Call for Papers
Testimony: Memory, Trauma, Truth, Engagement
3rd Global Inclusive Interdisciplinary Conference
Friday 8th July 2022 – Saturday 9th July 2022
Athens, Greece
Colloquia
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The Studies in Comparative Literature and Arts program at Brock University invites proposals for its graduate symposium to be held March 5th, 2022 on the theme of “Pressures.”
The Studies in Comparative Literature and Arts program at Brock University invites proposals for
its graduate symposium to be held March 5th, 2022 on the theme of “Pressures.”The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has compounded many of the everyday pressures we live with.
For young people in particular, symptoms of anxiety and depression stemming from uncertainty,
and insecurity have risen dramatically, even with the partial reopening of the world’s economies.
In Weariness of the Self Alain Ehrenberg writes about the increasing rates of depression in
contemporary societies, and attributes thisto the constant pressure to “measure up.” In The Burn
Out Society, Byung-Chul Han explores the paradox of individual freedom in late capitalist society
where discipline has been internalized and transformed into a subject’s constant self-pressuring
to perform and achieve.
Nevertheless, pressure is often the catalyst for creation. The “need for” can be triggered by a
variety of pressures from within artists (their drives and psyches) as well as from their lived
environments. This can vary from trauma and psychological problems to oppression from
authority that distort and control writers, artists, and other creatives. The literature of
displacement caused by war offers an example of creation under collective pressure. Can art be
created in the absence of pressure? What other aesthetic and artistic trends can be traced back
to times of cultural pressure? How does aesthetic production respond to current global
pressures? Which artistic responses are being created out of our needs to respond to pressure
and traumas of the past?
Socially conscious artists are responding to a growing planetary catastrophe. While society faces
growing pressure from an existential crisis requiring a global effort to avoid environmental
destruction, we ask what contributions are being made by artiststo the cause today? Sound artist
Kevin Curtis Norcross addresses the problematic nature of working within the Anthropocene
through his “sound works,” for example. How affective is art in increasing and mobilizing public
awareness? Are there aesthetic responses from the Indigenous cultures of Canada that offer new
perspectives for settler-colonial society?
Finally, pressure as a generative source can be into extended to an array of discussions, both
actual and potential. There are ways in which pressure, as a physical phenomenon, is productive.
A diamond, for example, only begins to form under 725,000 pounds of pressure per square inch.
Conceptually, obligation can take the form of the pressure to decide, resulting in action. In both
cases, pressure is the catalyst for the transformation from one form to another. Pressure, then,
is not static, but a continuous exertion of force against an object or boundary. There is a spatiotemporal element to pressure, as it moves through time and space in both an actual and/or
virtual way. The concept of pressure as a hermeneutic object opens questions such as: Is pressure
ever completely released? Does pressure create something come from nothing? In what
circumstances does pressure lead to freedom?Possible topics may include, but are not limited to:
– Societal vs individual pressure
– The pressure to perform
– Depressurizing
– Tangible and intangible pressure
– Pressure of productivity / productive pressure
– Pressures and social media
– Pressures on/of the environment
– Geological pressure
– “Under Pressure”
– Discipline and pressure
– Releasing pressure and the carnivalesquePlease send abstracts of 200-250 words maximum along with a 50-word bio to pressures2022@gmail.com by 15 December 2021
Categories: Colloquia -
Italian Canadian Archives Project’ (ICAP) Conference – October 25-26, 2019
MLLC is hosting the Ninth Annual Conference of the ‘Italian Canadian Archives Project’ (ICAP) on the theme: Italian-Canadian Experiences in Canada’s Work Force from October 25 – 26, 2019 at Brock University.
Call for Papers deadline for submissions on Friday, June 7, 2019. Confirmation of acceptance will be communicated by June 28, 2019.
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Call for Papers– 7th International Conference on Image and Imagery
The conference “Im/Migrant Passages: Crossing Visual, Spatial and Textual Boundaries” will be held on October 10 and 11, 2018 at Brock University.
Proposals are welcome.
The deadline for submissions is April 30, 2018.
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Call for Papers– Storytelling and Trauma: An Inclusive Interdisciplinary Conference
The Conference Storytelling and Trauma: An Inclusive Interdisciplinary will be held on October 6th to 7th, 2018 in Budapest, Hungary.
Proposals for presentations, displays, exhibits, round tables, panels, interactive workshops are welcome.
The deadline for submissions is May 11th, 2018.
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(Dis)tributaries: Synthesizing Identity through Image, Text, and Sound- Studies in Comparative Literatures and Arts Colloquium 2018
MARCH 23, 2018
Brock University’s Studies in Comparative Literature and Arts MA program presents their annual graduate student colloquium.
The keynote speaker is Dr. Caitlin Fisher (Faculty of Fine Arts, York University).
The Official Schedule for the 2018 Annual SCLA Colloquium: “(Dis)tributaries: Synthesizing Identity Through Image, Text & Sound”, is as follows:
11:00 – 11:10 Opening Remarks.
