Steven Hamelin received his undergraduate degree from the University of Toronto in History and International Relations and is an MA candidate in History at Brock University. His current research focus is on Indigenous Allies post-1812 and the Indian department. He also teaches the History of Rock and Roll at Niagara College.

“Finding Richardson”

Major John Richardson—a veteran, novelist, and early historian of the War of 1812—has a complicated legacy. He has been heralded as Canada’s first great novelist, with an unparalleled insight into Indigenous culture, and lambasted as a literary hack and purveyor of Indigenous stereotypes. His writing tests the boundaries between historical fiction and scholarship; historical actors, such as Tecumseh, appear in both his fiction and his historical writing, and he has been heavily cited by popular historian Pierre Berton. Yet historians are divided on his legacy. Some see his writing as promoting coexistence between the former allies and settlers. Others see his work as perpetuating the civilization/savage dichotomy. Further complicating matters is Richardson’s contested Indigenous ancestry. In this paper I examine the writings of and response to Richardson and what it reveals about the attitude towards Indigenous allies by Canadians. At times of instability in the colonies, Indigenous allies were a welcome political bulwark or military force. At times of national unity, they were a relic of the past, savages, or a nuisance, that needed to be othered, ignored, and assimilated out of the equation.

Brendan Holk (he/him) is an Undergraduate student studying English Language and Literature at Brock University. His research interests center heavily around social issues and the social power structures that support them, most often analyzing texts using anti-capitalist and feminist critical theory in an attempt to understand and explain how and why social issues occur.

“The Poppy and the Rhetoric of Service that Promotes Nationalism”

This paper analyzes and explains how the Remembrance poppy as an object of rhetoric works to create/reinforce a narrative that effectively promotes a nationalist belief in the moral righteousness of Canada and its military. I analyze the Remembrance poppy as a singular object and as a symbol rooted in discourse, examining a news article, the website of a charity, and information presented by the Government of Canada website. Using these three points of discourse I analyze the rhetoric surrounding the poppy and find a common reference to “service” in all three, and this rhetoric implies that the Canadian soldiers who died fighting deserve to be remembered because they served Canada, effectively erasing any context surrounding the “service” of soldiers in favor of a narrative that promotes a nationalist ideology. This then connects to the inherently nationalist belief that Canada is worth serving as an abstract entity for reasons that are also abstract, which effectively encourages people to unquestioningly and uncritically believe the narrative that the poppy perpetuates. I include in my analysis, an idea from Bonnie Honig’s Democracy and The Foreigner, as well as further critiques of the symbolism of the Remembrance poppy and the narrative of service that it tells to promote a nationalist ideology that would have people believe in the “inherent goodness” of Canada and the people who “serve” it.

Joshua Manitowabi (BA McMaster University, MA McMaster University, PhD ABD Brock University) is an assistant professor of Indigenous history. Josh’s scholarship interests are directed toward providing historical evidence for attaining equity in treaty interpretation and in economics, education, and healthcare. His interests also include using ethnohistory, critical cartography and Indigenous mapping in a re-examination of Pontiac’s War, the 1764 Treaty of Niagara, Indigenous participation in the War of 1812, and Indigenous peoples’ political movements that organized in opposition to European colonialism during the 18th century. Josh is a Potawatomi, Bear clan, member of the Wikwemikong Unceded First Nation. He is the recipient of several awards. Among them are the Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Award, Bluma Appel Award Scholarship, and the Harvey Longboat Major Scholarship. He is a past member of the Aboriginal Research Advisory Circle, and the President’s Advisory Committee on Human Rights, Equity, and Decolonization at Brock University.

