Kategorie: Call for Papers

Conference, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, October 13-16, 2016

This conference is an international meeting for researchers to share papers on Algonquian peoples. Fields of interest include anthropology, archaeology, art, biography, education, ethnography, ethnobotany, folklore, geography, history, language education, linguistics, literature, music, native studies, political science, psychology, religion, and sociology.

The conference will open on the evening of Thursday, October 13 with a welcome reception. Regular conference sessions will take place from Friday morning to Sunday noon.

If you are interested in making a presentation, please send a title and abstract of a maximum of one page to this e-mail address.

The subject line of your e-mail must read „Algonquian Conference“ and the text of your e-mail message must include your name, postal address, institutional affiliation and telephone number as well as the e-mail address of each speaker.

Please indicate your requirements for audio-visual equipment. The d eadline for submission of abstracts is September 1, 2016.

The following facilities will be made available to all participants through the Electa Quinney Institute: photocopier, computer, printer and telephone,

Registration information can be found here.

International Conference/Congress of the French Association of Canadian Studies (AFEC), 14-16 June 2017, Canadian Cultural Center, Paris (France)

On July 1 2017, Canada will celebrate the 150th anniversary of Confederation. On this historic occasion, the FrenchAssociation of Canadian Studies, in conjunction with the Research Center on Anglophone Cultures (LARCA) of the Université Paris Dideor and the Canadian Embassy in Paris, will hold a conference to explore the evolution of Canada and what defines it. This conference intents to favor the historical perspective of the longue durée, by examining not only what defines Canada in 2017, but by comparing this with the way it was defined in 1867, at the time of Conferedation, as well as in 1967, at the time of the centennial. To do so, the conference will be organized around three guiding lines that correspond to the values, the practices and the representations through which Canada is defined.

 

1) Canadian Values and Principles

The 2015 federal election was marked by a fierce debate over Canadian values, with two opposed views of Canada. The Conservative view of Canada promoted by Stephen Harper was based on a defense of moral certainty and material values and the desire to make uncompromising choices. The Liberal view of Canada, defended by Justrin Trudeau, emphasized the values of kindness and respect for diversity, and the desire to promote inclusiveness through collaboration and compromise. Both views were inspired, to a certain extent, by Canada’s past: the Conservative vision was associated with a return to the monarchist and British atmosphere of Sir John A. Macdonald’s Canada, while the Liberal view recalled the golden age of Lester Pearson’s and Pierre Trudeau’s Canada. The conference will therefore invite exploration of the values of contemporary Canada, but also of past Canada, so as to assess their permanence and evolution. To this reflection on values, which often possess an emotional dimension, could be added a study of the theoretical principles that serve and have served as foundations of the Canadian identity. The conference will welcome proposals for papers that address one of these topics, among others:

• What is the current state of research on the values and principles that persided to the invention of the Canadian nation, its difficult beginnings, its links with the British Empire?
• What is the place of conservatism in Canada today, and how did conservatism in Canada evolve since the foundation of the nation in 1867, and its centennial in 1967?
• What are the libearl values of Canada? How far did they shape the Canadian identity in the 20th century? Is Justin Trudeau’s victory a sign that they form the permanent core of Canada?
• In the past, were Canadian values and principles a crucial element to differentiate Canada from the United States, and is it still true today? Is the trend today towards a great resemblance or a greater divergence of Canadian and American values?
• To what extent have new values that were disregarded in the past become central in the early 21st century (such as concern from the environment, equal representation of men and women…)?
• How are Canadian values (re)defined, (re)presented or challenged by various artistic or literary forms?
• Could it be said that the indigenous question is at the heart of Canadiaan values today? To what extent does the evolution of Canadian values lead to the construction of an inclusive identity (First Nations, founding peoples, immigrants)?

