Allan J. Ryan

Allan J. Ryan is an associate professor of Canadian Studies and Art History, and holds the New Sun Chair in Aboriginal Art and Culture at Carleton University in Ottawa. Since 2002 he has hosted an annual interdisciplinary conference on Aboriginal arts at Carleton University. Among his publications is The Trickster Shift: Humour and Irony in Contemporary Native Art (1999) recipient of an American Book Award for its contribution to multicultural literature. He is also co-curator, with Zena Pearlstone, of the exhibition About Face: Self- Portraits by Native American, First Nations and Inuit Artists, shown at the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian in Santa Fe, New Mexico in 2005-2006. More recently he has lectured on Canadian Aboriginal art and cinema in China and Brazil. In former lives he has worked as a graphic designer, television satirist, singer-songwriter and recording artist.