Call for papers -- “Reckonings and Re-Imaginings”: Imagining and Enacting the Terms Under which We Might Create a Radically Different World -- ILSA 2023 Annual Gathering
“Reckonings and Re-Imaginings”: Imagining and Enacting the Terms Under which We Might Create a Radically Different World
A Gathering of the Indigenous Literary Studies Association
May 31-June 2, 2023
As part of the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
The area known as Tkaronto, long stewarded by the Anishinabek Nation, the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, and the Huron-Wendat, is now home to many Indigenous and Black communities. We acknowledge the treaty holders, the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation. This territory is governed by the Dish with One Spoon Wampum Belt Covenant, an agreement to peaceably share and care for the Great Lakes region.
As in previous years when the Indigenous Literary Studies Association has joined with Congress, this year’s ILSA gathering is connected to the Congress theme: "Reckonings and Re-Imaginings." Under the leadership of Andrea Davis and the Congress Indigenous Protocol advisory, Congress 2023 will centre the “experiences, knowledges and cultures of Indigenous and Black communities as valuable and critical modes of thought fundamental to the realization of racial and climate justice” and uphold equity, diversity, inclusion, and decolonization (EDID) across its programming. This commitment includes the ways in which Congress encourages associations, like ILSA, to welcome participants who bring a range of perspectives and experiences to the conversation, "including those who have not previously seen themselves or their work reflected in Congress.”
ILSA’s 2023 gathering will emphasize the power and potential of Indigenous literatures to “imagine otherwise.”[1] Lou Cornum (Diné) writes that Indigenous storytelling is a technology for “imagining better worlds structured around a different ethics of contact and relation.”[2] Jas Morgan (Cree-Métis-Saulteaux) suggests that Indigenous artistic works imagine futures in which “the possibilities of love and kinship [are articulated] as resurgence in the face of ecological disaster.”[3] Daniel Heath Justice (Cherokee) writes that by “imagining otherwise,” Indigenous literatures make space for “meaningful engagements and encounters that are dismissed by colonial authorities but are central to cultural resurgence and the recovery of other ways of knowing, being, and abiding. They insist on possibilities beyond cynicism and despair.”[4]
A future for Indigenous literatures is one committed to kinship with all who are envisioning a world recovering from colonialism and white supremacy. Toward the themes of “Reckonings and Re-Imaginings” and “Imagining Otherwise,” we invite scholars, knowledge-keepers, writers, artists, and community members to consider the connections between racial justice, relationality, gathering, sovereignty, and climate justice, and to consider what it means to think alongside Black writers and other scholars working to support the Congress theme. ILSA seeks to create opportunities at Congress to collectively imagine the future of Indigenous literary studies and to engage the relationships and responsibilities that will shape that future.
Building and Strengthening Community and Relationships
One of the primary research questions for this year’s Congress takes relationality as a starting point: “what might it mean for us to commit to knowing and caring for each other across our differences, understanding that the world we want to live in tomorrow is dependent on the actions we take together today?” (Congress 2023). Care and collaboration are integral to ILSA gatherings and our sense of identity as an organization. Since our first gathering, the question of how we do the work of Indigenous literary studies has been foregrounded in our discussions. In this spirit, we invite authors, artists, community members, students, teachers, and scholars to join us in considering the linkages between and beyond Indigenous literary studies and other related fields toward a collective practice of imagining otherwise. Framing literary creativity expansively, we welcome discussions of literature, film, theatre, video games, new media, storytelling, song, music and other forms of narrative expression.
Submission Details
ILSA invites the submission of Proposals for Participation and Biographical Statements to be submittedviathis Google form (https://forms.gle/1e9xdbQ2zByH3Lp27)by Friday, January 13, 2023 at 11:59 p.m. PST. Note: ILSA is currently equipped to read proposals in Frenchand English; we also welcome proposals for presentations either partially or fully in Indigenous languages--and will work with presenters directly to discuss logistics.
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Proposals for Participation: These 200-300 word proposals should animate ideas that you are currently working on or are eager to grapple with, particularly ones that are relevant to the themes outlined above. While some proposals may be aiming toward the production of individual academic essays, others may be more collaborative or formally innovative, encompassing creative work or embodied, experiential activities.
Questions to consider when writing your proposal: What are the central questions that prompt your research or creative intervention? Which texts, concepts, and/or practices do you turn to in thinking them through? And, at this early stage, what argument, expression, or outcome do you expect from this work?
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We will also consider proposals for pre-formed panel presentations, roundtables, and/or workshops. These proposals should provide a panel abstract (200-300 words) and brief descriptions of presenter materials (100-200 words). If you have specific requirements for your panel (AV, room layout, etc), please include these in a concluding paragraph with the header “room requirementents”.
- Poster Session: We are reinstituting the ILSA poster session this year! Research posters can share work on any topic relevant to the ILSA gathering and the 2023 theme. Poster presentations are intended to be interactive and should create opportunities for ILSA participants to exchange ideas in a more conversational setting. Posters are in no way considered lesser forms of presentation at ILSA conferences. They provide unique activation sites for gathering and visiting and they are often better suited to particular content types.
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Biographical Statements: With your proposal, please submit a brief statement of relationship. Rather than a conventional biography that simply outlines your professional qualifications, please introduce yourself in terms of who you are in relation to Indigenous literary arts and scholarship. Why do you want to be a part of the 2023 gathering? What do you hope you will take away to integrate into your ongoing creative / scholarly / community engagements? This bio need not be longer than 200 words.
For questions related to the CFP or submission process, please email indigenouslsa@gmail.com.
[1] Justice, Daniel Heath. Why Indigenous Literatures Matter. Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2018.[4] Justice 156.
[2] Cornum, Lou. “The Space NDN’s Starmap.” Read, Listen, Tell: Indigenous Stories from Turtle Island, edited by Sophie McCall et al., Wilfrid Laurier University Press, pp. 364–71.
[3] Morgan, Jas. “Visual Cultures of Indigenous Futurism.” Guts Magazine, no. 6, May 2016,https://gutsmagazine.ca/visual-cultures/.
[4] Justice, Daniel Heath. 156.