Kategorie: Call for Papers

Conference, 5 – 7 October 2017, Saint Paul University, Ottawa, Canada

The year 2017 will bring celebrations of the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther’s supposed posting of his 95 Theses as a signal event of the Protestant Reformation, as well as celebrations of the 150th anniversary of the founding of the Dominion of Canada. This dual anniversary will be celebrated with an exhibition of Reformation library treasures and an academic conference at Saint Paul University in Ottawa, jointly organized with the University of Ottawa and the University of Erfurt, and with support from the National Library and Archives of Canada, the Gotha Research Library, and the Embassy of Germany in Canada.

The exhibition “The Reformation – Translation and Transmission: Library Treasures from Germany and Canada” will provide a unique illustration of the worldwide impact of the Reformation by bringing together original editions and translations of Martin Luther’s works and other key Reformation texts from the Gotha Research Library, Saint Paul University and the National Library and Archives of Canada.

In conjunction with the exhibition, the academic symposium “From Reformation to Globalization in Canada, Germany, and the World” will explore the myriad and seminal forms of impact that the Reformation has had and continues to have on many aspects of religion, politics, society and culture in Canada, Germany, and in the wider world. Academic experts from many disciplines and community activists will explore these connections in panels and roundtables. The organizers also envision a graduate student workshop or seminar. The themes addressed at the conference could include but are not limited to the following:

• Spreading the word: the Reformation and the impact of new media on society from print to the internet
• The impact of the Reformation on philosophy and ideas, on worldviews (especially Western
• Modernity and secularization), on politics, on economics, on history, …
• Reformation and Migration
• Reformation and Justification: The Project “Not for Sale”, Resistance to Social and Ecological
• Injustice
• Religious Tolerance and Diversity in the past (Treaty of Westphalia, Augsburg) and current times
• Religion and Violence
• Reformation and Literature and the Arts
• Reformation and Language (Bible translations and the standardization of language)
• Dialogue: between Protestants and Catholics, inter-religious dialogue, religious-secular dialogue

The organizing committee invites proposals for papers (maximum 20 minutes) on these and other topics related to the conference theme, in English or French, as well as for academic posters. Graduate student participation is specifically encouraged. Proposals of not more than 300 words and a CV should be sent by email to Joerg Esleben by the submission deadline of 1 December 2016.

The organizing committee:
Catherine Clifford, Saint Paul University.
Joerg Esleben, University of Ottawa.
Louis Perron, Saint Paul University.
Myriam Wijlens, University of Erfurt.

38th American Indian Workshop, July 4 – 6, 2017, at Goldsmiths, University of London

Proposals are invited for the 38th American Indian Workshop, to be held at Goldsmiths, University of London from July 4 – 6, 2017. Papers are welcome from all fields and on any topic, though priority will be given to those that speak of the conference’s key theme.

This year’s conference will focus on the art of resistance and resurgence in the broadest terms. This includes manifestations of activism, political insurgency, conservation work, language and cultural revitalization, cultural resurgence and historical and anthropological analysis alongside more literal literary and visual representations and occasions of resistance. Resistance, similarly, may be interpreted broadly (to settler colonialism, extra-national imposition, and so on) or more specifically (to pipelines, cultural appropriation, and more).

A number of analyses focusing on the cultural and political concerns of Native American artists have been offered in recent times. Accordingly, many scholars working in the field of Native American Literary Studies have bevome interested int he connection between aesthetics and activism. The theme of the 38th AIW has been chosen in recognition of this fact, and the increased amount of attention that is being paid to the intersection between indigenous arts and contemporary tribal contexts. Papers will exmaine the complexity of the relationship between various artistic mediums and the day-to-day concerns of the Native artist; the relationship between the arts and community; and the aesthetics of resistance and resurgence. The organizers hope that speakers will examine those points of connection, continue the debate concerning the links between indigenous art and cultures, and suggest that resistance and resurgence are discernible within a broad range of work by indigenous writers, directors, musicians and artists.

Topics to consider may include:

• Art and acticism
• The art of Idle No More
• Visual and literary responses to NoDAPL (No Dakota Access Pipelines)
• Language revitalization
• Cultural conservation programmes
• Visual sovereignty
• Digital arts
• Mixed media responses to mineral extraction
• Literature and the art of rhetorical sovereignty
• Indigenous performance art
• Honoring the treaties
• Gameplay and tribal arts and languages
• Exhibitiing indigenous art
• Anticolonial/Decolonial art practices
• Cultural engagement work
• Visual cultures of protest
• Indigenising new media
• Graphic novels

The organizers may be in a position to exhibit a small number of artworks and therefore invite submissions from visual artists and filmmakers as well as writers and scholars.

Please send proposals of no more than 400 words + brief CV to Padraig Kirwan and David Stirrup by December 15, 2016. Speakers will be notified by January 15, 2017.

