PAUL db WATKINS

I am a Professor of English at Vancouver Island University. I am also a member of research team at the International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation (IICSI). At VIU, I am the Artistic Director of the “Writers on Campus” (Nanaimo) series, and I am involved with the MeTA Lab in Nanaimo where I am working on a new sound lab. I am a settler of Anglo-Indian (British and South Asian), French Canadian, and mixed European Ancestry.

My areas of interest include CanLit (with a focus on Black Canadian literature), Indigenous literatures, jazz and improvisation, African American literature, graphic novels, Digital Humanities, intersections between music and poetry, hip-hop, DJing, and film. My first book, SOUNDIN’ CANAAN: Black Canadian Poetry, Music, and Citizenship is now out with WLU Press! Created for readers, listeners, courses, and research and discussion groups, the companion site soundincanaan.com is designed to benefit both readers of the book and anyone interested in Black Canadian poetry, culture, and Black music.

I’ve published reviews and articles on multiculturalism, hip-hop, Canadian poetry, jazz and improvisation, with a paper in Critical Studies in Improvisation titled, “Disruptive Dialogics: Improvised Dissonance in Thelonious Monk and Wu-Tang Clan’s 36 Chambers.” My most recent publications include a paper on remix, DJing, and digital humanities published in The Routledge Handbook of Remix Studies and Digital Humanities and a paper on the poetry of Wayde Compton and Vancouver’s historically Black community of Hogan’s Alley in Unsettling the Great White North. A forthcoming paper on music and sound in David Lynch’s Twin Peaks is forthcoming.

I maintain a blog, Riffings, and have written reviews for The Toronto Review of Books, The Bull Calf, Lemon Hound, The Malahat Review, and Canadian Literature, among others. I was also a guest editor with Dr. Rebecca Caines on a special issue of Critical Studies in Improvisation focused on Improvisation and Hip-Hop.

Aside from my academic work, this site serves as a space to occasionally showcase projects, events, reviews, poetry, and music. My DJ projects, Dedications (2013) and Dedications II (2019), Portals (2020), as well as my latest, Dedications III (2024) are available for FREE download.

Dedications I, II, and Portals