{"id":64,"date":"2015-02-24T15:41:24","date_gmt":"2015-02-24T20:41:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/conference.complit.utoronto.ca\/?page_id=64"},"modified":"2017-02-28T15:23:47","modified_gmt":"2017-02-28T20:23:47","slug":"paper-abstracts","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/conference.complit.utoronto.ca\/canada\/paper-abstracts\/","title":{"rendered":"Paper abstracts \/ R\u00e9sum\u00e9s de pr\u00e9sentations"},"content":{"rendered":"

Canada and the World \/ Canada dans le monde
\n<\/strong><\/h4>\n

\u201cThe people of Canada understand me\u201d: V\u00e1clav Havel\u2019s Drama of Language on the Canadian Stage
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

In October 2016 the Czech Republic commemorated the 80th anniversary of the birth of former playwright-turned president V\u00e1clav Havel, whom the Canadian National Post called \u201cthe Czech who unleashed the tides of history.\u201d On the occasion, the public debate reflected surprisingly little upon Havel\u2019s work as a dramatist, and the signification of his plays in the context of international theatre. However, it is, among other places, in Canada where V\u00e1clav Havel\u2019s dramas and reflections on theatre have found a welcoming home and understanding \u2013 implied in his own appreciative remark to Governor General David Johnston after being named an honorary Companion to the Order of Canada in 2004, saying that: \u201cThe people of Canada understand me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite the obvious differences between the cultural contexts of Central Europe and Canada, Havel\u2019s plays, typically formally humble, small-scale dramas evading the standard genre categories, have resonated on Canadian theatre stages with gratifying efficacy, and appealed thanks not only to their complex moral force, but also with their use of language, marked with a sense of dispassionate humour, self-irony and absurdity. The paper proposes to analyse the translations of Havel\u2019s plays by his prominent translator, Canadian Paul Wilson, demonstrate the intricate process of cultural transfer within them, and discuss the impact of their theatre productions upon Canadian audiences, with the aim to identify Havel\u2019s place in Canadian theatre, and his possible influence upon its contemporary characteristics.<\/p>\n

Kl\u00e1ra Kolinsk\u00e1<\/strong><\/span> teaches at the Department of Anglophone Studies of Metropolitan University, Prague, Czech Republic, and at the Department of Anglophone Literatures and Cultures of Charles University, Prague. Her main areas of teaching and research include early and contemporary Canadian fiction, theatre and drama, multiculturalism, and Aboriginal literature and theatre.<\/p>\n

Au-del\u00e0 des \u00ab Deux Solitudes \u00bb : La Ground Zero Fiction canadienne dans le contexte international<\/span><\/p>\n

Le Canada a profond\u00e9ment \u00e9t\u00e9 touch\u00e9 par les \u00e9v\u00e9nements du 11 septembre 2001, et ce, autant dans les sph\u00e8res politique et \u00e9conomique que sociale et culturelle. N\u00e9anmoins, l\u2019\u00e9tude des r\u00e9actions litt\u00e9raires canadiennes \u2014 anglophones et francophones \u2014 suite \u00e0 ce que l\u2019on a\u00a0 surnomm\u00e9 le 9\/11, semble avoir \u00e9t\u00e9 plut\u00f4t n\u00e9glig\u00e9e par la recherche scientifique. Dans une perspective comparative, le but de ma recherche est d\u2019abord de cerner et d\u2019analyser ces r\u00e9actions litt\u00e9raires au Canada francophone et anglophone, puis, dans une perspective transnationale, de les comparer \u00e0 la litt\u00e9rature sur le 11 septembre aux \u00c9tats-Unis. Mon projet\u00a0 prend en consid\u00e9ration deux corpus de textes : un premier corpus comprenant les \u00e9crits qui ont suivi imm\u00e9diatement les \u00e9v\u00e9nements du 11 septembre, puis un deuxi\u00e8me corpus comprenant ceux qui sont parus \u00e0 partir de 2006 jusqu\u2019\u00e0 aujourd\u2019hui.<\/p>\n

Apr\u00e8s une br\u00e8ve pr\u00e9sentation du corpus canadien, le but sera d\u2019examiner et de comparer certains \u00e9l\u00e9ments dans les productions litt\u00e9raires qu\u00e9b\u00e9coises de langue fran\u00e7aise (entre autre, Roch Carrier et Annie Dulong) et canadiennes de langue anglaise (Margaret Atwood et Shauna Singh Baldwin) en explorant, d\u2019une part, les particularit\u00e9s de la fictionalisation du\u00a0 9\/11, et, de l\u2019autre, la fa\u00e7on dont le trauma collectif (et individuel) li\u00e9 au 11 septembre est refl\u00e9t\u00e9 dans la repr\u00e9sentation esth\u00e9tique des \u0153uvres \u00e9tudi\u00e9es. La derni\u00e8re partie de cette analyse aura pour but de situer ces productions litt\u00e9raires canadiennes dans un cadre plus large : de quelle fa\u00e7on s\u2019inscrivent-elles dans un contexte international, 15 ans apr\u00e8s les\u00a0 attentats du onze septembre ?<\/p>\n

