Alanna Frances Rose Bondar, PhD (1968-2014) was a well known eco-feminist poet and tenured professor at Algoma University. She was recognized by her academic peers as a cutting edge researcher and scholar in the emerging genre of literary eco-criticism; which revisions our connections within biotic communities. Bondar was the daughter of Aldona and Arthur Bondar.
Bondar received her Ph.D. in English from Memorial University of Newfoundland (2003); and her MA in English and Creative Writing from the University of New Brunswick, where her advisor was the Governor-General’s Award and Griffin Poetry Prize winning poet and writer, Dr. Don McKay. Her undergraduate degree was from Western University.
Bondar’s Ph. D. dissertation is entitled "Greening the green space: exploring the emergence of Canadian ecological literature through ecofeminist and ecocritical perspectives". Her areas of teaching included 20th century literature and critical theory; Canadian literature; American Literature; 20th Century Poetry; Magic(al) Realism; Gothic Literature and theory; Minority Writing; Women's Literature; Art and Text; Film and film theory; Creative Writing, and others. Each year Bondar’s students prepared the Algoma University’s only ongoing journal, Algoma Ink, from conception to finished product under her supervision.
In 2012, Bondar launched her first full length prose poetry monograph, "There are many ways to die while travelling in Peru" (Your Scrivener Press, 2011), before a full house at the Art Gallery of Algoma in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. She as a founding member of The Association for Literature, Environment, and Culture in Canada (ALECC).
For her friends and colleagues, she hosted annual “Pisces Mardi Gras” and “Love Your Libra” parties, which knit the university community together more tightly.
Bondar always made extra efforts to welcome new colleagues to these gatherings and often invited newcomers to the north to her family’s cottage on Lake Huron. She has also performed with The Hinter Brane Project, an experimental jazz/spoken word group of faculty and former students. From this group, the current collaborative project, Threshold became possible and promises to be an intriguing walk through visual fields of art amongst sound-fields of spoken word, music, experimental music, and Lake Superior voices. An accomplished quilter, sewer, potter and swimmer, Alanna was also an ardent gardener and knitter. She was thrilled to be included in the Art Gallery’s garden tour in 2013.
Alanna passed away peacefully on Friday, August 8, 2014, in the company of her loved ones.
Following her death, the Alanna Bondar Memorial Book Prize for the Environmental Humanities and Creative Writing was established by The Association for Literature, Environment, and Culture in Canada / L’Association pour la literature, l’environment et la culture au Canada (ALECC). In honour of Alanna, a cash prize of $500 is adjudicated by an ALECC committee and awarded every two years at the ALECC biennial conference. In 2016 Algoma Unviersity dedicated a portion of its campus as the Piazza Alanna in honour of Dr. Alanna Bondar.
