Nyssa Komorowski

PhD Candidate
nyssa.komorowski@mail.utoronto.ca

Campus

  • Downtown Toronto (St. George)

Fields of Study

  • North American
  • Modern/Contemporary
  • Indigenous
  • Book History

Areas of Interest

  • Research-creation methodologies
  • Haudenosaunee epistemologies and history
  • Indigenous clothing and self-fashioning
  • Indigenous collections
  • Book history, textual theory
  • Indigenous methodologies, "research as ceremony"
  • Craft, i.e., beading, wampum
  • Performance art
  • Costumes and performance dress
  • E. Pauline Johnson Tekahionwake

Working Dissertation

Title

Work Worn: Media and Memory of E. Pauline Johnson Tekahionwake’s ‘Indian Maiden’ Costume

Supervisors

Elizabeth Legge

Description

Since 1961, a zeitgeist of discussion about E. Pauline Johnson Tekahionwake has analyzed her Indigenous “authenticity” as the standard paradigm for evaluating the quality of her creative work. Material facts and direct observation have been sidelined in favour of philosophy about identity. This has resulted in a large body of academic writing across multiple disciplines wherein descriptions of Pauline’s costumes and performances are factually incorrect and overly speculative.

My research-creation practice handcrafts historical reconstructions of Pauline’s lost and alienated costume pieces that are not on public display, to redress her creative legacy as an artist. I have expanded on this approach by adapting Victorian loom weaving and ancient Haudenosaunee beadwork practices to evaluate large quantities of historical data about her costumes and performances that are otherwise difficult to compare and evaluate in meaningful ways. My hyper textual beadwork piece offers a detailed analysis of Pauline’s artistry contextualized by time and space.

Biography

Nyssa Komorowski (member of Oneida Nation of the Thames) is a SSHRC-funded PhD Candidate at the University of Toronto in Art History and Book History and Print Culture. Her doctoral dissertation research investigates the creative work of E. Pauline Johnson Tekahionwake, with a focus on Haudenosaunee epistemologies, research-creation methodologies, and interdisciplinary approaches between book history and art history. Her SSHRC-funded MA research focussed on how images of the stereotypical ‘Indian’ were used by settler-colonials in the nineteenth century, and on Indigenous land relations, ancestral relationships with the earth, and animacy of the land. She is also a visual artist who makes illustrations and exhibits murals and installations of special projects. Her BFA was completed at OCAD University in cross-disciplinary art with a specialization in publications, and she won the program medal upon graduation. She completed a certificate program specializing in dark room photography processes at Haliburton School of the Arts and earned an advanced degree in art at Fanshawe College, graduating both programs with honours.

Selected Publications

  • Article: “The Seashells that Saved the World.“ C Mag. August 2024.
  • Book chapter: “Haudenosaunee Creation as Ecocritical Method in Shelley Niro’s La Pieta Series” in Ecocritical Methods in Art History. Manchester University Press. Forthcoming.
  • Conference review: “New Directions in Indigenous Book History.” Early American Literature. 2024.
  • Peer-reviewed book chapter: “Plurality, Collaboration, and Synthesis in the Publication of Haudenosaunee History” in Storytelling, Identity Formation, and Resistance in North American Indigenous Culture. John Benjamins Publishing Company. Forthcoming.
  • Student journal: “A Flaysome Web: Weaving the Female Gothic into a Feminist Theory of the Virtual Text,” in Panic at the Discourse 3 no. 1, “Science Fiction from the Margins.” Forthcoming.

Honours, Awards and Grants

  • 2022-25 — Canada Graduate Scholarship Doctoral, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
  • 2020-21 — Canada Graduate Scholarship – Masters, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
  • 2015 — Program Medal, Cross-Disciplinary Art: Publications, OCAD University

Professional Affiliations

  • American Society for Environmental History (ASEH)
  • Native American and Indigenous Studies Association (NAISA)
  • Association of Canadian College and University Teachers of English (ACCUTE)
  • Society for the History of Authorship, Reading & Publishing (SHARP)

Education

BFA, OCAD University
MA, University of Toronto

Presentations

“Landscape Literacy and Haudenosaunee Wampum.” Society for the History of Authorship, Reading, and Publishing (SHARP) Conference. University of Reading, Berkshire, UK.
“Syllabic Type at Massey College.” Annual Conference, American Society for Environmental History. Denver, Colorado.
“Stroud and Brooch: The Visual Representation of 18th-Century Kanien’kehà:ka in the Outlander Series.” Panel: Representations of Indigenous Communities. Outlander Conference. University of Glasgow, Scotland. 2023.
“Ukwehuwe Stories: A Philosophy and History of Being in the World.” Indigenous Learning Forum, American Philosophical Society. Co-presenting with Dr. Jennifer Komorowski. Virtual Presentation. 2024.
Guest Lecture: “Northeastern Woodlands Ecology and Ecological History” Philosophy, Culture, and Values, Prof. Jennifer Komorowski. Toronto Metropolitan University. 2024.

Administrative Service

Acquisitions Committee, Art Museum at University of Toronto, 2023-present
Advisory Board Member, Art Museum at University of Toronto, 2022-present
Events Committee Member, Book History and Print Culture Collaborative Specialization, University of Toronto

Cohort

  • 2021-2022