The Insurgent Architects’ House for Creative Writing (TIA House) at the University of Calgary is a Canada Research Chair-sponsored initiative structured through the interactions of social justice, futurity, and innovative aesthetics in creative writing. Recognizing the instabilities of language articulated through the poststructural turn on the one hand, and the importance of embodied liberatory movements on the other, TIA House looks to a re-imagined concept of utopia to begin to imagine new forms and new creative practices embedded in a respect for the earth, Indigeneity, and for those inhabiting marginalized subject positions. Specifically, we take up David Harvey’s notion of the “insurgent architect” as a figure who desires and works for a better world, while constantly taking into account mutations, surprises and unexpected contingencies that can erupt on any level and at any moment. We live in and through speculative action, with a readiness to take risks that could undo us at any moment.

In practice, this means the embrace of many different kinds of writing practice including but not limited to: speculative fiction, ficto-criticism, innovative poetics, embodied writing, bio-text and non-standard forms of criticism.

Directed by Dr. Larissa Lai in the Department of English, TIA House serves to enable creative and critical discussion and production through a series of yearly events, readings, symposia, and roundtables. We plan to move into our new home on the 10th floor of the Social Sciences Building at the University of Calgary in 2015-2016.