Margery Fee
{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2023}}
{{short description|Professor emeritus of English}}
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| name = Margery Fee
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| birth_date ={{birth year and age|1948}}
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| education = BA., M.A, Glendon College, York University
PhD., English, University of Toronto
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| thesis_title = English-Canadian literary criticism, 1890-1950: defining and establishing a national literature
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| thesis_year = 1992
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| discipline = English
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| workplaces = University of British Columbia
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| notable_students = Deanna Reder
| main_interests = Aboriginal, Canadian, and postcolonial literatures
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Margery Fee (born 1948) {{post-nominals|list=FRSC}} is a professor emeritus of English at the University of British Columbia (UBC). From 2015 to 2017, Fee was the Brenda and David McLean Chair In Canadian Studies at UBC. She publishes in the fields of Canadian, postcolonial and Indigenous studies and Canadian English usage and lexicography.{{cite web |title=Margery Fee Announced as Mclean Chair, 2015-2017 |url=http://canadianstudies.ubc.ca/2015/02/26/submit-papers-to-the-seed/ |website=canadianstudies.ubc.ca |accessdate=April 23, 2019 |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20150710100405/http://canadianstudies.ubc.ca/2015/02/26/submit-papers-to-the-seed/ |archivedate=July 10, 2015 |date=February 26, 2015}}
Education
Fee completed her PhD studies in English at the University of Toronto in 1981, with a dissertation entitled "English-Canadian literary criticism, 1890–1950: defining and establishing a national literature".{{cite web |url=http://hdl.handle.net/ |title=Resolve a Handle and View the Values |website=hdl.handle.net |access-date=2023-09-29}} After earning her PhD, Fee began to take up an interest in Indigenous peoples literature.{{cite web |title=Dr. Margery Fee: Fostering Student Engagement |url=https://www.arts.ubc.ca/news/prof-margery-fee-english-and-canadian-studies/ |accessdate=April 23, 2019}}
Career
=Early career=
Because academic jobs in English were scarce in the early 1980s, Fee decided to earn a diploma in applied linguistics at the University of Victoria in order to teach English as a second language (ESL) in Japan. While earning the diploma, she learned of the existence of the Strahy Language Unit at Queen's University.{{cite web |author1=Margery Fee |title=Academic Accidents and the Development of Usage Guide |url=http://www.queensu.ca/strathy/blog/guest-column/margery-fee |website=queensu.ca |accessdate=April 24, 2019 |date=March 16, 2011}} The Unit was founded in 1981 to study the English language in Canada by a bequest from J. R. Strathy, a Queen's alumnus with a lifelong passion for the English language.{{Cite web|url=https://www.queensu.ca/strathy/home|title = Home | Strathy Language Unit}} Two years later, Fee was hired as director of the Unit, replacing W. C. Lougheed.{{cite web |title=Case 8: The Strathy Language Unit and Canadian English |url=https://virtual-exhibits.library.queensu.ca/125years/case-8-strathy-language-unit/ |website=virtual-exhibits.library.queensu.ca |date=7 July 2015 |accessdate=April 24, 2019}} Lougheed had recognized the need for creating a computer-based Canadian English "corpus" of texts, essentially a database of Canadian English. Fee helped obtain a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) grant to continue the expansion of the corpus. The resulting Strathy Corpus of Canadian English is a 50-million-word corpus of written and spoken English dated between 1970 and 2010.{{cite web |url=https://www.queensu.ca/strathy/corpus |title=Strathy Corpus of Canadian English | Strathy Language Unit |website=www.queensu.ca |access-date=June 23, 2020}} It is freely available online.{{cite web |url=https://www.english-corpora.org/can/ |title=English-Corpora: Strathy |website=www.english-corpora.org |access-date=June 23, 2020}} Using this corpus, she coordinated with later director Janice McAlpine to publish the Guide to Canadian English Usage in 1997 (1st ed.).{{cite web |title=Strathy Language Unit – Queen's University 1981 – 2011 |url=http://www.queensu.ca/strathy/blog-2011/alumni-review-article |website=queensu.ca |accessdate=April 24, 2019}}
During this period, Fee continued her work on Canadian literature. In 1985, she published Canadian poetry in selected English-language anthologies: an index and guide. In 1992, Fee compiled a collection of essays titled Silence Made Visible: Howard O'Hagan and Tay John.{{cite web |title=Silence Made Visible: Howard O'Hagan and Tay John |url=https://ecwpress.com/products/silence-made-visible |website=ecwpress.com |accessdate=April 24, 2019}} The book also included an interview of Howard O'Hagan, conducted by Keith Maillard in 1979, where he explained his writing process.Margery Fee, ed. Silence Made Visible: Howard O'Hagan and Tay John (ECW Press, 1992), 21-38. She published The Fat Lady Dances: Margaret Atwood's "Lady Oracle", a literature review of Margaret Atwood's work in 1993.{{cite web |title=The Fat Lady Dances: Margaret Atwood's Lady Oracle |url=https://www.umanitoba.ca/cm/cmarchive/vol22no4/dances.html |website=umanitoba.ca |accessdate=April 24, 2019 |date=September 1994}}
=UBC=
Fee was hired as an associate professor at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in 1993.{{cite web |title=Margery Fee |url=https://pwias.ubc.ca/profile/margery-fee |website=pwias.ubc.ca |accessdate=April 23, 2019}} She came to UBC with the purpose of teaching First Nations literatures.