Diane B\u00e9lisle-Wolf<\/span><\/strong>: Born in Canada. McGill University, B Ed. Johannes Gutenberg-Universit\u00e4t, M.A., and PhD project: \u201cLiterary Reactions to 9\/11 in Francophone and Anglophone Canadian and American Literature\u201d, adviser, Univ. Prof. Dr. Alfred Hornung. Other areas of interest: French and Francophone Literature (Quebec), Comparative North American Studies, U.S. – Canada Border Studies. Member Deutsch-Franz\u00f6sisches Doktorandenkolleg Mainz-Dijon.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In the Eyes of the Chinese: Translating Canada through Japanese Mediation (1906-1919)<\/span><\/p>\n

A large body of knowledge about the \u2018West\u2019 in modern China was translated from Japanese works into Chinese during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This paper studies the implications of Japanese mediation on the imagined journeys about Canada in two works published in twentieth-century Shanghai. Studying a novel by Jules Verne (1828-1905) and a travelogue by Masaharu Anesaki (1873-1949) in Chinese translation, the author examines how the distorted portrayal of Canada was formed in the Chinese literary space at the expense of ignoring the historical and material reality of Chinese ethnic individuals in Canada in the same era. This paper thus asks: How was \u201cCanada\u201d in Chinese textual culture rendered and affected by Japanese mediation? And how can these multi-cultural minor texts redefine the boundaries of \u201cCanadian literature\u201d?<\/p>\n

Jennifer Lau<\/span><\/strong> studied English Literature and East Asian Studies as an undergraduate at the University of Toronto (2009) and went on to pursue her Master\u2019s degree at the National Taiwan University in 2010. Following her interest in issues of translation and travel, her dissertation focuses on Chinese and Canadian interactions of the nineteenth and twentieth century.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

Canada(s): Diaspora and Hybridity \/ Diaspora et hybridit\u00e9
\n<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Montr\u00e9al, carrefour identitaire : hybridit\u00e9 linguistique et culturelle dans les \u0153uvres de Heather O\u2019Neill et d\u2019Alexandre Soubli\u00e8re<\/span><\/p>\n

Ma pr\u00e9sentation consistera en l\u2019analyse des traces linguistiques de l\u2019identit\u00e9 montr\u00e9alaise hybride dans les romans de deux auteurs montr\u00e9alais contemporains : le francophone Alexandre Soubli\u00e8re (Amanita Virosa<\/em>, 2016) et l’anglophone Heather O\u2019Neill (The Girl Who Was Saturday Night<\/em>, 2014). Tous deux font fr\u00e9quemment appel aux ressources de leur deuxi\u00e8me langue pour exprimer une identit\u00e9 complexe et m\u00e9tiss\u00e9e qui repose sur les rapports entre l\u2019anglais et le fran\u00e7ais \u00e0 Montr\u00e9al. Ma pr\u00e9sentation montrera comment, en faisant recours \u00e0 une langue hybride, les deux auteurs offrent une repr\u00e9sentation de la r\u00e9alit\u00e9 identitaire montr\u00e9alaise actuelle et proposent un rapprochement des soi-disant solitudes canadiennes en juxtaposant l\u2019anglais et le fran\u00e7ais. Mon analyse aura pour assises th\u00e9oriques les \u00e9crits de Homi Bhabha sur l\u2019hybridit\u00e9 culturelle (1994), ceux de Sherry Simon sur la ville de Montr\u00e9al (2006), ainsi que l\u2019ouvrage de Catherine Leclerc, Des langues en partage : Cohabitation du fran\u00e7ais et de l’anglais en litt\u00e9rature contemporaine<\/em> (2010).<\/p>\n

\u00c9tudiante en litt\u00e9rature compar\u00e9e \u00e0 l\u2019Universit\u00e9 de Toronto, Arianne Des Rochers<\/strong><\/span> d\u00e9tient un baccalaur\u00e9at en traduction de l\u2019Universit\u00e9 Concordia et une ma\u00eetrise en traduction litt\u00e9raire de l’Universit\u00e9 d’Ottawa. Elle s\u2019int\u00e9resse au m\u00e9tissage linguistique en litt\u00e9rature ainsi qu\u2019\u00e0 la fa\u00e7on dont il appara\u00eet en traduction.<\/p>\n

At the Cusp of a Literary Revolution: \u201cVlogging\u201d and the Canadian Diasporic Experience
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

