Class of ‘25: From the Netherlands to the North Saskatchewan

For Malou Brouwer, graduating with a PhD in Transnational and Comparative Literatures meant growing as both an academic and a person. Throughout her doctorate, she learned it was vital for herself — and her work — to find ways to slow down, take a moment and look at things through a different perspective.

“I’m proud of my personal and professional growth throughout my PhD with all its opportunities and challenges,” she says. 

Brouwer’s research focuses on Indigenous women’s translingual poetry in French, English and Indigenous languages. Her passion for this topic came, unexpectedly, during her studies in her home country, the Netherlands. While pursuing one of her two master’s degrees at Radboud University, she read Virginia Pésémapéo Bordeleau’s Ourse bleue and Naomi Fontaine’s Kuessipan, two Indigenous writers in Quebec. 

Something clicked for her, and for the first time Brouwer considered pursuing a PhD. 

The University of Alberta, and in particular, the Transnational and Comparative Literatures program in the Department of Modern Languages and Cultural Studies, was her top choice. 

“The program’s comparative focus held space for the trans-Indigenous and cross-lingual approach to Indigenous women’s poetry that I aimed to pursue,” she says. 

Also, the U of A’s commitment to indigenization and decolonization as well as the presence of the Faculty of Native Studies, the only one of its kind in North America, played a major role in her decision to go to the U of A. Her program came with opportunities to take electives from the Faculty of Native Studies and to work with its members. 

In 2019, Brouwer joined the department, and quickly became recognized for the quality of her research and scholarship. She was the recipient of numerous awards, including the Mary Louise Imrie Graduate Student Award, the Andrew Stewart Memorial Graduate Prize and the Alberta Graduate Excellence Scholarship in 2023, 2022 and 2021, respectively.

During her time at the U of A, Brouwer served as a graduate research assistant, a lecturer and, at Augustana Campus, a principal instructor. She also taught a special topics course in Indigenous literature and decolonization, which she created from scratch. In 2024, she received Graduate Student Teaching Awards from both the Faculty of Arts and the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies. 

Her dissertation, “A Decolonial Poetics of Language: Indigenous Women’s Translingual Poetry as Resurgence and Revitalization,” focuses on Indigenous women’s poetry as a decolonial practice. She gave a public presentation on the work as part of her PhD defence. Analyzing these poems emphasizes their tangible and transformative impacts in Indigenous language revitalization and resurgence, she says.

Grounded and sustainable

One of the biggest lessons Brouwer learned at the U of A was to maintain a balance between work and life. She enjoys taking trips out to Elk Island National Park. The park offers a space of calm for her, an opportunity to get away from city life and work. 

Nature photography — a passion of hers — reminds her to slow down and stay in the moment, to be attentive and to literally and figuratively change her perspective. She remarks it’s quite possible she’s taken more photos of bison than she has of humans during her time in Edmonton.

Brouwer is also an avid volleyball player having taken up the sport at seven years old. She continues to play both indoor and beach volleyball in different local leagues. And she loves reading and writing poetry (though she rarely lets anyone read it). 

She also has fond memories of visits from parents, siblings and a friend from the Netherlands. And, in the winter of 2024, she took a medical leave due to burnout, returned home to the Netherlands, rested, rebuilt her habits and mindset and reconnected with herself and her community there. She now thinks of this as one of the most important decisions she made during her studies.

“Academia often valourizes pushing through, but stepping back allowed me to finish in a way that felt much more grounded and sustainable,” she says. 

Now, PhD in hand, Brouwer is busy applying for jobs and working on a postdoc proposal. 

She recalls fondly the friends, colleagues and teammates she met while at the U of A.

The COVID-19 pandemic happened early on during her PhD, which made making friends and meeting people difficult, as she was a newcomer and finding her footing as an international student. But when she threw a graduation and birthday party a few weeks ago, she got to see just how full of a life she has built here, despite the challenging start. 

“It made me incredibly grateful for the people in my life — here, in the Netherlands and across the globe,” she says. “I’m grateful for my mentors, my family and friends and the poets, who all shaped my thinking and helped me carry this work through.”