A professor of Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies at UBC Okanagan, Dr. Ilya Parkins brings an interdisciplinary approach to teaching and research shaped by a long-standing engagement with feminist theory and activism. With research interests spanning fashion and dress studies, feminist and queer theory, and a deep commitment to teaching, her work reflects a belief in the power of ideas to shape lived experience, foster critical thinking, and contribute to social change.
Can you tell us a bit about your educational journey? How did you come to pursue the field you are in? What led you to come to UBCO?
I am one of the rare people who went to university (at York University in Toronto) knowing that I wanted to pursue a degree in what was then called Women’s Studies. I had become involved in feminist activism in high school and was very intellectually oriented, so it made sense for me to translate that interest into a program at university. I followed my interests through to a PhD in Social and Political Thought (also at York), with a focus on intersections of feminist theory and fashion studies. I ended up at UBCO in 2007 excited about the commitment to interdisciplinary scholarship that was being articulated here, which matched my own educational journey and approach to research.
Can you talk about your current role(s) at UBCO? What do you find enjoyable about them and what do you find challenging?
I’m Professor of Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies and also Associate Head of CCGS. It’s a real pleasure to teach in Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies because we have the privilege of teaching students who are hungry for the material we teach – my students bring so much passion and integrity to learning, which is just a joy. Research-wise, I’m so excited about all the amazing research my colleagues are doing – that is really energizing and inspiring. In my role as Associate Head of CCGS, I work across all the various programs in the department to do planning and capacity-building. I love that I get to work across all of these vastly different areas and learn from them. What’s challenging lately is the pace of change: we’re all working to adapt to a new way of approaching information (AI, that is), which has implications for our teaching and research that we’re scrambling to understand.
Can you describe your teaching philosophy?
I’m really interested in preserving the classroom as a kind of respite from everyday life, even as it intersects with the world. Our day-to-day realities are often frantic and overwhelming, characterized by an onslaught of information. I try to make my classes into spaces where we can slow down and engage deeply and meaningfully with ideas in a way that’s really distinct from the ways we navigate spaces outside the classroom. That means close reading, testing ideas, sitting with ambiguity.
What are your research interests and what do you hope to gain/solve/better understand from your research? What research projects have been most meaningful to you?
I work at the intersection of fashion/dress studies and feminist and queer theory. My principal aim has always been to make clear the centrality of fashion and dress to social life – it’s too often feminized, trivialized, and written off. I’m especially interested in the ways that analyzing dress practices and representations can open up new ways of looking at various research questions. Most recently, I’ve done that through my forthcoming book on the wedding attire experiences of queer, trans, and feminist folks, which illuminated rich ways of understanding wedding culture that move us away from tired debates about weddings and their social uses. That’s actually been one of my most meaningful research projects, because it put me in touch with the most wonderfully creative and thoughtful people, my research participants. They taught me a lot about how people make theory in their everyday lives.
What is the main thing you hope your students will take away from your classes?
I hope students come away with the understanding that ideas can be put into practice and affect their lives. That they are thinkers, theorists already, and that they learn from me a set of new ideas that can help them do that thinking work consciously and with a view to making a better world.
What are some of your most memorable teaching moments?
A lot of my most memorable moments have happened in teaching GWST 100, which I have taught many times. That’s a special course, because it is, for many students, an introduction to a whole new understanding of the world. They have really powerful “aha” moments, where they are able to begin to answer questions they didn’t even know they had. And then they come and tell me about it, and they’re euphoric and excited, and that is always such a meaningful thing for me.
It’s also been really memorable for me to teach the IGS course, Power and Ideas, twice. What really sticks with me about that is the building of a cohesive intellectual community across such a diverse and interdisciplinary group of graduate students with really divergent interests. The opportunity to trace one concept across a whole course – and to see where students take it in their own research – has been a real gift.
What is your proudest professional accomplishment?
Winning the Provost’s Award for Teaching back in 2013 was a proud moment, because the effort I’d put into teaching – and curriculum design, and mentoring and pastoral care of students – was recognized. That made it feel real to me, and affirmed the importance of teaching in what I do.
Where do you see yourself in 5-10 years?
I’d love to develop a contemplative teaching practice, and so will be beginning to explore that over the coming years. In terms of research, I’d love to have made a contribution that gets taken up as useful beyond the university; that’s where I’m headed with my next project, which is going to be looking at clothing and emotion work and how it contributes to social reproduction.
Can you tell us something (hobbies, interests etc.) that your colleagues may not know about you?
I’m an obsessive knitter, even though I only started in 2023. After decades of studying fashion and dress, I’m finally making my own clothes – and also love knitting alongside some FASS colleagues most weeks. Also, right now I’m taking a certification in contemplative end-of-life care (aka ‘death doula’), as I’m really interested in opening up conversations about death and dying.