Walter Rafael Villanueva

Walter Rafael Villanueva is a PhD candidate in the Department of English and the New College Senior Doctoral Fellow in Buddhism, Psychology and Mental Health. He has managed major grant programs and research projects with the Department of Health & Society, the Centre for Global Disability Studies, and the Dalla Lana School of Public Health. His doctoral research explores Asian Canadian narratives of madness and, in particular, how Asian Canadian writers use storytelling as a counter or supplement to formal psychiatric diagnosis.

He is currently working on an autoethnography that details his mother’s journey as Filipina care worker in Canada who later develops vascular dementia and returns to the Philippines to make amends with her family, her relationship with whom had become fractured after she became disabled. Enmeshed within his mother’s story is his experience being her Mad primary caregiver.

List of Publications

• Subramanium, S.V.*, Villanueva, W.R.*, Persaud, S., Shanouda, F., Pilling, M.D., Costa, L., Voronka, J., Pitt, K.A. & Ross, L.E. (2025). Mind the gaps: A survival guide for graduate students.*co-lead authors
• “The Invisible Labour of Informal Care: Parentified, Gendered, and Racialized Caregiving in David Chariandy’s Soucouyant.” Canadian Literature, no. 248, Summer 2022, pp. 30-51.
• “UBC (Un)Accountable: On Public Shaming, CanLit, and the Steven Galloway Controversy.” Canada Watch, Spring 2022, pp. 25-26.