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CURRENT POSITIONS

Since 2022 | Postdoctoral Researcher: Lab’urba, Université Paris-Est Val-de-Marne

1999-present | Nonfiction writer, media creator, journalist: Various publications + media outlets

2018-present | Instructor in Geography, Media Studies, Social Sciences, Nonfiction Writing: Various institutions

PREVIOUS POSITIONS

2008-2014 | Instructor, Communications, Nonfiction Writing and Journalism, Centre for Continuing Education, Concordia University

2013-2014 | Writer-in-Residence, Immediations: Art, Theory, Event (SSHRC Partnership Grant), SenseLab, Hexagram-Concordia Centre for Research-Creation in Media Art and Technology, Concordia University, Montreal

2004-2011 | Editor, Hour Magazine, Montréal, Canada

EDUCATION

Ph.D.: Geography (2022) Department of Geography | Simon Fraser University

Dissertation Title: Making Rooms: Urban Crisis, Public Politics and Radical Care and in Paris, 2016-2018

M.A.: Media Studies (2007) Department of Communication Studies | Concordia University

Thesis title: Corpus Delicti: Invisibility and Bodily Traces in Media Coverage of Vancouver’s Missing Women, 1978-2008

B.A. (Hons) (1997) Department of Communication Studies (Film production)/Department of English Literature | Concordia University

AWARDS GRANTS AND FELLOWSHIPS

2015-2019 Doctoral Fellowship – Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada

2018—Graduate Fellowship, Geography Department, SFU

2015—Graduate Fellowship, Geography Department, SFU

2015—Professional / Program Development Grant - Concordia University CCE

2014—Professional /Program Development Grant - Concordia University CCE

2008—Canada Council for the Arts, Grant for Professional Writers – Non-Fiction

2008—Gold Medal (Journalism in Society), National Magazine Awards  

2008—Banff Centre Residency Fellowship: Cultural Journalism Program

 

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

Research Articles

  • Koepke, M. (Submitted) Bulle as border spectacle: Shelter, triage and exception in a Parisian migration reception centre 2016-2018.

  • Koepke, M. (Submitted) Tactics for the “unthinkable”: Shipwreck ethics of radical care at the crossroads of the Parisian “migration crisis”.

  • Koepke, M. (2015) Towards a Pedagogy of Moments. Inflexions: A Journal of Research-Creation Issue 8: Radical Pedagogies

 Book Chapters

  • Koepke, M. (2023, accepted) “Welcome” to the Bubble: Governing the Parisian “migration crisis” from the street to the Centre de premier accueil. In Refugee Reception and Camps: Local and Global Perspectives. Oesch, L. and Lemaire, L., eds. Bristol UP.

  • Koepke, M. (2023, accepted) Towards “Minor” Methodologies, or Crisis as Method. In At the Frontiers of Everyday Life: New Research Practices and Imaginaries in Radical Geography. Gülen, H.; Sungur, C.; Yesilyurt, A., eds. London: Routledge.

  • Koepke, M., Debaulieu, C., Dixon, L.; Andrews, M.; Taylor, E., and SoCS Collective (2023, accepted) Weaving Drug Users’ Spaces of Care and Sociality in Vancouver and Paris. In Narcotic Cities: Counter Cartographies of Drugs and Space. Germes, M.; Höhne, S. and Klaus, L., eds. Berlin: Jovis.

  • Koepke, M. (2022) Une Bénévole face à la Bulle: Humanitarisme municipal In L’Exil à Paris. Gardesse, C.; Le Courant, S., and Masson-Diez, E., eds. Paris : L’Oeuil d’Or.

  • Guilbaud Z.; Koepke, M.; Manac’h L. (2022) Un camp humanitaire à la Porte de la Chapelle : une mise à l’abri des regards. In L’Exil à Paris. Gardesse, C., Le Courant, S. and Masson-Diez, E., eds. Paris : L’Oeuil d’Or.

  • Koepke, M. (2021) “Heroines, Revisited”. In Clarkes, Lincoln Heroines Revisited Vancouver: Anvil Press.

    Koepke, M., Anonyme & Camille Noûs (2020) « Entre le capital et le « droit à la ville » Comment le capitalisme urbain produit et gère des indésirables? » Le Capital dans la Cité. M. Adam et E. Comby, eds. Paris : Editions Amsterdam.

  • Koepke, M. (2011) “Reel Change: Film in Quebec”. Minority Report: An Alternative History of English-Language Arts in Quebec. Ackerman, Marianne, ed. Guernica Essay Series, Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

    Book Reviews

  • Koepke, Melora. (2018). Global Urban Politics by Julie-Anne Boudreau. Cambridge: Polity Press. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 42(2), 358-359.