Fee served as Associate Dean of students from 1999 to 2004. In 2005, Fee was awarded the Margaret Fulton Award for her contribution to student development and the University community. She served as director of the Arts One Program and director of the Canadian Studies Program from 2005 to 2008. The year she left her position as director, Fee was honoured as a distinguished scholar in residence at the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies and was the recipient of the Dean of Arts Award.{{cite web |title=Awards & Honours |url=https://english.ubc.ca/awards-honours/ |website=english.ubc.ca |accessdate=April 23, 2019}}
From 2007 until 2015, Fee was an editor of Canadian Literature, a quarterly journal of criticism and review.{{cite web |title=Margery Fee, Lucie Hotte, and Lorraine York named Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada |url=https://canlit.ca/margery-fee-lucie-hotte-and-lorraine-york-named-fellows-of-the-royal-society-of-canada/ |website=canlit.ca |accessdate=April 24, 2019 |date=September 7, 2017}} She led the team that established CanLit Guides, an open-access resource for the study of Canadian literature.{{cite web |url=http://canlitguides.ca/about/canlit-guides-editorial-team/ |title=CanLit Guides Editorial Team | CanLit Guides |website=canlitguides.ca |access-date=June 23, 2020}} In 2015, Fee was selected as the Brenda and David McLean Chair In Canadian Studies at UBC. That year, her book Literary Land Claims was shortlisted for the 2015 Gabrielle Roy Prize by the Association for Canadian and Québec Literatures.{{cite web |title=Gabrielle Roy Prize Finalist |url=https://english.ubc.ca/shortlist-for-gabrielle-roy-prize/ |website=english.ubc.ca |accessdate=April 23, 2019}} The book analyses texts produced between 1832 and the late 1970s by speakers and writers who resisted nationalist ideas about Canada's claim to land: John Richardson, Louis Riel, E. Pauline Johnson, Archibald Belaney (Grey Owl) and Harry Robinson.{{cite book |title=Literary Land Claims |url=https://www.wlupress.wlu.ca/Books/L/Literary-Land-Claims |website=wlupress.wlu.ca |accessdate=April 24, 2019}} Similarly, Fee became a co-Investigator with Daniel Heath Justice and Deanna Reder on a SSHRC-funded project called The People And The Text.{{cite web |title=The Promise of Paradise: Reading, Researching, and Using the Private Library — Jun 17-18, 2016 |url=https://spokenweb.ca/events/library-conference/ |website=spokenweb.ca |accessdate=April 24, 2019}} The project aimed to collect ignored texts and literature from Indigenous Canadians during the time of British colonization.{{cite web |title=About the Project |url=http://thepeopleandthetext.ca/about |website=thepeopleandthetext.ca |accessdate=April 24, 2019}}
In 2016, Fee published Tekahionwake: E. Pauline Johnson's writings on native North America, which detailed the life of the early North American Indigenous poet and fiction writer.{{cite web |title=Tekahionwake : E. Pauline Johnson's writings on native North America / edited by Margery Fee and Dory Nason. |url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/203056978?q&versionId=222958886 |website=trove.nla.gov.au |accessdate=April 24, 2019}} The following year, Fee was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada for her research in Canadian literature
and Canadian English lexicography.{{cite web |title=Margery Fee, fellow to the Royal Society of Canada |url=http://canadianstudies.ubc.ca/margery-fee-fellow-to-the-royal-society-of-canada/ |website=canadianstudies.ubc.ca |accessdate=April 23, 2019}}{{Cite web|url=https://rsc-src.ca/en/fellows|title = Fellows | the Royal Society of Canada| date=3 August 2012 }}
Publications
The following is a list of publications:{{cite web |title=au: Fee, Margery |url=https://www.worldcat.org/search?q=au%3A+Fee%2C+Margery&qt=results_page |website=worldcat.org |accessdate=April 23, 2019}}
- Edited with Jean Barman. On the Cusp of Contact: Gender, Space, and Race in the Colonization of British Columbia: Essays by Jean Barman. Harbour, 2020. {{ISBN|9781550178968}}
- Polar Bear. Reaktion, 2019. {{ISBN|9781789141771}}
- Associate editor with Stefan Dollinger (chief editor). DCHP-2: The Dictionary of Canadianisms on Historical Principles', Second Online Edition. March 2017. [http://www.dchp.ca/dchp2 www.dchp.ca/dchp2]
- Edited with Dory Nason. Tekahionwake: E. Pauline Johnson's writings on native North America. Broadview, 2016. {{ISBN|9781554811915}}
- Literary land claims: the "Indian land question" from Pontiac's war to Attawapiskat Wilfrid Laurier UP, 2015. {{ISBN|9781771121194}}
- Written With Janice McAlpine. Guide to Canadian English usage: the essential English resource for Canadian writers & editors. Oxford UP, 1997. Second edition, 2007. New issue, 2011. {{ISBN|9780195445930}}
- The Fat Lady Dances: Margaret Atwood's "Lady Oracle". ECW Press, 1993. {{ISBN|9781550221367}}
- Silence made visible: Howard O'Hagan and Tay John. ECW Press, 1992. {{ISBN|9781550221671}}
- Canadian poetry in selected English-language anthologies: an index and guide (1985)
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
- [https://sts.arts.ubc.ca/margery-fee/ UBC faculty profile]
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fee, Margery}}
Category:Place of birth missing (living people)
Category:University of Toronto alumni
Category:Academic staff of the University of British Columbia
Category:Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada
Category:21st-century Canadian non-fiction writers
Category:Canadian women non-fiction writers
Category:21st-century Canadian women writers
Category:Canadian women academics