 

2) Canadian Practices

Canadian values are expressed and translated into reality through political, institutional, social, economic, and cultural practices which have greatly evolved since 1867 or even 1967.The conference invites proposals that explore the evolution of Canadian practices in all fields, among others:

• Politics, Institutions, National Unity: the evolution of Canada federalism (decentralization, asymmetrical federalism); the place of Quebec in the post-referendum era; the Charter of Rights, the Supreme Court and the judicialization of politics bwetween 1967 and 2017; the evolution of the Canadian democracy, from British-style parliamentary system to participative democracy; reform of the electoral system…
• International Relations: does multilateralism remain the cornerstone of Canadian foreign policy? From Pearson to Axworthy, does Canada remain a key agent for peace in the world?
  Economy: evolution of the trade practices of Canada, from the National Policy to NAFTA; permanence of staple model, from the fur trade to the mining sector…
• Environment and the Economy: from the Hudson’s Bay Company to the XL Pipeline, ahve Canadian priorities changed?
  Indigenous peoples and society: a key challenge of contemporary Canada is to enable the integration of the First Nations on an equal basis, as well as their reconciliation with non-indigenous peoples. We will encourage presentations of the practices that make this evolution possible, such as the judicial use of land claims; the creation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission; the creation of the territory of Nunavut; the legal obligation to consult indigenous peoples on development projects; the national inquiry into the murder or disappearance of indigenous women…
• Language and Society: evolution of language policies and language practices. While Article 133 of the Constitution of 1867 did not officially establish bilingualism in Canada, it represented an almost revolutionary progress at a time when the institutional coexistence of two languages was at odds with received ideas of the link between language and the national identity. How has the relaitonship between the two official languages evolved since 1867? Do the language practices of speakers reflect this evolution? Is bilingualism a still valid concept in a society defined by multiculturalism?
• Religions and Society: evolution of religious practices in Canada. Since 1867, the country has moved from religious practices that reproduced the European tradition of Catholicism, Anglicanism, Protestantism, and Judaism to an impressive pluralism that matched that of the United States. This was due to immigration but also tot he specific workings of religion in Canada.
• Literature and the Arts: as early as the 1880s, the „Poets of Confederation“ started to build a Canadian poetic tradition and to contribute to the definition of the national identity. However, it is only since the 1960s that Canadian literature has moved apart from British and American literature. Where does it stand today? What relationship between literary practices in French and in English? Do they reflect similar evolutions?

 

3) Canadian Representations

Canada is also defined by the way it is represented, especially in the current era when branding has brcomse such an important concept. The conference will particularly encourage reflection on the representation of diversities in contemporary Canada, in comparison with the past. At the time of Confederation, Canada was often perceived as described as a binational state made up of two founding peoples, the French Canadians and the English Canadians. At the time of the centennial, the concept of a bicultural state was being replaced by the representation of Canada as a multicultural nation. Fifty years later, the representations of Canada seem to relfect a desire to encompass an ever-widening range of types of diversities, such as gender, religion, eexual orientation, physical handicap… Among these, the process of indigenization of Canadian identity that is barely beginning today may prove to be one of the most important changes in the future representation of Canada. The conference encourages proposals on the following topics, among others:

• Does multiculturalism remain a central element in the representation of Canada today?
• Is gender a key element of the representation of Canada today, in the fields of politics (gender equality in the Trudeau government), institutions (call to introduce gender-neural lyrics in the national anthem), arts (gender and sexual orientation as central themes in Xavier Nolan’s movies), literature….?
• How the indigenous heritage of Canada is slowly being included in the national representtion through various processes of indigenization: greater visibility and consideration for indigenous languages; enhancement of indigenous artistic production; nomination of indigenous peoples at keyCabinet positions; showcasing the indigenous heritage as the official theme of the Vancouver Olympic Games; introduction of mandatory courses on indigenous cultures in Canadian universities…

Abstracts can be submitted individually or as a panel (group of 4 proposals around the same topic), in French or in English.

Deadline to sumbit abstracts (400 words) along with a short bio (100 words), preferably in Word format: August 1, 2016

Notification of acceptance: September 30, 2016.

Contact:
Dr. Laurence CROS
Associate Professor, Canadian Studies
Université Paris Diderot (Paris 7)
Mail

Selected papers from this conference will be published in the journal Études Canadiennes / Canadian Studies.

