Department of English

Sarah Henstra
Associate Professor
PhD, University of Toronto

Office: JOR 1020
Phone: 416-979-5000 ext 6139
E-mail: shenstra@ryerson.ca

Dr. Sarah Henstra joined Ryerson in 2005 as Assistant Professor of English, specializing in twentieth-century British literature and culture.  After completing her doctorate in 2002 at the University of Toronto she held a SSHRC Post-Doctoral Fellowship in Public Memory Studies at the University of California at Irvine (2002-2005).  She is the author of The Counter-Memorial Impulse in Twentieth Century English Fiction (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009).  This book explores how cultural loss becomes an occasion for social critique--rather than for mourning and commemoration--in novels by authors such as Ford, Lessing, and Winterson.  She has also published articles on narrative and public memory across various media: digital archives, documentary films, talk shows, and popular novels.  Dr. Henstra’s current research focuses on the use of memorial discourse in contemporary social activism campaigns.
 
Selected Publications

• “Confronting Genre: Opera, Memorial, and John Greyson’s Fig Trees.”  English Language Notes 48.1 (2010): 67-77.
• The Counter-Memorial Impulse in Twentieth-Century English Fiction.  Palgrave Macmillan, Fall 2009.
• “HBO’s Unchained Memories: Documentary Film as Slavery Memorial.”  Issues in Writing 17.1&2 (Spring 2008):  56-77.
•  “Ford and the Costs of Englishness: ‘Good Soldiering’ as Performative Practice.”  Studies in the Novel  39.2 (2007): 177-95.