Peter Thompson

Peter Thompson is the Dean of Arts on the Fredericton campus and a Professor in the Department of English. Prior to joining UNB, he was Director of the School of Indigenous and Canadian Studies and Associate Dean (Academic) in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Carleton University.

As Dean of Arts, Peter is responsible for the overall management of the Faculty and works with chairs, senior leadership, Arts Council, and other stakeholders in setting and implementing strategic priorities. Peter is committed to fostering an open and inclusive environment for teaching and research and believes deeply in the principles of collegial governance.

Peter's research focuses mainly on representations of deindustrialization in contemporary Atlantic Canadian literature and popular culture. He is particularly interested in understanding the cultural impacts of mine closures in Atlantic Canada and Appalachia.

He has written extensively on how the transition from mining and heavy industry in these regions impacts our understanding of masculinity, the environment, work and cultural memory. His work has appeared in Studies in Canadian Literature, Acadiensis, and Journal of Appalachian Studies.

In 2019, he published a book, Nights Below Foord Street: Literature and Popular Culture in Postindustrial Nova Scotia with McGill-Queen's University Press. Peter is a research affiliate with the Deindustrialization and the Politics of Our Time (DePOT) project housed at Concordia University and currently serves as a member of the Executive Council for the Association of Canadian Studies in the United States (ACSUS).

Peter welcomes inquiries from graduate students interested in Atlantic Canadian literature, Canadian popular culture and deindustrialization studies broadly defined.