004. Professor Grace’s recent published works also include a new edition of Mina Benson Hubbard’s A Woman’s Way Through Unknown Labrador (2004), a biography of Sharon Pollock entitled Making Theatre: A Life of Sharon Pollock (2008) and On the Art of Being Canadian (2009). Professor Grace presented a lecture entitled “The Haunting of Canadian Culture: From the Ghost of Tom Thompson to the Ghosts of Vimy Ridge” for the Vancouver Institute on March 5th of 2011, and on April 13th of 2002 “Ideas of North. ”Professor Grace was the Brenda and David McLean Chair in Canadian Studies for 2003-2005.

Books in order of publication:

Violent Duality: A Study Of Margaret Atwood – 1979

The Voyage That Never Ends: Malcolm Lowry’s Fiction – 1982

Sursum Corda!  The Collected Letters of Malcolm Lowry (1995, 1996)

Inventing Tom Thomson: From Biographical Fictions to Fictional Autobiographies and Reproductions – 2004

Woman’s Way Through Unknown Labrador (2004)

Canada and the Idea of North – 2007

Making Theatre: A Life of Sharon Pollock (2008)

On the Art of Being Canadian – 2010

Tiff: A Life of Timothy Findley – 2020