Kira Smith
Kira A. Smith is a public historian, creative writer, and activist. Her current research examines the lived experiences of children in Canadian asylums from 1880 to 1930. In doing so, she uses archival materials and arts-based interpretations to move away from the medical model of understanding mad histories. Kira has also researched the experiences individuals at the Brockville Asylum, and wrote a short novella The Red Chair, which emerged from this research.
Kira is concerned with how the archive can be disrupted and reimaged, and how the past can help us today. As such, she collaborates on initiatives to archive and document mad and disabled histories, including developing publicly accessible lesson plans. She is also a mentor at the Robarts Centre for Canadian Studies at York University, where she helps undergraduates develop academic and activist skills.
- The Red Chair (A novella on the patient experience at the Brockville Asylum).
- Smith, K. Mad Pasts: Reimagining Histories of Madness Through Blended Writing. Canada Watch. Forthcoming 2023.
- Smith, K. Using Fiction to Tell Mad Stories: A Journey into Historical Imagination and Empathy. (2022). Rethinking History 26, 3: 392-419.
- Smith, K. Deporting Mad Girls: The Colliding of the Century of the Child and the Century of Canada. (2022). Friends of the CAMH Archive Newsletter. 1-4. (PDF file) http://www.camh.ca/-/media/files/archives-newsletters/foa-newsletter-autumn2022.pdf (external link) .
- Smith, K. Ritualizing Madness: Case Files as Sites of Enforced Performativity, 1894-1950. (2021). Canadian Journal of Disability Studies 10, 1: 1-22.
- Pierre Elliott Trudeau Scholarship, York University
- Joseph-Armand Bombardier CGS Doctoral Scholarship, SSHRC