“Mapping Anishinaabe Kendaaswin: Land, Truth, and Treaties through Oral History”

Maps have traditionally been used to situate a people in a spatial area to graphically represent aspects of their culture. However, historical cartography had colonialist biases and misrepresented Indigenous peoples’ views of their territory, their cultural knowledge, and their histories. Colonial mapping in general has often portrayed Anishinaabe people as static and uncivilized and thus distorted their traditional territory as empty landscapes that were available for occupation. This served the interests of colonial powers as these lands were then acquired through European/Indigenous treaty relations.  Treaties with Indigenous peoples have been misrepresented in this same context, as nation to nation relationships that no longer evolve. How can critical cartography demonstrate and visually represent the ongoing treaty relationships which are in constant flux? Treaties with people, animals, plants, and water creatures are embedded within Anishinaabe oral history (diibaajmowin). This presentation will envision how decolonial mapping can portray treaty relations with the land, water and sky through the Dish with One Spoon Wampum Treaty. It will also demonstrate through storytelling how Anishinaabe occupancy of Odawa Mnis is ongoing. I will examine interactive mapping for its potential to address the limitations of static mapping in presenting an accurate Anishinaabe perspective. I will examine mapping strategies that incorporate traditional ways of imparting knowledge, such as storytelling and oral history. From the user’s perspective, this type of modern technology for constructing digital maps can offer alternative perspectives of Indigenous cultural representations while simultaneously providing new insights within contested areas of space between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples.

Liao Zixuan (she/her) is a first-year PhD student in Interdisciplinary Humanities at Brock University. Her research interests span a range of interdisciplinary fields, including image studies, feminist theory, psychoanalysis, phenomenology, and semiotics. Her doctoral project is dedicated to exploring the representation of the mother-daughter relationship in artworks created by female artists. This research also seeks to influence societal perceptions of motherhood, family dynamics, and gender roles beyond academia.

“Image Narrative of Identity: Louise Bourgeois’ Spider Images and Unconscious Desire“

Numerous narrative studies have delved into the realms of literature and film, closely tied to discourse. However, static images, from a semiotic perspective, serve image narrative beyond discourse. Images produce meanings surpassing linguistic expression through formal elements, such as shape, line, and color, warranting an examination of narrative within visual art. Scholars (Kristeva, 1980; Bal and Bryson, 1991; Pollock, 2007) support this notion, suggesting that images’ formal structures unveil the process of identity formation and unconscious. Louise Joséphine Bourgeois (1991-2010), widely regarded as one of the greatest artists of the 20th century, is most renowned for her iconic spider sculpture, Maman (1999). She drew an analogue between her mother and the spider and explored this theme consistently across diverse artistic media over her illustrious sixty-year career. By shedding light on intimate and often overlooked aspects of personal experience, Bourgeois contributes to a more reflective representation of women’s narratives and self-identification. This presentation adopts Lacan’s formula for fantasy “$◇a” as a theoretical framework and employs formal analysis to examine the correlation between Louise Bourgeois’ spider images and her unconscious desire. After categorizing all spider images into three stages and fully depicting representative works in each phase, this research reveals that spatial transformation plays a pivotal role in the three-stage development. By innovatively linking spider-cobweb imagery to the mother-family metaphor and analyzing spatial structures, this research unveils Bourgeois’ narrative motivation. Notably, the disarrayed cobwebs symbolize her perception of her mother’s failure in managing their family. Applying the formula “$◇a” reveals her unconscious desire projected onto spider images, illustrating Bourgeois’ intention to surpass the fantasy of her mother and the construction of her identity as a daughter. This presentation employs interdisciplinary methodologies—image studies, psychoanalysis, feminist perspectives, and semiotics—to unravel the nuanced narrative within Bourgeois’ spider images, offering insights into her unconscious desire and identity construction.

Miranda (she/they) is enrolled in Brock University’s MA in Classics, in the Art and Archaeology stream. Her current research interests include the Roman household material culture, the visual representation of different cultures in Roman houses, and accessibility in curatorial practices focusing on classical objects. She attended Mount Allison University in Sackville, NB for her undergraduate degree, where she received a BA with Honors in Visual and Material Culture Studies with a Major in Classical Studies in May 2023. Her undergraduate thesis focused on the analysis and contextualization of a catalogue of unpublished small finds from the Sanctuary of Venus at Pompeii.

