Eye/I on Canada: Exclusion and Inclusion Voix/Voie du Canada: Exclusion et Inclusion

The 9th Congress of Polish Canadianists / 9ème Congrès des Canadianistes Polonais

21-23 September 2022 / 21-23 septembre 2022 University of Białystok, Poland / Université de Białystok, Pologne

Call For Papers

In the midst of global Covid-19 pandemic, not only Canada, but all the states, experienced challenges they had never faced before. The crisis forced individuals, communities and countries to rethink and question the way modern societies operate on manifold levels. The strain put on health care, education and welfare systems has significantly reshuffled the workplace and family dynamics, exacerbating existing inequalities related to gender, class and ethnicity and affecting communities of colour, as well as other disadvantaged, marginalized and excluded groups in a disproportionate manner. Confined to their homes, many people have found perpetual isolation overwhelming and experienced long-term psychological impacts. As a response to these feelings of exclusion, on both individual and collective levels, new ways of connecting with others have emerged, giving rise to as varied new phenomena as zoom meetings, online panel discussions, workshops and conferences, virtual support groups, and digital cultural initiatives, including exhibitions, concerts, performances and other live-stream events. The economic discrepancies and social injustice aggravated by the pandemic as well as attempts to foster a sense of belonging make us reflect upon past and present forms of exclusion and inclusion.

The organizers of the 9th Congress of the Polish Association for Canadian Studies (PACS) are pleased to invite scholars working across various disciplines, as well as writers and artists, to submit paper and panel proposals which consider the broadly-understood issues of exclusion and inclusion in the Canadian context. We are interested in bringing together scholars from various fields, especially but not exclusively, politics and public policy, international relations, social studies, history, literature and the arts, cultural and media studies, linguistics, etc. We encourage interdisciplinary and comparative perspectives and welcome abstract submissions from postgraduate students.

Though the following list is not exhaustive, papers and panels may address the following themes:

•   representations of inclusion and exclusion in the arts, literature, film, theatre, the media, etc;
•   making and revising the literary canon; genre fiction vs. the canon, etc.;

•   instances of censorship;
•   historical narratives: silencing/recovering the past;
•   political, social and communal practices of exclusion and inclusion;
•   linguistic practices of exclusion and inclusion;
•   relationships between the centre and periphery (in both literal and metaphorical sense);
•   conflicting values: individualism vs. communitarianism;
•   isolation and alienation;
•   solidarity and participation;
•   othering and/or belonging (migrants and refugees; racial, ethnic, religious, gender and LGBTidentities);
•   Indigenous experiences of exclusion;
•   Quebecois separatism / sovereignty;
•   representations and discourses of disability;
•   race, gender, LGBTQ+, age (in)equality;
•   marginalization and discrimination;
•   opportunities and challenges of diversity;
•   borders and barriers (geographic, political, social, economic, etc);
•   Covid-19-related experiences of exclusion and inclusion, pandemic literature, etc;
•   digital inclusion/exclusion (new media technologies and platforms, podcasts, blogs, socialmedia, etc.);

  Individual proposals, in English or French, should be 300-400 words long. Please attach a short bio (max. 200 words) to your conference paper proposal. For panels, in English or French, please send the title of the panel and a 250-word presentation explaining the overall focus, together with a 300-400- word abstract and 200-word bio for each participant.

  Deadline for abstracts: February 28, 2022
  Notification of acceptance: March 15, 2022
  Proposal submission address: 9ptbkcongress@gmail.com

  Regular fee (non-PACS members): 600 PLN / 135 EUR / 200 CAD / 160 USD Reduced fee (PACS members): 450 PLN / 105 EUR / 150 CAD / 120 USD Student fee: 350 PLN / 80 EUR / 120 CAD / 90 USD

  Organizers:

  Sylwia Borowska-Szerszun (conference secretary for English-speaking section) Ewelina Feldman-Kołodziejuk (head of the organizing committee)
  Weronika Łaszkiewicz
  Małgorzata Kamecka

  Edyta Sacharewicz (conference secretary for French-speaking section)

  Credits
  The conference organizers would like to thank Justyna Fruzińska for allowing us to include her logo Eye on Canada in the conference materials.