  • Koepke, M. (2017). Rethinking Life at the Margins: The Assemblage of Contexts, Subjects, and Politics edited by Michele Lancione. New York: Routledge. Canadian Geographer, 61(3), E41-E42.

 Public media

Note: The publications listed on my website [www.melora.ca] are a representative selection from over 1000 features, arts reviews, editorials and profiles I have published since 1999 in more than three dozen Canadian and international general-interest newspapers and magazines, including: The Globe and Mail, The Walrus, Vice, The Vancouver Sun, The Montreal Gazette, The Georgia Straight, Maisonneuve, The Toronto Star, National Geographic Traveler, Saturday Night Magazine, among many others. I have also worked as a broadcaster on radio documentaries in English and French on the CBC and Radio-Canada International, and have contributed  film projects at the National Film Board of Canada.

SELECTED CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS, CO-ORGANIZED SESSIONS, INVITED TALKS AND PUBLIC ART

  • “Dwelling and Démantèlement: Encampments as liminal spaces of the carceral city”RGS-IBG Annual International Conference, Newcastle University, U.K. (September 1, 2022)

  • “Time for Spatial Justice?” (co-organizer, presenter): UGI-IGU, Centennial Congress, Paris, France (July 18-22, 2022) 

  •  Spaces of Care and Sociality for unhoused drug users in Vancouver and Paris [with SoCS Collective] SFU CERi [Community-Engaged Research Initiative] Horizons Conference, Vancouver, B.C. (May 26, 2022)

  • Special section: Interroger la multiplicité des formes de représentation des savoirs géographiques : Cinémas et podcasts documentaires »  (co-organizer, presenter) Festival International de Géographie de Saint-Dié-des Vosges (October 1-3, 2021)

  • “Bulle as border spectacle: ‘Inclusive exclusion’ in an urban dispositif of migration reception, Paris 2016-2018” REFUGOV conference: ‘Camps’ across the world: global and local perspectives, University of Luxembourg (April 27 2021)

  • “Crisis and the Camps: Emplacement, errancy and endurance at the frontiers of the “migrant metropolis”, Migrant Belongings conference, Utrecht University, The Netherlands (April 22 2021)

  • “Démantèlement as domicide: Emergency dwelling, destruction of home and management of “undesirables” in Paris, 2015-2020”, American Association of Geographers Annual Meeting, Seattle, WA (April 11 2021)

 Invited talks/interventions

  • “Urgency” | Workshop: Public Moods, Durham University, Durham, U.K. (January 8, 2019)

  • « Tactiques pour l’impensable : Justice, care et politique dans des lieux d’accueil dans le nord de Paris ». Séminaire JEDI « La justice spatiale en débat » , Université Paris-Est, June 15, 2018

  • «For a radical right to the city: Lefebvre, autogestion, and urban democracy»: Conférence-débat avec Mark Purcell, École d’Urbanisme de Paris, April 3 2018

  • “Utopic insertions: Parisian transit camps as spaces of encounter and care/control”, Governing (In)Securities Workshop, University of York, York, U.K. (July 4, 2017)

  • “Comfort Food Cities; Emotions, pratiques, politiques”, Seminaire, Food 2.0 Lab/CNRS-ISCC, Paris IV – La Sorbonne, Paris, France (January 24, 2017)

 Public art and social practice installations/performances

  • “Arts of Radical Housing Activism”: Panel @ Social Emergency Response Centre | Design Studio for Social Intervention (DS4SI.org) | November 18, 2020

  • Public Kitchen (Collaboration with Kenneth Baily/DS4SI) | Design Studio for Social Intervention | Montreal, Quebec  - Boston, U.S.A - Sydney, Australia December, 2015

  • KETL: Forays in Affective Futures (collaboration with Michael Hornblow) | Affect Theory: Worldings Tensions Futures, Millersville University, Lancaster, Pennsylvania (Oct. 14-17 2015)

  • Weather Patterns: The Smell of Red (collaboration with Erin Manning and Nathaniel Stern) | ISEA: 21st Annual International Symposium of Electronic Art Vancouver, Canada (August 13-17 2015)

  • Public Kitchens, Private Lives: Urban Spaces of Food Sharing and the Geographies of Encounter (Presentation at the First Annual meeting of the Relational Poverty Network, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington)

  • The Long Meal (collaboration with Elliott Rajnovic) Timefor.ms Conference, McGill (Philosophy/Music Research/English and World Cinemas) Dec., 2014)