Confy @ Jadavpur University, Kolkata

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