11:15 – 11:35 Camilla Mugan with “Speaking Silence: The Authentic Female Voice”.
11:40 – 12:00 Tyler Adair with “The Politics of May 68 in Contemporary French Cinema”.
12:05 – 12:25 Sarah Revilla with “(De)mystifying Manhood in Mexico: The Meaning of Macho”
12:50 – 12:45 Lunch Break, a light buffet style lunch is provided.
13.25 – 13:45 Amy Barlow with “Manufacturing Terrorists: French Media and The Banlieue.”
13:50 – 14:10 Kirstin Bews with “Clash of the Tartans: The Power Relations of Highlandism in Celtic Punk Rock.”
14:15 – 14:35 Zach Rondinelli with “More Than Words And Pictures: Spatial Modality in Graphica & Its Impact on Literacy.”
14:40 – 14:55 Panel
15:00 – 15:15 Break
15:20 – 16:50 Keynote, Dr. Caitlin Fisher with “Forking Paths, Simultaneous Timelines and River Monsters: Stories Hypermedia and Spatial Narratives Tell About Identities.”
16: 55 – 17:10 Closing RemarksCategories: Colloquia -
7th International Conference on Image and Imagery
The 7th International Conference on Image and Imagery will be held on October 10 and 11, 2018.
The deadline for submissions is April 15, 2018.
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Em/bodying Human Rights in Testimony — Studies in Comparative Literatures and the Arts Colloquium 2014
Thursday, 20 February, 2014
United Nations designated World Day of Social JusticeWelcome
- David Fancy, Interim Director MA in Studies in Comparative Literatures & Arts (podcast)
- Douglas Kneale, Dean, Faculty of Humanities (podcast)
Introduction, Em/bodying Human Rights in Testimony; Cristina Santos
Writing After Political Violence and Trauma (podcast)
Nora S. Strejilevich is an Argentinean writer whose literary production is a means to “work through” the legacy of State Terrorism on the basis of her own experience as a survivor and exile. After her liberation from the concentration camp “Athletic Club” (1977) she was granted political asylum in Canada, where she completed a Ph.D. in Latin American Literature at the University of British Columbia. Between 1991 and 2006, she taught Latin American literature at several universities in North America, focusing on Human Rights and Literature.
She has published prose, poems and essays. Her most recent book is El arte de no olvidar: literatura testimonial en Chile, Argentina y Uruguay entre los 80 y los 90 [The art of not forgetting: testimonial literature in Chile, Argentina, and Uruguay between the ’80s and ’90s] (2006). Una sola muerte numerosa (1997, 2006) has given Strejilevich international recognition. This testimonial novel was awarded the Letras de Oro National Award (US, 1996). It was translated into English (A Single Numberless Death, 2002) and was adapted to theatre (US 2002). In Italy, Strejilevich’s story inspired the movie Nora (2005). This text has been incorporated into the curriculum of graduate studies in universities in Argentina, Mexico, Brazil, Germany, Austria and France.
Currently she is devoting herself to creative writing and research. Her most recent project is the study of women’s resistance to totalitarian regimes through art.
— Source: http://norastrejilevich.com/aboutAffecting Testimony (podcast)
Jonathan A. Allan (Gender & Women’s Studies and Dept. of English, Brandon University)Testimony as Reflective Transformation (podcast)
Sharon Abbey (Dept. of Teacher Education, Brock University)The Aestheticization of Testimony: Alfredo Jaar, Isabel Allende, and the 1973 Chilean Coup D’etat (podcast)
Steven Rita Procter (Dept. of English, York University)Voices in the Wind: Latina Testimonies from the Prairie (podcast)
Patricia Harms (Dept. of History and Gender & Women’s Studies, Brandon University)The Challenge of Testimony: The Argentinean Case (podcast)
Hugo De Marinis (Dept. of Languages & Literatures, Wilfrid Laurier University) and Adriana Spahr (Dept. of Humanities, MacEwan University)Invitational Roundtable
Tracy Crowe Morey, moderator
• Presenters: Claire Masswohl, CEO of Welland Heritage Council and Multicultural Centre (podcast); Deyanira Benavides, Community Legal Worker, Hamilton Community Legal Clinic (podcast)Categories: Colloquia -
The Novels of Umberto Eco as Historiographic Metafiction — Studies in Comparative Literatures and the Arts Colloquium 2013
April 2, 2013
Introductory Remarks (podcast – part1) (podcast – part2)
- Cristina Santos, SCLA Graduate Program Coordinator
- Douglas Kneale, Dean of Humanities
Umberto Eco’s Semiotic Imagination and the Writing of the Historical Novel (podcast)
Norma Bouchard is associate professor of Italian Studies and Comparative Literary and Cultural Studies at the University of Connecticut. Among her most recent booklength publications are: Risorgimento in Modern Italian Culture: Revisiting the 19th century Past in History, Narrative, and Cinema (Farleigh Dickinson UP, 2005), Reading and Writing the Mediterranean: Essays by Consolo (Toronto UP, 2006), Italian Cultural Studies: Negotiating Regional, National and Global Identities, Annali d’Italianistica 24 (2006), Southern Thought and Other Essays on the Mediterranean (Fordham UP, 2011, Race and Ethnic Studies series) as well as critical essays and translations. She is Vice-President-elect of the American Association of Italian Studies and has served as associate editor of Italica. She is currently book review editor for Italian Culture and associate editor of Annali d’Italianistica.Revisiting History: Conspiracies in Eco’s The Prague Cemetery (podcast)
