Jason Demers

Jason Demers’s research and teaching interests lie at the intersection of communication, culture, and politics. He regularly teaches a course on prison writing, as well as a course that brings UofR and incarcerated students together in a prison setting. He also teaches courses on graphic novels, and on the narrative aspects of law, security, and surveillance.

His published research focuses on alternative and underground media, prison writing, 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.

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

Demers, Jason. “Unmasking Currents: Thinking Power and War with Foucault and the Black Panthers.” Transatlantica, forthcoming.

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

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.