Mount Allison University, Sackville NB, 20–23 September 2012
Poetic discourse in Canada has always been changing to assert poetry’s relevance to the public sphere. While some poets and critics have sought to shift poetic subjects in Canada to make political incursions into public discourses, others have sought changes in poetic form as a means to encourage wider public engagement. If earlier conversations about poetics in Canadian letters, such as those in the well-known Toronto Globe column “At the Mermaid Inn” (1892-93), sought to identify an emerging cultural nationalism in their references to Canadian writing, in the twentieth century poetics became increasingly focused on a wider public, with little magazines, radio, and television offering new spaces in which to consider Canadian cultural production. In more recent decades, many diverse conversations about poetics in Canada have begun to emanate from hyperspace, where reviews, interviews, Youtube/Vimeo clips, publisher/author websites, and blogs have increased the “visibility” of poetry and poetics.
Acknowledging the work that emerged from the 2005 “Poetics & Public Culture in Canada Conference,” as well as recent publications considering publics in the Canadian context, we are interested in examining a growing set of questions surrounding these and other discursive shifts connected with Canadian poetry and poetics. How have technological innovations such as radio, television, and the Internet, for example, made poetry and poetics more accessible or democratic? How does poetry inhabit other genres and media in order to gesture toward conversations relevant to political, cultural, and historical moments? What contemporary concerns energize those studying historical poetries and poetics? How do commentators in public and academic circles construct a space for poetry to inhabit?
The conference sets out to explore the changing shapes of and responses to poetic genres, aesthetic theories, and political visions from a diverse range of cultural and historical contexts. In the interest of reinvigorating conversations about the multiple configurations of poetics, poetry, and the public in Canada, we invite proposals for papers (15–20 minutes) on subjects including, but not limited to:
–Public statements/declarations of poetics
–Publics and counterpublics in Canadian poetry
–The politics of public poetics
–Tensions between avant- and rear-garde poetics in Canada
–Shifting technological modes of poetic and critical production (print/sound/video/born-digital)
–Poetics of/as Activism
–Public Intellectualism and Poetics
–Recovery and remediation of Canadian poetry and poetics
–Poetics and collaboration in Canada
–People’s poetry and /or the People’s Poetry Awards
–Poetry and environmental publics in Canada
Proposals should be no more than 250 words and should be accompanied by a 100-word abstract and a 50-word biographical note. Please send proposals to publicpoetics@mta.ca by 29 February 2012. For more information visit www.publicpoetics.ca.
In conjunction with the conference, a one-day workshop will be hosted by The Canadian Writing Research Collaboratory / Le Collaboratoire scientifique des écrits du Canada. This purpose of this workshop (CWRCshop) is to introduce, in accessible and inviting ways, digital tools to humanities scholars and to encourage digital humanists, via a turn to close reading, to connect with the raw material, which is the basis of digitization efforts.
The PUBLIC POETICS conference is organized by Bart Vautour (Mt. A), Erin Wunker (Dal), Travis V. Mason (Dal), and Christl Verduyn (Mt. A). The conference is sponsored by the Centre for Canadian Studies at Mount Allison University, the Canadian Studies Programme at Dalhousie University, and The Canadian Writing Research Collaboratory / Le Collaboratoire scientifique des écrits du Canada. We plan to publish a selection of revised/expanded papers as a special journal issue and/or a book with a university press.
Beyond Accessibility: Textual Studies in the 21st Century
Call for Papers
The Textual Studies team of INKE (Implementing New Knowledge Environments) wish to invite presentation proposals for Beyond Accessibility: Textual Studies in the 21st Century .
June 8, 9, and 10, 2012, University of Victoria, Victoria BC, Canada.
