Canadian Literatures and Time
CALL FOR PAPERS
15th Comparative Canadian Literature Graduate Student Conference
Jointly Organized by Université Laval and Université de Sherbrooke
Morrin Centre, Quebec City
March 23-24, 2017
Anniversaries invite us to reflect on where we have come from and where we wish to go, to make connections across time, and to ponder the very nature of time itself. With Canada marking its 150 years in 2017 and with the Université de Sherbrooke’s Comparative Canadian Literature Graduate Student Conference celebrating its fifteenth iteration, we are inviting presenters to explore the theme of “Canadian Literatures and Time.” While one or more meaning of time may figure as a theme, symbol, or motif in a given work or may be highlighted literally or metaphorically through setting, time often also functions as a feature of narrative or poetic technique. Inherently in flux, time is bound up in how scholars trace and reformulate literary histories as well as in how writers narrate and recuperate individual or collective histories or stage shifting identities. This conference is open to a range of theoretical and critical approaches that offer insight into an aspect of the manifold manifestations of time in literature. Papers must take a comparative approach and include at least one work originating within Canada, but there are no restrictions on the national origin of the work(s) with which it is compared. Comparisons between literature and other art forms are welcome. Suggested topics include but are not limited to:
- The changing field of Comparative Canadian Literature: retrospectives, trends, new directions
- Literary periods, currents, influences: transnational or intra-national relationships, legacies
- (Re)constructing or contesting identities: past, present, future
- Preserving, recuperating, rewriting histories: re-storying, revisiting the archive
- Translating the language of, or notions of, time
- Retranslations: revising and updating translations over time
- Evolution of literary uses of language
- Time and strategies for self-representation
- Linear and nonlinear time, breaking time, anachronisms, imparting “timelessness” etc.
- Marking time, poetic tempo, narrative pacing, plotting time
- Temporal power, the measure and mismeasure of time, “doing time,” lost time
- Mythological time, dream time, bending time vs. historical time, real time
- Foundational myths and narratives
- Coming-of-age or turning points: nations, literatures, narratives, artists, etc.
- Gerontology, mortality, aging, decay, death
- Passage of time and renewal: seasons, tides, cycles
- Time travel, imagined futures, or futurism
- Memory, trauma, silence, war
- Hauntings, echoes, palimpsests
- Changing nature(s): extinction, metamorphosis, reincarnation
The conference will be held on March 23-24, 2017 at the Morrin Centre in Quebec City and aims to be a welcoming gathering place for young scholars interested in comparative approaches to Canadian Literatures in English and French. We invite graduate students (MA, PhD, as well as advanced undergraduates) from various disciplines (Literature, Translation Studies, Film Studies, Cultural Studies, Indigenous Studies, History, etc.) to submit proposals.
Please submit an abstract of 250 words and a short biography of 150 words to: gradstudentsconference@gmail.com Include your name, affiliation and degree program, e-mail address, equipment needs, as well as the title of your presentation and upload the document as both PDF and Word attachments. The deadline for proposals is January 27, 2017. You will be informed of our decision by February 25, 2017.