Dr. Laurie K. Bertram is the Grant Notley Memorial Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of History and Classics at the University of Alberta. She is a specialist in immigration, material culture, trauma, and memory in Canadian history and completed her PhD under the supervision of Franca Iacovetta in the Department of History at the University of Toronto. Using the often understated and private cultural terrains of the Icelandic-North American community, her dissertation examines the contributions of ‘inauthentic’ and undervalued forms of cultural expression, including ghost stories, fibre, landscape, souvenirs and family history narratives, to complex, innovative, and compelling strategies in the enduring definition of ethnic cultures on the prairies. Her postdoctoral research examines intersections between Icelandic-Aboriginal culture in the North American West, with an emphasis on hybrid food and material culture, linguistic exchange and familial bonds.

Click here for a list of publications and here for a list of presentations.