Keynote speakers: Adriaan van der Weel (Leiden University) and Sydney Shep, (Victoria University of Wellington)
At the end of the 20th century, textual studies witnessed a revolution in accessibility to texts with the explosion of the internet. Now we simply take it for granted that digital processes infuse every step of our study, editing, production, and dissemination of texts. The Textual Studies team of INKE invites presentations that address the questions “What is the state of textual studies in the 21st century? What is the important work of textual studies in the 21st century? What are the outstanding issues, challenges, concerns, emerging trends, methods, attitudes, and exciting developments in textual scholarship? Papers may address such questions as
* What is the state of the scholarly edition after the transition from print to print and digital?
* What is the impact on the material book and on book history of the different kinds of access enabled by the digital medium?
* How have authorship attribution studies been transformed by access to so many more searchable texts?
* How has the new age of access to materials affected the state of textual studies in various regions of the globe?
* How well are scholars being served by traditional and emerging infrastructures for the study, creation, production, and dissemination of texts?
* What is the future of, for example, the study of readership and letter writing, genetic editing, and reception history?
INKE is a multi-national, multi-disciplinary research initiative, funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and partnering organizations, to study, develop, and implement digital environments for reading and research (www.inke.ca). The Textual Studies Team of INKE is researching ways in which the age of manuscript and print production can inform our development and implementation of electronic reading technologies.
We invite proposals for papers, posters/demonstrations, and roundtable discussions that address these and other issues pertinent to research in textual studies. Proposals should contain a title, a detailed and focussed abstract (of approximately 300 words) plus list of works cited, and the names, affiliations, and Website URLs of presenters. Please send proposals before 15 December 2011 to richard.cunningham@acadiau.ca.
Potential participants in the conference, particularly those coming from abroad, might be interested to take advantage of the Digital Humanities Summer Institute, which will just before our conference, from 4-8 June, also at the University of Victoria (http://www.dhsi.org/). A limited number of scholarships for workshop tuition will be available for graduate students participating in the Beyond Accessibility conference. Also of potential interest is the annual conference of the Society for Digital Humanities (SDH/SEMI) at the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences at Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario, 28-30 May, 2012 (http://www.sdh-semi.org/).
Interdisciplinary Multidisciplinary Woolf
7-10 June 2012
University of Saskatchewan
This conference invites explorations of Virginia Woolf’s work from a range of different disciplinary perspectives and practices. We welcome proposals on any aspect of Woolf studies, and especially papers or performances that:
• respond to Virginia Woolf and her texts from interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary approaches;
• respond to the inter- and multidisciplinary work carried out by Virginia Woolf and her circle; and/or
• respond to the implications of Virginia Woolf’s work by applying its themes and claims to other disciplinary, institutional, social, or cultural contexts.
Proposals may reflect (but need not be limited to) methodologies and knowledge from disciplines such as:
Queer Studies, the Digital Humanities, Native Studies, Literary Studies, History, Translation Studies, Art and Art History, Drama, Psychology/ Psychoanalysis, Business Administration, Media and Communications, Music, Political Science, the Study of Sexualities, Postcolonial Theory, Children’s Literature and Studies, Editing and Publishing, Creative Writing, Religious Studies, Economics, Film, the Study of Teaching and Learning, Cultural Studies, Sociology, Ecocriticism, Health, Women’s and Gender Studies, Anthropology, Disability Studies, Law…
Submissions from artists, writers, community activists, administrators, “common readers,” independent scholars, teachers, academics, and students are welcomed.
For paper proposals, please send a 250-word abstract as a Word attachment. For panel proposals, please submit a 250-word description of each paper to be presented by the three panel participants along with the proposed panel title. Because we will be using a blind submission process, please do not include your name on your proposal. Instead, in your covering e-mail, please include your
name(s), institutional affiliation (if any), paper title(s), and contact information.
Proposals and inquiries should be directed to Ann Martin, Department of English
306.966.5527 • woolf@arts.usask.ca
The deadline for submissions is: 1 February 2012.
We have come together…to make one thing, not enduring—for what endures?—
but seen by many eyes simultaneously. (The Waves)