This thesis investigates the governance of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI)-mediated academic literacies in Canadian higher education through a critical discourse analytic approach. While prior research has focused on pedagogical and theoretical dimensions of GenAI, its policy and governance remain underexplored. Conceptualizing policy as discourse, this study examines how institutional documents construct power relations, subject positions, and norms surrounding GenAI use. Drawing on Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis, and being informed by critical posthumanism and critiques of neoliberalism, the study analyzes nine policy documents from five Canadian universities. The findings show that policy discourse constructs asymmetrical power relations by positioning institutions as meta-governors, delegating responsibility to instructors, and intensifying student accountability. These dynamics reflect neoliberal logics of responsibilization and control. At the same time, these policies largely reproduce human-centric assumptions about authorship and knowledge, framing GenAI as a regulated and potentially risky tool. By situating GenAI policy discourse as a site of ideological struggle, this thesis contributes to the emerging field of GenAI governance in higher education. It highlights the tensions between critical posthumanist approaches to literacies and prevailing institutional governance models, and calls for more equitable, relational, and socially just frameworks for understanding and regulating GenAI-mediated academic practices.
Yi Zhang (Thu,) studied this question.