Rocco Capozzi is professor emeritus of Italian Studies at the University of Toronto where he teaches contemporary Italian novel and modern literary theories. He is author of Carlo Bernari: Tra fantasia e realtà (1984), Scrittori e industria culturale (1992) and Commento, interpretazione e intertestualità ne Il Nome della Rosa di Eco (2001). He has edited Homage to Moravia (1993) and Reading Eco: an Anthology (1997), Italo Calvino: Lightness and Multiplicity (2007), and co-edited, with Massimo Ciavolella, Scrittori, tendenze letterarie e conflitto delle poetiche in Italia 1960-1990 and, with Maria Calvo Montomero, Borges Y Eco (1999). He has also co-edited Eco e Calvino. Due autori a confronto to appear in spring 2013. He is the author of several articles on Bernari, Berto, Ottieri, Volponi, Gramigna, Eco, Morante, Malerba, Nori, Calvino, Covito and Tabucchi.Between Story and History: Umberto Eco in Text and Context (podcast)
Jonathan Hart teaches at the University of Alberta and is the author of 15 academic books on theory, history, literature and criticism and five books of poetry. His work has been translated into Estonian, Slovenian, Chinese, French, Italian, Polish and other languages. He has been Northrop Frye professor at the University of Toronto and has held visiting appointments at Harvard, Cambridge, Princeton, the Sorbonne Nouvelle and elsewhere.Looking Back: Umberto Eco and Narrative Memory (podcast)
Annarita Primier teaches English and French at Canada’s National Ballet School in Toronto. She has a background in languages and literature, having completed an MA at the Centre for Comparative Literature at the University of Toronto. She is completing work on her PhD thesis on “The Concept of a Self-Reflexive Intertextuality in the Works of Umberto Eco.” Primier also has a background in editing, having founded Transverse: a Comparative Studies Journal, where she served as chief editor and designer. She has contributed her time as Vice-President and social representative of the Comparative Literature Student Union, and has developed chaired and lectured at various conferences.Categories: Colloquia - Cristina Santos, SCLA Graduate Program Coordinator
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Music, Image and Silence — Studies in Comparative Literatures and the Arts Colloquium 2012
March 2, 2012
’Stirring’ Rests: Musico-Philosophical Silence in Henry and William James and Elizabeth Bishop (podcast)
May Peckham is a Ph. D. candidate in English at Washington University in St. Louis, working in the field of transatlantic modernism. She is interested in the ways music of the modernist era encourages productive techniques of auditory attunement, and locates similar sonic insistences in the texts of William and Henry James, Gertrude Stein, and a constellation of Harlem Renaissance authors.How to Write Silence (podcast)
David Griffin is an Instructor at the Ontario College of Art and Design where his areas of expertise are Painting, Drawing and Sound. He received his Ph. D. at The Glasgow School of Art, his MFA at The Pratt Institute, in Brooklyn, NY and his BFA at the Parsons School of Design in NYC. He has also received numerous awards: First Prize, Archives of the Government of Ontario (2003); Celebration of Ontario Artists, John B. Aird Gallery, Toronto ON.Introducing the Painter/Composer M.K Ciurlionis (podcast)
Greta Berman was a Chester Dale Fellow at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, N.Y.C., from 1979-80. Author of The Lost Years: Mural Painting in New York City Under the Works Progress Administration’s Federal Art Project, 1935-1943 (1978), she has co-organized exhibitions of American Realist art in West Berlin, 1980-81. She is a specialist in 19th- and 20th-century American and European paintings and in interrelationship between music and the visual arts. She taught art history at SUNY-Stony Brook from 1970-79 and has been a faculty member at the Juilliard School since 1979.Painted Sounds: Charles E. Burchfield’s Synesthetic Sensibilities (podcast)
Nancy Weekly is Head of Collections for the Burchfield Penney Art Centre at Buffalo State College, where she is also the Charles Carey Rumsey Curator. Three of her publications include: Charles E. Burchfield: The Sacred Woods (2010); Sensory Crossovers: Synesthesia in American Art Sharyn R. Udall (Author), Nancy Weekly (Contributor) (2010); Anne Currier: Sculptures. Nancy Weekly, Mary McInnes and Helen W. Drutt English (2006).Categories: Colloquia
