Canadian Studies Centre and Canadian Studies Student Circle invite everybody to participate in a student conference organized this year as part of our annual festival, Days of Canadian Culture.
Conference
May 13th 2013
Organized by Canadian
Studies Student Circle,
at Canadian Studies
Centre, Institute of English Cultures and Literatures,
University of Silesia,
Sosnowiec, Poland
One Coin, Two Sides:
Hybridization of Cultures
in Canada
Call for Papers
Cultural hybridization as a term
refers to the production of new cultural identities through the merging of
previously separate antecedents. Yet, despite academia’s cross-examination of
it, cultural hybridization may also be a slippery concept as it can be
associated with dislocation, loss of tradition, and social unrest.
As Canada, which is apparently
faithful to the principles of multidisciplinary and multiculturalism, still has
to face and deal with intense conflicts that go beyond the limits of academic
discourse - an alternative to multiculturalism is “hybridity” or “cultural
hybridization.” Cultural hybridization allows a process, fluctuation, and negotiation
of identity rather than giving birth to a new “hybrid” form of identity that is
a sum of distinct parts.
Cultural hybridization,
multiplicity, and intersectionality are not difficult to notice in Canada:
race, ethnicity, gender, class, and other factors continue to form visceral
parts of the experience of Canadian minorities. Many Canadian minority writers
attempt to build bridges across multiple boundaries existing in such complex multicultural
and multilingual societies.
The organizers of the conference
invite you to consider the specificity of the cultural hybridization occurring
in contemporary Canadian society and literatures, from the point of view of the
politics, history, sociology, culture, literature, linguistics and translation
studies. The aim of the conference is to examine the significance of cultural
hybridization in Canada and to generate a transdisciplinary perception of Canadian
hybridity that paves the way for a wider application of this crucial concept in
Canadian studies.
We particularly encourage
contributions (10-15 minutes) that deal specifically with the main topic of the
conference. Papers developed from such presentations will be reviewed and
considered for post-conference publication. Presentations may also concern the
following categories (themes):
- minority of Indigenous cultures and literatures;
- majority and minority Canadian literatures (ethnic, racial, class, gender);
- identitarian Canadian spaces: diasporic communities, enclaves, integration/disintegration, inclusion/exclusion;
- transnational, transcultural, and hybrid identities;
- narratives of encounter; travel narratives;
- representation of ethnicity and cultural hybridization as a problem;
- Canadian cultural criticism;
- crossing cultural/national boundaries;
- gender and sexuality within the Canadian multicultural framework;
- otherness in Canadian literatures and cultures;
- anglophone and francophone literatures in Canada;
- Canadian transcultural dialogues, as well as conflicts;
- cultural and linguistic diversity in Canada, minority languages in Canada;
- memory and personal life-experiences;
- policies and practices of cultural and national identity and diversity;
Paper submission details:
(1) Please send a 250-word
proposal for a 20-minute presentation (in English or French), explaining the
overall focus. Include your name and institute.
(2)Proposals should be submitted
electronically to:
hybridity.conference2013@gmail.com
(3) Conference fee: 30 PLN
(4) Deadline for abstracts: 10 April, 2013
(5) About Canadian Studies Centre
and Canadian Studies Student Circle:
http://www.csc.us.edu.pl
Conference organizers:
Mgr Alina Deja-Grygierczyk (CSSC
Supervisor, Head of the Organizing Committee)
Mgr Agnieszka Podruczna (Secretary)
Kinga
Kowalska (Head of CSSC)