Interdisciplinary Canadian Literatures in English Conference, University of Toronto (CA), May 25-27, 2017

Co-chairs: Smaro Kamboureli (University of Toronto), Larissa Lai (University of Calgary)

Canada’s Sesquicentennial anniversary of Confederation is an occasion that invites both
celebration and the need to take critical stock of how we have arrived at our particular
juncture. We currently inhabit a historical moment in which the colonial power of
English literary studies, though still present, is giving way to an English that circulates in
newly complex ways, especially in relation to global economic shifts, intensifications in
voluntary and involuntary human migration, and the rise of new or newly imagined
spiritualities and fundamentalisms. Literary study in English on that part of
Mikinaakominis (Turtle Island) that we call Canada has shifted from a colonial project
meant to build a settler nation to a project that was supposed to include marginalized
others, to, more recently, a project that must reckon with Indigeneity and the politics of
land. These and other related shifts take place within a cultural field that is also changing
with historical and geopolitical circumstances. Public culture and the idea of the public
have transformed through mutations in national space, economics, climate, lands, waters,
and even the air itself. Beside the changes in public space and our conceptions of them,
literature and writing in academic institutions are also transforming in response to
institutional and governmental politics. Further, within academia the humanities are
undermined in favour of knowledge mobilization designed to serve international capital
in (seemingly) pragmatic ways. This set of issues rises beside powerful and liberatory
Indigenous cultural and political resurgences and an accompanying imperative for non-
Indigenous people—imagined variously in racial and geo-political terms—to consider
anew responsibilities, respect, and strategies of cultural engagement as well as specific
contemporary and historical relationships to Indigeneity, land and movement.

What can literature and criticism be and do under these historical and spatial
circumstances? What can decolonization mean in its cultural and socio-political valences
now? What constitutes creativity, the imagination, experimentation, community, and
embodiment at the present moment? What kinds of activist and cultural labour can
criticism and creative writing perform? What forms might such criticism and creative
writing take? This iteration of the serial TransCanada conferences invites storytellers,
poets, novelists, creative non-fiction writers, critics, interdisciplinary practitioners and
activists to enter into newly imagined and innovatively structured forms of presentation
in order to re-build a vibrant, generative, re-productive, critical and creative community,
to ask the hard questions that need to be asked now, to attempt some provisional answers,
and to make story, poem and experiment together and apart.

Keywords to be addressed:
Affect • Activism & Activism as Performance • Asianness • Avant-Garde • Balance •
Blackness • Body • Coalition • Creative & Critical Practices • Cultural Economies •
Decolonization • Diaspora • Earth/ Water/ Air/ Fire/ Metal • Experimentation &
Experimental Writing • Forms (Literary, Cultural) • Forms & Politics / Forms in Relation
to Social Practices • The Humanities in Canada • Imagination • Indigeneity • Inheritance
/ Heritage • Institution • Justice • Kinships • Land • Literature & Activism • Migration •
Nation/ Nationalisms • New Materialisms • Neo-liberalism • Post-Humanism • The
Present • The Public • Reconciliation • Redress • Refugeeness • Relation • Transatlantic •
Transnationalism • Treaties • Writing as Practice

Submission Guidelines
Please submit proposals of up to 300 words for 20-minute-long papers that address any of
the above issues. Collaborative proposals for panel sessions that break the conference
mold in interesting and generative ways, as well as proposals for stand-alone
presentations (performances, films, videos, poster presentations, and other forms of
“demonstration”) will be most welcome.

We wish to extend a special invitation to Ph.D. students for the Plenary Session
especially designed for the presentation of doctoral research projects in the field of
Canadian literary studies. Doctoral students whose dissertation projects are nearing
completion of their program and who would like to be considered for this plenary session
should submit a proposal based on their dissertation project, along with a one-page
(single-spaced) dissertation abstract. Three to five such projects will be featured in this
plenary session, while other projects will be vetted for inclusion in the concurrent panel
sessions.

