Beyond the 49th Parallel: Many Faces of the Canadian North / Au-delà du 49ème parallèle : multiples visages du Nord canadien, Évaine Le Calvé-Ivičević and Vanja Polić (eds.). Central European Association of Canadian Studies. Brno: Masaryk University Press, 2018.
The volume is a collection of essays on different issues regarding the North, as observed from the perspective of Canadian studies. Since Canada as a whole can be considered the “North,” the volume includes a scope of multidisciplinary texts that question a whole range of “Norths” in the past and present, and in a variety of areas, from founding narratives to land management policies and social issues, to literature and other artistic genres. Each of these areas highlights a different kind of “nordicity” as, beyond geography, “the North” embraces a wide scope of meanings and symbolic values. Divided into five parts, the contributions in this volume provide a kaleidoscopic presentation of topics in this vast explorative project of the equally vast space that is the North.
Beyond the 49th Parallel (pdf)
“PAGE, STAGE, SCREEN, VOICE: A CANADIAN STUDIES SEMINAR”
You are cordially invited to attend the “Page, Stage, Screen, Voice: A Canadian Studies Seminar” where six prominent Canadian speakers discuss subjects concerning: theatrical nationhood as a mechanism for creating a sense of appropriative indigeneity in settler Canadians; education as colonization in Indigenous memoirs from residential schools; the Indigenous comic as a means of disruption of settler colonial discourses and restorying the past and unsettling the present; National Film Board of Canada’s short films that take up questions of auto/biographical representation in the digital era; the possibility of poetry being deployed as theatre that seeks to obliterate the linearity of narrative and efface viewpoints; and the juxtaposition of the recorded intimate oral history of the early 1960s TISH poetry community which emphasizes the role of women vs. the public history of the single-authored, print-based narratives.
The Seminar Will Take Place in:
Zagreb, on 12th May 2018, Saturday, 9.15 a.m. – 6.00 p.m.
Location: University of Zagreb, Trg Republike Hrvatske 14, 10 000 Zagreb
and
Osijek, 14th May 2018, Monday, 8.00 a.m. – 14.00 p.m.
Location: Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Lorenza Jägera 9, 31 000 Osijek
with Guest Speakers:
Andrew Burke (University of Winnipeg),
Alan D. Filewod (University of Guelph),
Erín Moure,
Candida Rifkind (University of Winnipeg),
Karis Shearer University of British Columbia, Okanagan), and
Linda Warley (University of Waterloo).
The Croatian-Canadian Association for Canadian Studies would like to thank the Canadian Embassy in Croatia for their support in the organization of this seminar.
PROGRAM Page, Stage, Screen, Voice – A Canadian Studies Seminar (pdf)
INVITATION Page, Stage, Screen, Voice – A Canadian Studies Seminar (pdf)
7th Triennial International Conference of the Central European Association for Canadian Studies
9 – 10 October 2015, Zagreb, Croatia
2nd CALL FOR PAPERS
Beyond the 49th Parallel: Canada and the North – Issues and Challenges
Keynote speakers
Prof. Aritha van Herk (University of Calgary, Canada)
Prof. Daniel Chartier (l’Université du Québec à Montréal, Canada)
Special guest:
Prof. Mark Anthony Jarman (University of New Brunswick, Canada)
North, in Western culture, is the fundamental direction.
As a geographical notion, “the North” can be used to indicate any or all locations in the northern hemisphere, from the equator to the North Pole. In relation to the United States, all of Canada can be seen as “the North”. But within Canada there is a whole range of different “Norths”, both historically and at present: the “Pays d’en Haut” of the voyageurs, the old Northwest, today’s camping and cottage country “up north”, the northern regions of many of the provinces (differing across the country), the northern territories (Yukon, the Northwest Territories, Nunavut), the Far North. Each of these reflects a different kind of “nordicity”, to use Canadian geographer LouisEdmond Hamelin’s now widely adopted term.
Beyond geography, “the North” is also a concept, one that encompasses a broad range of meanings and symbolic values. It is an imagined space as well as a space for the imaginary, a space of myth as well as a space shaped by myth, by turns cruel and ennobling, enigmatic and inspiring, powerful and fragile. The country’s “northerness” is often viewed as one of its distinguishing features, a vital element in the Canadian identity – even when “the North” in this case may mean only the non urban part of Canada north of the thin populated band hugging the border with the United States. It is also a source of pride – “the true North, strong and free” – and, increasingly, in an era of climate change, a challenge. Canada’s imagined and real Norths have been literary and cultural obsessions for centuries.
The aim of this conference is to explore both the literal and the imaginative aspects of the relationship between Canada and “the North” – geographical, economic, literary, linguistic, cultural, social, political, diplomatic, environmental. We seek submissions from all disciplines that deal with Canada and Canadian Studies.
The topics may include but are NOT limited to:
– the North and its representations: real and imaginary territory
– the North in Canadian literature: nordicity and its varieties
– First Nations artwork and literature
– the symbolic North in Canadian culture: hockey, curling, winter carnivals, canoes
– living in the North: Aboriginal communities, the life and survival of traditional cultures, demography and development of local communities, social problems
– North and South: Canada as America’s “North”, southern Canada and its “North”
– decision-making in the North: the roles of federal, provincial and territorial governments and of local administration
– the North and economic questions: exploitation of resources, gas and oil exploration, tourism
– the North and the international community: defense of Canadian sovereignty, the Arctic Council
We welcome proposals for twenty-minute presentations in the field of Canadian Studies. We accept paper proposals in English and French. Abstracts of between 150 and 250 words + a brief CV (150 words) should be submitted via the Paper Proposal Submission Form, which is to be found on the conference website. This must be sent by 30 April 2015 to the conference e-mail zagreb2015conference@gmail.com. Notification of acceptance of paper by 15 May 2015.
Conference website: http://zagreb2015.hkad.hr/
For more information, email us at zagreb2015conference@gmail.com
After the conference, selected papers will appear in a special publication issued by the Central European Association for Canadian Studies.
Organizing Committee of the Croatian-Canadian Academic Society:
Vanja Polić (University of Zagreb)
Evaine Le Calve – Ivičević (University of Zagreb)
Marija Paprašarovski (University of Zagreb)
Secretaries:
Hrvoje Puh (University of Zagreb)
Nikola Kajin (University of Zagreb)
Academic Advisory Board for the Central European Association for Canadian Studies:
Rodica Albu (Al. I. Cuza University of Iasi)
Jason Blake (University of Ljubljana)
Janos Kenyeres (Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest)
Lucia Otrísalová (Comenius University, Bratislava)
Don Sparling (Masaryk University, Brno)
Diana Yankova (New Bulgarian University, Sofia)