“The Small Finds from the Sanctuary of Venus at Pompeii”

Atop an artificial terrace near the fortification walls in the southwest corner of the city of Pompeii sits the remains of the Sanctuary of Venus. Overlooking the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and backing onto the Via Marina to the north, the sanctuary was in a location fit for the patron divinity of the Roman city. The dedication of the city to Venus likely happened after the founding of the Sullan colony in 80 BCE, which acknowledged the special relationship the Roman general Sulla had with the Goddess Venus. The triporticus and axial temple, which was heavily damaged by an earthquake in 62 AD, were still under reconstruction when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD. Under the auspices of Pompeii Archaeological Park, archaeologists from the University of Missouri-Columbia and Mount Allison University have resumed the study of the Temple and Sanctuary of Venus. The main objective of the Venus Pompeiana Project is to clarify the original sanctuary’s date, extent, and internal organization, and the nature of the rituals that were conducted therein, detailing the primary transformation of the site from the original inhabited area to the Sanctuary that’s visible today. Over the last year, I have been examining the small finds that were recovered from the four seasons of excavation with the Venus Pompeiana Project, which features an assemblage of slingshot bullets likely dating to the Sullan siege of the city and a cistern used as a garbage pit during the construction of the Sanctuary. In total, the collection consists of 126 objects each with its own unique story. This research has helped in the resulting dating of the sanctuary to post-80 BCE. These results have important implications for the broader understanding of the topography of a crucial quadrant of Pompeii facing onto the Via Marina and in direct relationship with the Basilica. The findings also reveal cultural information about the people living in the area surrounding Pompeii before and after it became a Roman colony.

John Wilfred Bessai (he/him) is a Ph.D. candidate at Trent University, specializing in Canadian Studies. His research focuses on the intersection of digital media, public discourse, and identity formation, with a particular interest in the NFBC’s role in shaping societal narratives.

“Exploring Identity Narratives through NFBC’s Digital Projects”

This paper investigates the role of the National Film Board of Canada (NFBC) in shaping and interpreting identity narratives through its innovative media projects. In an era where digital media exerts significant influence, the NFBC stands out for its creative storytelling and approach to identity. Projects like “Biidaaban: First Light” and “The Orchid and the Bee” demonstrate digital media’s power in shaping personal and collective identities, demonstrating Canadian society’s diversity and complexity. The analysis will focus on the NFBC’s innovative storytelling methods within digital innovation landscapes, including social media and virtual reality. These projects contribute to the dialogue on identity by portraying Canadian society’s multifaceted nature, highlighting diverse communities and experiences. This research will also examine the influence of artificial intelligence (AI) in shaping human identity narratives and their challenges in interpreting these complex narratives in a recent NFBC project. This paper aims to elucidate the NFBC’s role at the intersection of art, technology, and public discourse. By examining how these media projects contribute to contemporary discussions of identity, I offer insights into the broader implications of evolving narratives for social justice, human rights, and historical understanding in a digital world.

Gregory Betts is a professor of Canadian and Avant-Garde Literature at in the Department of English Language & Literature at Brock University. His poetry books explore conceptual, collaborative, and concrete poetics, thinking about the limits of language. He performed at the Vancouver 2010 Olympics, as part of the Cultural Olympiad, and in The National Library of Ireland. He is the curator of the bpNichol.ca Digital Archive, author of eleven books of poetry and editor of nine volumes of experimental Canadian writing. He has also produced two of the most exhaustive academic studies of avant-garde writing in Canada, Avant-Garde Canadian Literature: The Early Manifestations (2013) and Finding Nothing: The VanGardes, 1959-1975. He has served as the President of the Association of Canadian College and University Teachers of English (ACCUTE), the Craig Dobbin Professor of Canadian Studies at University College Dublin, and the Chancellor’s Chair for Research Excellence at Brock University. His most recent books include Foundry (Ireland, 2021), a collection of visual poems inspired by a font named after a 15th century poet, and The Fabulous Op (Ireland, 2022), a collaborative epigenetic romp through the canon with Gary Barwin. ty.

