Dr Shelley Angelie Saggar

Shelley's research focuses on the intersection between Indigenous literary studies and critical museum practice

Staff details

Position

Postdoctoral Researcher

Department

English and Creative Writing

Email

s.saggar (@gold.ac.uk)

Shelley is a postdoctoral researcher on the AHRC-funded 'Sharing Lands: Reconciliation, Recognition & Reciprocity' project, led by Dr Padraig Kirwan (Goldsmiths), Professor LeAnne Howe (University of Georgia), and Professor Gillian O'Brien (Liverpool John Moores). The project examines legacies of the 1847 Choctaw 'Gift' and takes a transdisciplinary and transatlantic approach to understanding the enduring legacy between the Choctaw Nation and the Irish that continues to this day.

For more on the project, see: https://sharinglands.com/

Academic qualifications

PhD, English Literature 2024
MA, Postcolonial Literary and Cultural Studies 2016
BA (Hons), English Language & Literature 2015

Teaching and supervision

BA (Hons), English: Contemporary Indigenous Literatures and Cultures

Research interests

I am a researcher and museum professional with an interest in the intersection between contemporary Indigenous literary cultures and museum practice. My work takes an interdisciplinary approach with the aim of bridging these fields.

My PhD, funded by the AHRC, was titled: ‘Narrating the Museum: Contestations, Reclamations, and Refusals in Contemporary Indigenous Literature and Film’, and awarded in 2024. This project examined literary and filmic representations of the colonial museum, concentrating on texts by Indigenous writers from North America and Aotearoa New Zealand. My wider research interests include Fourth Cinema, sustenance cultures and museum studies. My work has been published in the Journal of Postcolonial Writing, the Journal of Museum Ethnography and ART HX.

Featured publications

2022: “A dangerous tool in the wrong hands”: Sovereign technologies in Alanis Obomsawin’s Is the Crown at War with Us? & Barry Barclay’s The Kaipara Affair

2023: Mapping maternal histories of colonial medicine

2018: “Memories from my mother’s kitchen”: Extinction and anxiety in Joudie Kalla’s Palestine on a Plate

2025: 'Decolonizing Archives and Museums' in, 'Do Less Harm: Ethical Questions for Health Historians' ed. by Courtney E. Thompson and Kylie M. Smith

Professional projects

Shelley is the founder of The Decolonial Dictionary – a resource aimed at making postcolonial theory more accessible in museum contexts. She have also worked with a range of museums including the Science Museum, Wellcome Collection, and the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology on a variety of collections research and curatorial projects.