Deadline for all submissions: June 30, 2016
Notification of acceptance: by September 2016
Submission address: http://tinyurl.com/Mininaak-Trans

Guidelines for submission: Please submit your abstract via email as a Word document
attachment; ensure that your name and institutional affiliation don’t appear on the
abstract document; and use TC4-2017-abstract submission as the subject heading.

Proposals for panels should include the name/s of the panel convener/s, a brief rationale,
and abstracts by no more than three presenters.

For background information about the TransCanada conferences, please visit this website.

The Sixth Annual OISE Indigenous Education Network Mental Health Symposium, 26 May 2016, Native Canadian Centre of Toronto, Canada

The overarching goal of this Symposium is to build on our previous and current conceptions of Indigenous psychology and to provide new and innovative information, inquiry, and synthesis of mental health issues and solutions from Aboriginal knowledges. Through the development of new insights regarding Indigenous psychology throughout the Symposium, cutting edge and creative theories and models for addressing current mental health needs, including programming, counseling, and assessments of Indigenous peoples in Canada. This year’s symposium has a special focus on Healing and Education, taking a lead on discussing and strategizing implementation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Final Report’s recommendations.

This Symposium will achieve several general central objectives. First, to get a clear understanding of the psychology of Indigenous mental health and healing by articulating conceptual foundations that expand the current deficit model of mental health, enriching knowledge by focusing on the social processes of socio-political contexts, culture, and traditional knowledges and medicines and how these are linked to psychology. Secondly, to bring together leaders and innovators in the fields of Indigenous mental health from traditional, academic, and practitioner backgrounds. The sharing of ideas and ensuing dialogue of the diverse expertise of these high profile speakers will allow all attendees at the Symposium to take part in the creation of Indigenous healing solutions to psychological challenges that will be developed out of the strengths and resources that Indigenous individuals and communities provide to explain the key intersections of mental health, socio-political realities, and Aboriginal knowledges. Thirdly, The Annual Indigenous Education Network Mental Health Symposium was developed in 2010 by Dr. Suzanne Stewart to address a dire need for the advancement of the psychology of Indigenous mental health from Aboriginal knowledges, given the overwhelming lack of culturally based theory and models and the growing population of Indigenous peoples migrating to cities, many of whom seek fruitless mental health services from non-Indigenous perspectives.

More specific Symposium objectives include:

• Reaching a diverse audience of those interested in Indigenous mental health, including educators, researchers, academics, students, practitioners, policy makers, and community service administrators.
• Developing new and refining existing traditional Aboriginal approaches to current mental health issues.
• Engaging Indigenous and non-Indigenous individuals and communities in meaningful dialogue on Indigenous mental health and healing.
• Training and/or enhancing the careers of Aboriginal scholars, practitioners, policy makers, and administrators.
• Infusing Aboriginal ways of knowing into current applied psychology theories and practices.
• Preserving and documenting Aboriginal knowledges within the various levels of research, practice, and administration.
• Identifying knowledge mobilization tools to extend research and practice impact to Indigenous communities first, and then more broadly to non-Indigenous contexts.
• Considering diverse modalities for Indigenous psychology: e.g. traditional Indigenous, academic, Western, Eastern, African, hybrid, etc.

Specifically, the symposium will explore six key topic areas via oral presentations, workshops presentations, and cultural workshops by leading Canadian Indigenous health and healing practitioners. As well, we invite researcher, student, institutional, and community organization members to present posters within the following topics:

1. Indigenous counselling and psychotherapy theory and practice
2. Psychological assessment from Indigenous perspectives
3. Integration of Indigenous and Western healing in mental health
4. Traditional cultural healing in mental health service
5. Research and ethical issues
6. Policy, program, and administrative issues

You may submit abstracts for poster presentations in any of the above key topic areas until May 15, 2016. Please email name, title, and abstracts to this address.

For more information or to register please contact the Conference Committee.

Tickets are available here.

Registration fees:
$120 for academics, practitioners and professionals
$60 for students & community members

For registration, please visit the Conference Website.