International Conference on Canadian Studies
9, 10, 11 January 2018
CENTRE FOR CANADIAN STUDIES
JADAVPUR UNIVERSITY
CALL FOR PAPERS
150 Years of “Solitude”:
Narratives on Canada’s Conflicts
and Reconciliations
The Canadian
Confederation of 1867 had been instrumental in the consolidation and emergence of
Canada as a nation. Today, in the year 2017, as Canada celebrates its 150 years
as a nation, with pride and splendour, by organizing various cultural and academic
events and distributing free entry passes to its national parks, museums, art
galleries, this conference seeks to explore and interrogate the different forms
of resistance- resilience, conflicts- reconciliations that have informed the
myriad contours of Canada’s nation building process over the last century and
half.
It also strives to
look into the power politics involved in constructing the official discourse of
history in Canada as a singular monolithic entity that takes cognition of only
the history of the ‘founding’ nations, thereby undermining the necessity to
understand the Canadian nation in terms of the multiple histories that informs
the lives of its racially diverse population.
The concept of “two
solitudes” that had been largely used to define Canada’s socio-political reality
since the nineteenth century, predicated solely upon the equations shared by
the members of its ‘founding nations’, the English and the French, is
essentially exclusivist in nature, denying its indigenous and diasporic
population the right to be a part of what Ben Jonson would call “the imagined
community” of the nation. Even the name Canada, derived from the Spanish word acanada
(“nothing here”), refutes the presence of the original inhabitants of the land
prior to the establishment of the Euro-Canadian settler colony therein. While
centuries of colonial battering and coercive forces of cultural assimilations
have shaped the existence of Canada’s aboriginal communities, the diasporic
communities were accorded a “visible minority” status and continue to face the
onslaught of racial discrimination within the mainstream society. However,
certain apologies offered by the Canadian government in the recent times have
come as an acknowledgement of the hitherto denied disjunctions within its
“multicultural mosaic”, marking the first step towards reconciliation, if not
resolutions of age old conflicts. Do the present times promise the emergence of
an idea of nationhood that would be more inclusive in its stance? It remains to
be seen whether this attitude would finally induce Canada to abide by its
promise of providing its citizens with equal rights and opportunities
irrespective of their racial, ethnic and gender identities and help it to
emerge as an all-inclusive multicultural nation.
The Conference invites
papers that address the one hundred and fiftieth year of Canada’s independence
with special reference to the ensuing conflicts and subsequent reconciliations.
The abstracts may have direct bearing on one of the sub-themes mentioned below
or may also address other related and relevant issues. However,
interdisciplinary approaches would be preferred.
Welfare state
histories
Immigration/ Migration / Diaspora
National myths
Landscapes
Story-telling
Nations and Nationhood
Memory/ Commemoration
Inclusivity/ Exclusivity
Federalism
Official Multiculturalism
Indigeneity and Social Policy
Abstracts (500 words)
are to be sent to canadacentreju@gmail.com by 3rd December, 2017.
Acceptance will be
intimated by 15th December, 2017. Please note that the organisers may not be in
a position to offer either local hospitality or travel costs.
From 2017, the Centre
for Canadian Studies, Jadavpur University has introduced two student awards
(till the MPhil level) for the best paper presented at a regular session at the
Conference as follows:
1. “Victor Ramraj
Memorial Prize” for the best paper in Canadian Diaspora Studies
2. “Renate Eigenbrod
Memorial Prize” for the best paper in Indigenous Canadian Studies.
Both the awards are
sponsored by the Shastri Indo Canadian Institute, Canada and India.
A student may apply
for only one of the above mentioned prizes and should indicate the same during
abstract submission. Joint authors would not be eligible to participate.
In order to be
considered for the prize and upon acceptance of the abstract, completed papers should
be mailed by 2nd January, 2018. The Prize(s) would be awarded only if the
Screening Committee believes in the originality and academic excellence of the
submission. The decision of the Screening Committee would be final.
Conference Coordinators
Suchorita
Chattopadhyay
Coordinator, Centre
for Canadian Studies
Jadavpur University,
Kolkata – 700 032
Debashree Dattaray
Deputy Coordinator,
Centre for Canadian Studies
Jadavpur University,
Kolkata – 700 032
Image Courtesy: queensu.ca
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