In his short prose text “Waiting”, Canadian avant-gardist bpNichol directly addresses the reader in the moment of their reading. “You,” he writes, “turn the page & i am here”. The i-subject is the personification of the text in the moment that it is being read: “my existence begins as you turn the pages & begin to read me”. Using the methodologies of Object Oriented Ontology, this paper will consider Nichol’s remarkable exhumation of the I as site of discursive production, as a choreographic ontology (to borrow from Haraway), and as a material residue—literally, the stroke of ink upon the page. He catalogues the properties of the idea of the speaker in a text but does so in a manner that disembodies the language of the author such that the text is given to have its own elusive darkness. If the “I” of a text can be so easily dissociated from the one who writes “I”, as Nichol’s text implies, then language might function as a medium through which we build the story of ourselves but yet retain its own objecthood completely separate from us, its users. Building from Nichol’s catalogue of properties, this paper will carry on his examination of the “i” function by presenting an ontography of the letter.

Long Hoang Vu (he/him) is a PhD student in Interdisciplinary Humanities at Brock University. His research interests encompass comparative giftedness and gifted education, discourse and agency, critical pedagogy, posthumanism, new materialism, and the ontological turn. He is also an author of several books in Vietnamese.

“Narrating Space: A Father-and-Son Duoethnographic Exploration of Vietnam’s Territory”

Drawing from the theories of narrating space/spatializing narrative (Ryan et al., 2016) and material-discursive (Barad, 2003), my presentation delves into the construction of Vietnam’s territory, which entangles both geographical and narrative dimensions. On a methodological level, the correspondence between geography and narrative is not articulated in the fashion of representationalism, in which stories represent an absolute geographical reality, but inspired by a Baradian theory of matter-meaning entanglement. With this methodology, I argue that through specific situations and practices, both stories and geographies are simultaneously constituted. This theoretical approach is situated within the circumstances of the nation-building of the Vietnamese, as manifested by cartography and oral literature. My duoethnographical practice with my father on his 7-day cycling journey from the North to the South of Vietnam will fulfill the objectives of my presentation. He documented his journey by means of photography and storytelling with family members and especially with his study-abroad son through telephone. Duoethnography, which involves the participation of researchers in a multi-dialectic process, illuminates “preconceived views about a particular theme or event and one’s narrative relationship to that theme or event” (Sawyer and Liggett, 2012, p. 629). The manner in which storytelling is “deeply affected by the spatial and temporal distance between storyteller or narrator and the audience for a story, as well as by whether or not they are located on the scene of the events” (p. 4) is illustrated through conversations between my father and I. Due to my father’s status as a middle-aged Northerner who experienced the final years of the Vietnam War, the expedition significantly influenced his perception of the nation with regard to developmentalism, national reconciliation, and spatial experience. Communicating with him remotely enables me, a Vietnamese studies researcher, to reestablish a connection with Vietnam that transcends theories and maps—through familial ties.

Philip Akoje, is an M.A. student in Studies in Comparative Literature and Arts and a Teaching Assistant at the Department of Dramatic Arts, Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts, Brock University. Before joining Brock University, Philip taught at the Department of Theatre Arts at Kogi State University, Anyigba, Nigeria. During his tenure at Kogi State University, Philip served in various capacities, demonstrating his passion for the craft through teaching, writing, and directing of plays. His current research interest is on the intersections of colonialism, postcolonialism, political theatre, and the representation of dramatic forms in masquerade performances in Ibaji, North Central Nigeria. His ongoing research endeavors promise to contribute insights to the fields of comparative literature and theatre studies, reflecting his dedication to advancing, sustaining indigenous knowledge and fostering a deeper understanding of the dynamic connections between culture, politics, economy, and performance.

“Narrative of identity through Masquerade Performance in Ibaji, North Central Nigeria”

Colonialism came with political, social, economic, and cultural interference with Indigenous identities, cultural values, and languages of the colonized societies. It also suppressed indigenous age grade, knowledge, gender roles, and significations. Frantz Fanon and Roberts Young describe these upheavals as inferiorization and disruptions of native identities, cultures, and civilizations. However, the Ibaji communities in the north-central part of Nigeria are known for masquerade performances, a representation of dramatic forms by age grades or interest groups. This dramatic form is deeply rooted in the cultural heritage of the people, despite postcolonial influences and its attendant interferences. Using postcolonial approaches, Ibaji masquerades serve as a form of narrative for Age grade groupings in Ibaji communities, transmission of Indigenous knowledge, values, and rituals across Indigenous generations for the sustainability of Igala cultural and artistic forms, and allocation of gender roles. The masquerade tradition in Ibaji functions as a powerful resistance to cultural erosion, maintaining the resilience of indigenous practices in the face of postcolonial challenges. By actively engaging in these performances, community members not only celebrate their cultural distinctiveness but also resist the threatening forces that accompany globalization. The masquerade performance serves as symbol of cultural autonomy and a mechanism for shaping the narrative of postcolonial identity within the communities. This dynamic performance advances a sense of continuity and belonging, reinforcing the importance of age-grade, the dynamic of gender roles, semiotics, signification, and the narrative of identity within the Igala ethnic group. In this presentation, I will be discussing the representation of drama in masquerade performances in Ibaji, and how it is intersected with narrative of age grade, gender, and Igala identities.

