JAMES CAIRNS is a professor at Wilfrid Laurier University, where he is a professor in the Department of Indigenous Studies, Law and Social Justice. He lives with his family in Paris, Ontario, on the territory recognized as belonging to the Six Nations of the Grand River in perpetuity. He is a staff writer at the Hamilton Review of Books and community relations director for the Riverside Reading Series. James has published three books, most recently, The Myth of the Age of Entitlement: Millennials, Austerity, and Hope (2017), as well as numerous essays in periodicals including Canadian Notes & Queries and the Journal of Canadian Studies. James’s essay “My Struggle and My Struggle,” originally published in CNQ, appeared in Biblioasis’s 2025 Best Canadian Essays anthology.

James’s new collection of essays, In Crisis, On Crisis, will be available for purchase before and after the reading.