Smaro Kamboureli - Avie Bennett Chair in Canadian Literature

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TransCanada Two – 2008

TransCanada Two: Call for Papers

TransCanada Two: Literature, Institutions, Citizenship is intended to be the second gathering of scholars and students to pursue what the production, study and teaching of Canadian literature as an institution entail. CanLit may have become a major part of Canada’s cultural capital and cultural economies, but it has become apparent to many scholars that its study can no longer take place in isolation from the larger forces that shape the nation, global relations, and the corporatization of higher education. The pressures of multiculturalism on the Canadian state—witness, for example, the recent debates on the rescue of Lebanese Canadians from a war zone and the Maher Arar case— puts more emphasis upon discourses of citizenship and security. At the same time, market-driven factors increasingly shape the publication, dissemination, and reception of Canadian writing. These are just some of the factors that have caused a subtle yet palpable shift in the critical and cultural paradigms that inform the study and teaching of Canadian literature. The task of identifying the implications of these shifts and, above all, of devising constructive ways of responding to them involves a long-term and multilateral project that can only be a shared endeavour, undertaken in interdisciplinary and collaborative terms.

TransCanada Two will be held at the University of Guelph, October 11-14, 2007. We will once again feature keynote addresses and position papers at plenary discussions (as speakers are confirmed, their names will appear on the conference website), but our critical framework will be much more broadly interdisciplinary in scope. Invited presenters will come from disciplines that complement Canadian literary studies. In preparation for TransCanada Three, which, we hope, will take the project to Europe where similar social and political issues are under debate, the conference will feature a plenary session on Canadian literary studies outside of Canada, featuring scholars from several countries. Two afternoons of the conference will be devoted to concurrent research sessions for papers on Canadian literature.

We invite proposals (300 words) for 20-minute presentations that address the themes of the conference—literature, institutions, citizenship—for the concurrent research sessions. We encourage interdisciplinary papers that critique the limits of institutional framings of Canadian literature, that offer innovative critical approaches, and that point to future directions through which the study of Canadian literature and the contexts that inform it can be renewed through a collective endeavour.

Here is a list of some of the central issues this conference will address:
• CanLit and Aboriginal Literatures
• Transnationalism, Humanitarianism, and Cultural Production
• Diasporas in Canada and Alternate Geographies
• Territoriality / Citizenship / Culture
• CanLit and Critical Methodologies
• CanLit and institutional structures

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. We are interested in proposals by doctoral students who are nearing completion of their program and pursuing interdisciplinary studies of Canadian literature and/or culture that relate to the mandate of the conference. Three to five such projects will be featured in this plenary session, while other projects will be vetted for inclusion in the concurrent paper sessions. All these proposals will also be featured online.

To be considered for inclusion in this plenary session, please submit the following: a 500-word summary of your dissertation project; a 100-word paragraph stating how you expect your participation in TransCanada to benefit your work and professional development; and a request for financial support to participate in TransCanada, if you have no other source of funding (limited financial support is available).

All submissions should be accompanied by a brief bio note. Please make sure that your name and institutional affiliation do not appear on the abstract page.

Deadline for all submissions: November 20, 2006 / Notification of acceptance: Late January 2007.

Submission address: transcan@utoronto.ca , or
TransCanada Two, TransCanada Institute, 9 University Avenue East University of Guelph, ON, Canada, N1G 1M8

TC2 Organizing Committee: Co-chairs Smaro Kamboureli (U Guelph) & Roy Miki (Simon Fraser), Lily Cho (Western), Paul Danyluk (Guelph), Kit Dobson (Guelph), Sophie McCall (Simon Fraser), Donna Pennee (Guelph), Christl Verduyn (Mount Allison), Robert Zacharias (Guelph)

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