The editors of the Canadian journal Urban History Review are dedicating a future issue of the journal to the history of urban planning in Canada. The issue will be guest edited by Richard White, the historian of Toronto planning. Those interested in contributing should submit an abstract (in English or in French) of their proposed paper to him at richard.white@utoronto.ca. The editors are defining ‘urban planning’ quite broadly, and are open to a range of topics, historical periods, and approaches. They are looking for any empirically based articles that add to our understanding of the agents or institutions that strove, successfully or not, to prescribe aspects of the physical form of Canadian cities, at any time in Canada’s history. Abstracts must be received before the end of the day 31 October 2017, and those selected for inclusion in the issue will be notified promptly. The editors will expect finished papers (between 6,000 and 10,000 words) by mid-March 2018, and plan to publish the issue in late 2018.

See the Call for Paper

Submission deadline: Oct. 31, 2017

Le(s) chemin(s) de fer clandestin(s) : histoire, mythe, représentations

A century and a half after the abolition of slavery in the United States, the Underground Railroad, the formal and informal network of routes and people that helped fugitive slaves escape from the slaveholding South to freedom between the end of the 18^th century and the Civil War, still draws considerable scholarly attention, whether it be through investigating its history or debating its many representations in public memory, literature and various art forms (Schulz, 2016). Considered “a model of democracy in action,” “the nation’s first great movement of civil disobedience since the American Revolution,” and “an epic of high drama” (Bordewich, 2005, p. 4-6), the Underground Railroad has offered many fruitful opportunities for scholars and artists to deepen, question and even contest knowledge of the institution of slavery and understanding of abolitionism, as well as the representations of various aspects of the “color line” in the United States and North America more generally.

In this issue of LISA-ejournal, we would like to survey the ongoing research on the Underground Railroad since the turn of the 21^st century, in order to highlight the plurality of the concept itself by encouraging transdisplicinary dialogue between history, memorialization strategies and fictionalization in the arts and literature.

The history of the Underground Railroad has long been characterized by its permeability to mythic language. Early works on the issue, often written by abolitionists, evinced an interest in showcasing the heroic acts of men (and sometimes women) involved in a network primarily depicted as focusing on helping fugitive slaves escape from the slaveholding South to reach the Northern free States or Canada. Wilbur H. Siebert’s groundbreaking The Underground Railroad from Slavery to Freedom (1898) is a case in point: its approach emphasized a national conception of the network, glorified white abolitionists by collecting their personal memories, and promoted the view of an essentially northward route of the Railroad. When, in 1961, Larry Gara published The Liberty Line: The Legend of the Underground Railroad, the book was hailed as a successful attempt to alter this perception by establishing more firmly the mythical dimension of the Underground Railroad, which basically relied on the supremacy of white heroes to the detriment of free Blacks and the fugitive slaves themselves, on a tendency to overestimate the number of fugitives who actually fled using the Railroad, and on the silencing of the voice of the slaves who remained captive in the South. Forty years later, David W. Blight’s Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory expanded on Gara’s argument by presenting the history of the Underground Railroad as told by Siebert and his disciples as an opportunity for white abolitionists in the Northern United States to seek an “alternative veteranhood,” while their “homespun tales of helping slaves escape may have been a kind of white alternative slave narrative” (Blight, 2001, p. 234). In 2015, Eric Foner’s masterly Gateway to Freedom on the Underground Railroad in New York State was published to critical acclaim, as its author’s historical expertise “dispels the lingering aura of myth surrounding the Underground Railroad” (Varon, 2015).

Full Call for Paper in English and French

Deadline for Proposals: Nov. 1, 2017

Il en va du Québec comme des autres sociétés, il aime à se comparer.

Qu’on en juge par la popularité des classements en tous genres. Publics savants ou profanes, décideurs politiques ou économiques, médias d’information ou de variété, tous affectionnent ces mesures qui miroitent la place du Québec dans le monde. Le Québec progresse-t-il ou décline-t-il? Doit-il être heureux ou triste de son sort? Son niveau de vie, de bien-être, de pouvoir d’achat, d’éducation, de santé ou de loisir est-il enviable? Ses villes, ses universités, ses festivals sont-ils appréciés?

La polysémie des objets de comparaison évoque la polyphonie des questions posées, mais aussi la cacophonie des interprétations proposées. Car, de ces comparaisons en débat sont dégagées des avenues d’action: des spécialités sont valorisées, des trajectoires sont corrigées; des fonds sont débloqués, des politiques sont implantées. L’enjeu de la comparaison se déplace ainsi vers l’amont et vers l’aval, vers l’intention, l’objet, l’interprétation : comment mesurer – et définir – le cours d’une société? Comment mesurer – et prioriser – la valence d’un indicateur par rapport à un autre? En bref, quel modèle privilégier? De ces comparaisons en débat font jour des débats de sociétés.

Pour lire la suite de l’appel à communication – le Québec et ses autrui significatifs, suivez ce lien.

Le Québec et ses autruis significatifs appel à communication

Date butoir: 1er octobre 2017

49th Northeast Modern Language Association (NeMLA) Convention, April 12-15, 2018, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Franco identity in North America is performed, celebrated and experienced in as many different forms as there are speakers of French on the continent. Music and the texts and often hybridized French language that regularly inspire this music are similarly a diverse and pervasive part of Franco identity’s performance and patrimoine, simultaneously signifying the individual and the collective. Melodies, lyrics, beats and rhythms are always influenced by previous creations from shared local and global musical traditions, particularly in pop, folk, rap and hip hop genres that are often highly collaborative. Music lyrics in particular are a poetic language that can be influenced by or inspire other literary forms, both historical and modern. Where and how, then, are the imagined borders of Franco-American, French-Canadian, Acadian, Cajun and Québécois nationalities and their continental linguistic and cultural counterparts (Anglophone, Hispanophone, Arabophone and Amerindian, for example) crossed and connected in Franco music’s poetic language and literary counterparts?

This panel welcomes papers in English or French seeking to investigate the prevalence and relevance of popular Franco music and its connection to North American Francophone literature. In what ways do twenty-first century French-speaking North American musicians and their work influence the process of identity formation with respect to literature and poetics? At a time when identities are increasingly multiple and heritage is rarely homogeneous, how does Franco music’s poetic language reflect this globalized yet highly local process of identity construction?

Submission deadline: Sept. 30, 2017

Full Call for Papers