My name is Alia Wazzan. My pronouns are she/her. I am a PhD candidate in the Interdisciplinary Humanities PhD Program at Brock University. As a female Muslim scholar, my research is a postcolonial feminist discursive analysis of media representations of Muslim women.

“Muslim Women’s Scholarship: Discursive Decolonization of Human/Women’s Rights”

This paper aims to offer Western academic learners a more nuanced understanding of Muslim women’s discursive representation from within Muslim bodies of knowledge rather than Western colonial epistemological structures of domination and resistance, which, in turn, pushes toward de-Othering Muslim women. The first part of the paper considers the meaning and implications of what Muslim feminist scholars call “Colonial Feminism,” which is defined as “feminism as used against other cultures in the service of colonialism” (Ahmed, 151). The presentation includes examples from Afghanistan, Iraq, and Palestine to elaborate on the unfolding of “Colonial Feminism” as a racialized, gendered, and Othering discourse that has accompanied Western colonial missions to establish a construct of Muslim women as oppressed by their religion, cultures, and men and who need to be “saved” by Western colonial/imperial forces. “Saving” “oppressed” Muslim women is a Western patriarchal supremacist policy to silence feminism in the West by outsourcing accusations of misogyny to the land of Muslims. I will then introduce the broad, interdisciplinary term Muslim Women’s Scholarship, a term that I have coined to gather subversive counter-narratives drawn by some Muslim women scholars to decolonize “Colonial Feminism.” For this purpose, the paper presents the following decolonial narratives/tools that can be discerned in Muslim Women’s Scholarship: de-binarizing the Manichean logic that structures Western colonial voyeuristic and capitalist definitions of femininity; introducing a non-Western, non-liberal (yet agential), and religious approach to women’s liberation; debunking the myth of democracy, rational and critical thinking, human rights, social justice, and gender equality as being the property of the West; and detaching culture from the stigmas of being naturally oppressive. I hope and work toward the acknowledgement and incorporation of Muslim Women’s Scholarship as a non-Western feminist epistemology into Humanities’ approaches to feminist struggles as a co-epistemology rather than an inferior one.

Julie Gemuend is a practicing artist and a Ph.D. candidate in the Interdisciplinary Humanities program at Brock University. Her doctoral project embraces research-creation, an experimental site where art practice, theoretical concepts, and research coalesce to form new dimensions of knowledge.

“Becoming World: Re-Imaging the Material Self”

My paper seeks to reconceptualize the materiality of the human body and its entanglement with the physical world. In her book Bodily Natures, Stacy Alaimo defines “trans-corporeality” as the movement of matter across and within bodies and nature, positing humans as inseparable from the environment—both natural and human-made. Trans-corporeality counters the pervasive Western assumption that humans are apart and above nature, the environment, and other material substances by disclosing the Anthropocene subject as immersed in the world, co-evolving with and constituted by the nonhuman—by otherness. My paper harnesses trans-corporeality to broaden perspectives on what it is to be human—and not only human—by investigating how we might think differently about ourselves as a constellation of identities and otherness extending across time and space, through networks and webs both real and imagined in all our grave and marvellous plurality and difference. Alternative understandings that accentuate the active, emergent aspects of nature and generate an attitude of concern, care, and kinship are necessary as we face the social and ecological devastation that accompanies the Anthropocene, an era shaped by human activity. My paper recasts the roles of “human” and “nature” by offering various evocation of trans-corporeality across the arts. I will connect stories that probe how our world takes up residence in the body and weave together a narrative of entanglement through the lens of hypersensitivity. Acutely aware of the interchanges across bodies and environments, hypersensitive beings are thin-skinned, exceedingly responsive and thus particularly attuned to the trans-corporeal movements that make and unmake us. My paper offers a necessary reconceptualization of what humans are and might become by engaging the hypersensitive body as an imaginative intervention that represents embodiment as porous, co-composed, and positively vulnerable. Analogous to such figurations as Rosi Braidotti’s “posthuman” or Astrida Neimanis’ “bodies of water,” my inquiry will provide creative engagement with the difficult question of how we should transform the ways we live and explore the role art can play in shaping new conceptions of the human.

