Professor Sylvie Frigon
Professor Sylvie Frigon holds a Ph.D. from the Institute of Criminology at the University of Cambridge, UK. She is professor of the Department of Criminology at the University of Ottawa where she teaches since 1993. She was Joint Chair of the Women's Studies at the University of Ottawa and Carleton University from 2014-2016 and was Visiting Fellow at Peterhouse, University of Cambridge, UK in 2014 where she currently holds the position of Senior Research Associate. She held the Faculty Research Chair at the University of Ottawa.
Criminology, Gender studies, Art, Dance and Sociology of the body.
Professor Frigon has published several scientific articles, chapters and books. "The prison in culture, the culture in prison" (2011-2014 and 2016-2019). In 2006, she has also published a novel entitled Écorchées on the issue of women in prison. This first fiction has been adapted to the theatre and translated in English as Scorched. Her book on dance, the body and imprisonment with Claire Jenny, choreographer and director of the Parisian dance company " Point Virgule " was published in 2009. Her children's novel Ariane et son secret, on a little girl's quest for her mother who is in prison was published in 2010.
Professor Frigon has been awarded the Faculty of Social Sciences' Teaching Excellence Award (2010-2011). In 2011, Ariane et son secret was finalist for the literary prize Le Droit and the Trillium Book Award.
Her edited book Corps suspect, corps deviant (Les éditions du Remue-ménage) was published in 2012. Professor Frigon collaborated with the AAOF (Association des auteures et auteurs de l'Onatrio français) as artistic director of a writing projet in prison. A book from these writing workshops has been published in 2014. In the Fall of 2012, in a post-graduate course, Claire Jenny, choreographer from Paris and co-author (Frigon and Jenny, 2009) offered dance workshops at the Old Ottawa Prison (see on YouTube). She published her 3rd novel in 2016 funded by the Ontario Arts Council, C’est où chez nous? which was finalist for the Prix Espiègle 2017. She was consultant for the Royal New Zealand Ballet in 2018 and was consultant for the Arts Access Aotearoa in Wellington, New Zealand in 2025. She is working on new dance projects in and out of prison with Paris-based choreographer, Claire Jenny, her research partner for more than two decades. Her latest publications include: Dance, Confinement and Resilient Bodies (eds) in 2019 and Staging Prisons Theatre in Canada: Setting the Spotlight on William Head on Stage (with Thana Ridha) in 2025 at the University of Ottawa Press.