Chapter of the Americas Conference, The International Auto/Biography Association, Centre for Feminist Research, York University, Toronto, ON (Canada), May 15 – 17, 2017

The organizing committee invites proposal for the third biennial meeting of IABA Americas that will be held at the Centre for Feminist Research in Toronto with support form the US Fulbright Program. The conference will explore the multiple lines that gendered lives in the Americas cross, both physical boundaries and intangible crossings. The conference is dedicated to the celebration of the scholarship of Marlene Kadar, a Canadian theorist and critic whose contributions have dramatically changed the field by pushing the conceptual boundaries of what constitutes life writing and expanding its interdisciplinary methods of study.

The themes suggested below relate to and amplify Kadar’s research interests and are clustered around issues of gender and genre with special attention given to trauma and illness studies, archival methodologies, and transnational themes in the Americas. Potential subjects include, but are not limited to, the following topics:

• Gender in migration, dislocation, displacement, transit
• Gender constructions on and across borders
• Transnational and decolonial practices of gender and embodiment
• Intersectional interrogations of gender and sexuality with race, class, body size, health and ability
• Fluidity of genders, sexualities, becoming bodies
• Bodies in extremis, bodies in pain, medicated bodies, permeable bodies
• Creativity and illness; living with life-threatening illness; living with death/dying
• End-of-life interview and (auto)pathographic genres
• Intimacies of health care biopower
• „Traumatics“ (comics of medical trauma, violence, abuse, and war)
• Plasticity of life writing
• Hybrid forms and practices
• Multimedial and multimodal life writing
• Emerging genres (Instagram, selfie, I-doc, digital diary, etc.)
• Secret as a genre, unpublished secrets
• Pracitces of testimony in multiple modes (oral, digital, photographic, film, documentary, writing)
• Intersections of life writing and the life sciences
• Gendering and racializing the archives
• Sensorial and affective encounters in the archives
• Empathy, sympathy, and compassion
• Interdisciplinarity of archival work
• Methodological practices related to gender and genre; and
• Pedagogical intersections of gender and genre

Please send 300-word abstracts with brief biographical statements as email attachments to the convenors: Eva C. Karpinski, York University and Ricia Anne Chansky, University of Poerto Rico at Mayagüez by October 31, 2016. Decisions will be made by January 15, 2017. Please be aware that space is limited. Inquiries are welcome.

Website of the International Auto/Biography Association – Chapter of the Americas.

Centre for Comparative Literature, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON (Canada), March 3 – 4, 2017

From Hugh MacLennan’s Two Solitudes (1945) to La revue acadienne’s ironic suggestions of Chiac as a tool to „prendre ces deux solitudes-là pis en faire une seule solitude“ („Le Chiac est la solution“), the image of Canada as a country of two peoples or communities – English and French (or, more specifically, English and Québécois) – has become a commonplace. Recent scholarship has questioned the applicability of this image, as „the old epics of identity“ (Simon 2006, 8) are increasingly unable to represent the current multicultural and polyglot reality of Montreal and Toronto, historically the Francophone and Anglophone literary centres of Canada. In fact, Catherine Leclerc (2010) has argued, the two languages interact, „cohabit“ much of contemporary Canadian literature and occasionally blend to the extent that the very notion of a „primary“ language for a given text begins to blur. As the model of „Two [geographically specific] Solitudes“ begins to crumble, an equally dreary tension emerges, this time between the image of Canada as an officially bilingual-bicultural state and the more progessive ideal of Canada as a „varied, rich cultural mosaic“ („Canada’s Enthnocultural Portrait: The Changing Mosaic“). One could read this as a step towards greater diversity, and away from nationalism tout court, or simply as a reiteration of the Canadian n ational narrative, now a fortress rendered even more impenetrable by virute of its seemingly open gates and attractive welcome mat.

E.D. Blodgett’s article „Canadian Literature Is Comparative Literature“ (1988) notes that while Canada is home to a diverse range of literature – English and French, but also other, less grequently studied settler literatures (German, Icelandic, Ukranian, Gaelic et al.), as well as a wide range of Indigenous literatures – there are few scholars who „compare the Canadian literatures,“ and that most of these focus on only one point of comparison, namely „the relationship between the anglophone and francophone literatures of Canada, Comparative Canadian Literautre in the official sense“ (905). In light of the 150th anniversary of Canadian Confederation, the organizing committee invites contributions exploring Canada – or Canadas – in all the term’s varied meanings.