Claire Thyne (She/Her) is an MA English student at Brock University. Her research interests include ecofeminism, posthumanism, speculative fiction, and young people’s literature. Claire is a Graduate Affiliate Member with the Posthumanism Research Institute at Brock University.

“Probing Positions and Planets: Encountering the Alien in Vandana Singh’s ‘The Woman Who Thought She Was a Planet’”

Vandana Singh’s genre-defying short story, “The Woman Who Thought She Was a Planet,” allows for theoretical examinations which transcend humanist notions given it’s textual depictions of and between human, alien, and nonhuman figures. This paper will explore Singh’s text to challenge the separation of these three figures in relation to identity formation. I offer an interpretation of identity as a complex collection of the human, the alien, and the nonhuman that, despite ontological differences, coexist. Informed by Bernhard Waldenfels’s Phenomenology of the Alien, I locate the identifiable positions of the characters within Singh’s text to reveal the ways in which such positions mediate interactions among human beings, alien figures, and nonhuman objects. Further, my textual analysis moves beyond the ontological bases of humanism, namely the reductive understanding of humans as exceptional and therefore uniquely autonomous beings, with guidance from Ian Bogost’s Alien Phenomenology, or What It’s Like To Be a Thing. I connect the insights granted by Waldenfels’s and Bogost’s phenomenological frameworks to grant agency to the subversive and strange—the alien and the nonhuman—while troubling the illusory understanding of human identity as entirely human. According to Waldenfels, “[t]hat which exists in such a way as to escape our access, we designate as alien” (71). Given the fragility of identity as an ever-changing, limited/limiting construct, I propose that all identity, in one way or another, escapes our access and is therefore always alien. Working through Singh’s “The Woman Who Thought She Was a Planet” and the theoretical frameworks of alien phenomenology and object-oriented ontology, I hope to reveal the conceptual possibilities afforded by an expansive, albeit strange, understanding of identity.

Daniel Belanger (he/him) is a 1st year MA student in the department of Classics and Archaeology, Text and Culture Specialization. His research focuses on the description of veterinary medicine in Columella’s De Re Rustica and seeks to investigate the underlying cultural assumptions that give rise to these descriptions.

“Hepatitis Bee: The Influence of Roman Culture on their Understanding of Bee Disease”

Ecocriticism offers a unique perspective in literary analysis, focusing on the interplay between literature, culture, and the physical environment. Through an ecocritical lens, a farming manual is not just a practical guide to learn how to care for plants and animals, but a reflection of the author’s identity and their relationship with nature. The goal of this paper is to take an ecocritical approach in exploring Roman texts on beekeeping, focusing on how narratives about bee diseases and their treatments reflect Roman identity. This paper investigates Roman agricultural works by Virgil, Pliny the Elder, and Columella, documenting bee diseases and their treatments as described by these authors. These are then compared to the descriptions of other animal diseases and their associated remedies that are found in the same texts as well as to human diseases as described by the Greek physician Galen. An analysis of these findings indicates an association between the perceived intelligence of non- human species and the types of ailments from which they are likely to suffer as well as what course of treatment is appropriate. Of particular note is the focus on psychological health, such as bees being described as suffering from depression, which although a clear misattribution, nonetheless provides insights into the Roman understanding of mental health. This study concludes that Roman narratives on beekeeping, examined through an ecocritical lens, provide valuable insights into their conceptualization of species, disease, and self. This approach highlights the importance of human identity in shaping the narratives we create to understand the natural world.