Jason Demers

Contact Info

Research Interests

• Prison Writing
• Literary, Cultural, and Political Theory
• Social Movements
• Political/Information Warfare
• American Literature and Culture since 1945

Jason Demers’s research and teaching interests lie at the intersection of communication, culture, and politics. He teaches courses on prison writing, the narrative aspects of law, security, and surveillance, and graphic novels.

His published research focuses on alternative and underground media, and the movement of thought and social movements across national and institutional borders. He is especially interested in the strategic development and use of social and communication networks. His first book, The American Politics of French Theory (2019), documents the cross-pollination of French philosophy, international activist movements, and American countercultures. His second book, The Life Sentence of Rik McWhinney, collects the writing of, and interviews with, a man who served two life sentences in Canada’s penitentiary system. 

Current research includes a SSHRC-funded project on Prison Tourism and the Penal Press in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. The project will develop insight into the discursive construction and memorialization of prisoners and punishment in the province of Saskatchewan. He is also working on a project on counterintelligence and political warfare.

Dr. Demers is currently recruiting honours and graduate students with an interest in prison writing. He encourages students who share any of the above-listed interests to get in touch.

Representative Publications

Books

Demers, Jason (Editor). The Life Sentence of Rik McWhinney. University of Regina Press, 2022.

Demers, Jason. The American Politics of French Theory: Derrida, Deleuze, Guattari and Foucault in Translation. University of Toronto Press, 2019.

Articles

Demers, Jason. “Registering Grievances, Exploding Frames: Prisoner Narratives and the Memorialization of Prison Violence.” ESC: English Studies in Canada,vol. 48, no.1, 2022, pp.11-28.

Demers, Jason. “Unmasking Currents: Thinking Power and War with Foucault and the Black Panthers.” L’héritage de Michel Foucault aux États-Unis, special issue of Transatlantica 2, 2022.

Demers, Jason. “Is the Trojan Horse an Empty Signifier?: The Televisual Politics of Orange is the New Black.” Canadian Review of American Studies, vol. 47, no. 3, 2017, pp. 403-422.

Demers, Jason. Warehousing Prisoners in Saskatchewan: A Public Health Approach, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, 2014.