Melissa Bush (she/her)

PhD Candidate

Email: melissa.bush@mail.utoronto.ca

Areas of Interest

• Disability Justice
• Mad Studies
• Memory Studies
• Trauma-Informed Pedagogy
• Transformative Justice
• Care Work / Mutual Aid
• Decolonial Theory
• Witnessing / Testimony
• Storytelling

Biography

Melissa Bush is a PhD student at the Women & Gender Studies Institute (WGSI), University of Toronto. Melissa’s doctoral research is located at the intersections of disability, madness, memory, and mourning.More specifically, Melissa’s work seeks to uncover the historically marginalized stories of persons who died while incarcerated at psychiatric facilities across Canada. In highlighting the systemic erasure of psychiatric cemeteries across the country, as well as the near total absence of “psychiatrized” (Phoenix Rising, 2023, Jun 10) persons from our memory sites, mourning rituals, and commemorative practices, Melissa aims to examine Canadian collective memory in the context of ableism and sanism. By uncovering and centering the stories of psychiatrized individuals, she intends to investigate a national legacy of ableist and sanist erasure, the impacts of which continue to resonate today, and to contemplate the radical and transformative possibilities of engaging with and prioritizing Mad wisdoms, knowledges, and histories. Overall, Melissa is interested in the politics of memory, particularly as it relates to histories of psychiatric diagnosis and/or psychiatric institutionalization.

Melissa has earned a Bachelor of Arts Honours in Human Rights and Women & Gender Studies from Carleton University. Upon graduation Melissa received a Senate Medal for outstanding academic achievement. She has also completed a Master of Arts in Women & Gender Studies at WGSI, University of Toronto. Her masters research paper (titled “Artistic Ruptures: The (De)colonial AestheSis/AestheTics of Indigenous Artwork”) focused on the issue of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women & Girls, Trans, & Two-Spirit people (MMIWGT2S) across Turtle Island. Centering the decolonial art of Rebecca Belmore, Jaime Black, and Christi Belcourt—all of whom address the issue of MMIWGT2S through their work—Melissa argues that Indigenous artwork is inherently political and that it has the capacity to transform our world.

In 2016 Melissa had the privilege of working closely with Dr. Kai Recollet to bring Jaime Black’s The REDress Project to the University of Toronto. This month-long artist residency still represents the largest installation of red dresses by Jaime Black anywhere in Canada.

Program: PhD 2016

Education

2015-2016 Master of Arts, Women & Gender Studies, The University of Toronto, Toronto, ON

2010-2015 Bachelor of Arts Honours, Human Rights and Women & Gender Studies, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON

Dissertation

Title: Missing Memoryscapes: The Systemic Erasure of Psychiatric Cemeteries Across Canada

Supervisor: Dr. June Larkin, Emeritus

Presentations

Worlding Beyond the End of the World, ​Presentation at Academic Conference, Western University, London, Ontario, March 25-26, 2025

Responsible Allyship & Community Care, Guest Lecture at George Brown College (GBC) for the course Community & Campaign Organizing (CWRK 2014), March 2025

Mad Pride & Disability Justice: A Brief Introduction, Guest Lecture at the University of Toronto Scarborough (UTSC) for Introduction to Feminist Theories and Thought (WSTA 03 H3S), October 2022

Student Mental Health & Wellness, Guest Lecture at the University of Toronto, St. George for the course Introduction to Women & Gender Studies (WGS160Y), January 2019

Decolonizing Conference, Presentation at Academic Conference, University of Toronto, Toronto, November 8-10, 2018

14th Oxford Women’s Leadership Symposium, Academic Conference, Oxford University, Oxford, UK, December 4-6, 2017

Selected Works

Honours and Awards