Tracy Kulba-Gibbons
Biography
Dr. Tracy Kulba-Gibbons teaches English in the Academic Upgrading program at Red Deer Polytechnic. She has a Bachelor of Arts (English) from McGill University, a Master of Arts (English) from the University of Alberta, and Ph.D. in English from the University of Alberta. Along her journey, she has studied music performance, worked as tree-planter, and worked also in the oil and gas industry; however, she always maintained a love of teaching and learning.
Born and raised in the Prairies, she wanted to learn more about the history of settlement in Western Canada and the complex dynamics of that nation-building process. Her research interests thus gravitated toward the idea of cultural memory work and the intersections between feminism, nationalism, and imperialism in early 20th-century Canadian literature. She has published in journals such as West Coast Line, Essays in Canadian Writing, and Women’s Studies International Forum. With Paul Hjartarson, she co-edited a book collection on Felix Paul Greve (Frederick Philip Grove) and Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven. She is also interested in the scholarship of teaching and learning.
As a teacher, she tries to engage students as readers, thinkers, and writers, asking them to situate texts within personal and historical contexts. Her favourite teaching days involve Creative Projects, where students extend their learning by making and presenting creative texts. Memorable examples have included podcasts, puppet shows, drawings, paintings, musical performances, board games, tarot cards, dioramas, sewn/crocheted/knitted projects, and welded sculptures. She loves to teach essay-writing, and she firmly believes that grammar can be fun and empowering.
Education
- Ph.D. (English), University of Alberta
- M.A. (English), University of Alberta
- B.A. (English), McGill University