A few questions to consider:

• How might we bridge the gap between the „Two Solitudes“ of Canadian literature? In what ways does translation between the two official languages, as well as other languages, contribute (or not) to bridging this gap and other cultural and linguistic gaps in Canada?
• How can the language of multiculturalism/interculturalism/hybridity inform Canadian scholarship? What critiques or complications of this frame emerge in Canadian contexts?
• How do diasporic or minority literatures fit into the broader field of „Canadian literature“? How does the presence of these other traditions (Indigenous, Black, queer, immigrant, et al.) complicate our understanding of „Canada“ and „Canadian literature“?
• How do settler and immigrant literatures in Canada relate to their parent literary traditions (e.g. Chinese Canadian literature to Chinese literature(s) in Asia)?
• What is the significance of environmental themes, ecological criticism, and the notion of landscape in Canadian literature(s)? How does „nature“ fit into these questions of language? How do these literatures figure the interplay between „nature“ and „indigeneity“?
• What is the place of other solitudes – literatures that do not fit (or do not fit easily) into the paradigm of „anglophone“ and „francophone“ literatures? What is there to be said of the East and West geopolitical divide, a reframing of Canadian solitudes?
• How might we centre Indigenous experiences and consider Canada as Kanata? What is the relationship between Indigenous literatures and communities and the culture(s) of settler colonialism in Canada? How do Indigenous literatures work with/against, inside/outside of „Canada“? The organizing committee especially welcomes submissions discussing works in Indigenous languages.
• Where and how do Canadian ltierary and cultural productions fit in an international context?
• How has Canadian critical and theoretical writing been received or applied, and how might it be applied, beyond Canada? The organizers welcome sumbissions working with Canadian theoretical work in classical, medieval, or early modern contexts.

Artistic sumbissions that explore these themes and discuss or problematise these or related questions are also welcomed.

The organizers invite joint proposals for panels/roundtables as well as proposals for individual talks. They also encourage proposals for alternative and creative presentations that include a description of length and format. Proposals should be a maximum of 150 words (this limit is for the purposes of funding applications for the conference) and may be accompanied by a longer description of around 250 words. Individual talks sould be approximalety 20 minutes in duration and altogether, panels/roundtables should not exceed 90 minutes. If you are participating in a roundtable, please be prepared to speak for no more than 10 minutes in order to facilitate discussion. The organizers also request that you include a biographical statement of no more than 50 words. Please submit your abstract by 11:59pm on October 14, 2016.

For submission, please visit the conference’s website.

Annual Meeting of the Canadian Historical Association, May 29 – 31, 2017, Ryerson University, Toronto, ON/Canada

The 150th anniversary of Confederation provides an opportunity to revisit the nation-building negotiations and agreements that shaped the Dominion of Canada, but more fundamentally it should cause us to reflect upon and reconsider the collective and the individual Canadian experience across time and place. “From Far and Wide: The Next 150” – the theme for Congress 2017 – not only recognizes the sesquicentennial moment, the theme’s first part issues a call to consider the diversity of experience, both nationally and internationally, while its second challenges us to consider where Canada and Canadian society is headed in the future. With this in mind, “From Far and Wide: The Next 150” can be adapted to historical purposes, encouraging us to explore the following broad issues:

From Far and Wide: National anniversaries often focus on a shared national experience, but what of the diverse Canadian experiences across the vast geographic expanse of Canada before, during, and after Confederation? What of the indigenous experiences, and how might we better recognize and include them in our understanding of Canadian society? What of experiences shaped by gender and sexual identity? How have they furthered and broadened our understanding of what it means to be Canadian? What of the immigrant experiences? How have those “from far and wide” challenged and augmented Canadian society and national identity? What is the place of counter-narratives within the national experience, such as those raised by protests, separation movements, or the recent Truth and Reconciliation Commission? What of the international sphere? How has Canada, and how have Canadians, exerted influence in “far and wide” locations across the globe? How have issues surrounding national naissance and development – belonging, citizenship, identity – been framed and contested beyond our borders?

The Next 150: What new insights can historians bring to the vision upon which the Dominion of Canada was founded? What new assessments can we provide about Canada’s territorial expansion to fulfill the vision of “From Sea to Sea”? What future did Canadians foresee for the nation in “the next 150” at the time of Confederation and at subsequent anniversary commemorations? How might we assess the merits of such forecasts? How have Canadians commemorated previous anniversaries of Confederation? And, at these celebratory moments, how did Canadians reflect on the nation’s present and its past? What roles have historians played in shaping the commemorative experience and the idea of the nation in general? What role should they play? How have other nations or peoples elsewhere in the Commonwealth or beyond crafted their commemorative experiences? How do these compare to the Canadian variants?

The Programme Committee for the Annual Meeting of the Canadian Historical Association invites proposals in English and in French from scholars working in any discipline, in any field, and in any era that address the conference theme. We also welcome proposals that do not specifically address the theme.

The Programme Committee invites individual paper and roundtable submissions, but strongly encourages the organization of panels aimed at generating engaging debate, submitted in one of the following two formats:

1. A panel submission of three papers for which the Programme Committee will appoint a commentator. For these panels, papers must be submitted to the commentator in advance of the conference in order that the commentator may provide substantive remarks as a part of the panel session.
2. A panel submission of four papers, for which the Programme Committee will appoint a facilitator.

Please submit a proposal of no more than 250 words and a one-page CV to this email address.

Deadline: Monday, October 17, 2016

Please note:
– The Programme Committee will accept only one paper proposal per individual.
– Presenters must be members of the Canadian Historical Association and must be able to attend the conference to present their paper in person.