Youtube performer Lilly Singh\u2019s \u201cvlogs\u201d are short, humorous videos in which she explores the highs and lows of her daily experience as a South-Asian Canadian diasporic subject in Toronto. My paper uses these virtual literary objects as entry points into broader questions of identity, belonging, and the impact of technology on contemporary human experience. From a narrative point of view, Singh\u2019s videos consist of three distinct roles (Singh herself, her mother and her father); however, the visual and auditory dimensions of the media make it clear that the person enacting them is one and the same. What is the significance of Singh\u2019s use of the same person (herself) to enact the daily life of a first-generation Torontonian, as well as that of her immigrant parents from Punjab? How do these \u201cvlogs\u201d complicate South Asian-Canadian diasporic experience in a way unique to the medium? In what ways can we think of Singh\u2019s performance as nourishing new conceptualizations of the \u201caccent\u201d as a way of problematizing linguistic belonging? How do considerations of gender, sexuality, religion and race intersect within these works, especially when juxtaposed to other South Asian-Canadian \u201cvlogs\u201d in the same vein, for example those by vloggers Sham Idrees and Zaid Ali? How does the distinct experience of time and space inherent to the social-media diffused video, compounded by Singh\u2019s seamless context- and code-switching, create a narrative that (aspires to) belongs to multiple words at once but suffers none of the limits imposed upon each of them individually?<\/p>\n

Nikhita Obeegadoo<\/span><\/strong> is a doctoral student in French in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures at Harvard University. Her research focuses on contemporary diaspora and migration, theories of hybridity and interculturality, and the digital humanities. She holds a B.S in Computer Science and a B.A in Comparative Literature from Stanford University.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

Canada as Kanata: Indigeneity and Decolonization<\/h4>\n

Absent Indian: Revisiting Asian-Indigenous Relations
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

Rita Wong\u2019s 2008 essay, \u201cDecolonizasian,\u201d raises the possibility of reading Canadian literature for decolonial alliances between Indigenous peoples and those marked as Asian Canadian. More recently, Larissa Lai has theorized this approach as \u201cepistemologies of respect,\u201d which aim to restore balance to relationships between peoples and with the land. Both writers draw on the example of relationships between Chinese Canadian characters and the Indigenous woman narrator of \u201cYin Chin,\u201d a short story by St\u00f3:l\u014d author Lee Maracle. Neither, however, examines the moment in the story when the narrator is misrecognized as a South Asian woman. I will take up this moment of misrecognition to explore what emerging conversations about Asian-Indigenous relations might gain through attention to South Asian and South Asian Canadian histories. Alongside \u201cYin Chin,\u201d I will read descriptions of South Asian spices and Indian buffets in Birdie, the first novel of Cree writer Tracey Lindberg. My reading of these two texts will foreground their allusions to the intertwined origins of colonial rule in South Asia and the land we know as Canada, a history underlying the use of \u201cIndian\u201d as a legal category in Canada. In the context of renewed calls for Canada to reckon with its enduring colonial realities, I will consider what it might look like to read Asian-Indigenous relations transnationally, beyond the boundaries of the Canadian nation-state.<\/p>\n

Rusaba Alam<\/span><\/strong> is an M.A. candidate in English at the University of British Columbia. She completed her B.A. at Victoria College (University of Toronto).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

E. Pauline Johnson\u2019s \u201cCanada\u201d
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

E. Pauline Johnson, born shortly before Canadian Confederation in 1861 in Ontario, performed onstage throughout Canada and the United Kingdom for many years as Tekahionwake. Her mother was English, and her father a Mohawk chief; as such, Johnson was qualified for neither Mohawk status nor English citizenship. Johnson\u2019s poetry, where she skilfully employed classical European techniques to depict rural Canadian and Indigenous experiences, was successful both onstage and in print. On stage, Johnson would transform from the epitome of a fashionable Victorian lady to a buckskin-wearing poet while her audiences revelled in the display. Her poetry enabled her to achieve fiscal stability for her family, and valuable political connections. The \u201cCanadian\u201d space(s) of Johnson\u2019s poetry and performance encompass violence and beauty. I will be considering questions of \u201cCanadian-ness\u201d vis-\u00e0-vis Johnson\u2019s legal status and publishing status, given that the term \u201cCanadian\u201d in itself tends to obscure colonial history.<\/p>\n

Arathana Bowes<\/span><\/strong>, born in Alberta and raised in Nova Scotia, is a Ph.D. candidate studying at the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures at the University of Toronto. Devoted to studies of 18th-century literature, specifically J.G. Herder\u2019s writings, Arathana enjoys reading in English, German, Spanish, and attempting to read in other languages.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cMoi, femme innue\u201d: Indigenous Women Writing in Quebec
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

Cynthia Wesley-Esquimaux states: \u201cFor generations, First Nations women\u2019s voices were silenced in historical narratives that sidestepped their influence and power. Today, First Nations women are increasingly using their voice to reclaim lost stories and narratives\u201d (2009, 20). Settler scholar Sarah Henzi supports this vision by pointing out that \u201cthe last fifteen years have seen an artistic and literary surge, and Aboriginal women have been at the forefront, maintaining storytelling traditions while providing the necessary \u2018update\u2019 to engage in dialogue with the contemporary world\u201d (2015, 87). This presentation seeks to explore how Indigenous women writers in Quebec use literary writing not only as a strategy of resistance against ongoing forms of colonialism and the inherent patriarchal structures, but more importantly as a strategy of empowerment of Indigenous women and communities\/nations. In light of the double marginalization of Indigenous women in Canada and the ongoing inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, it focuses on representations of the female Indigenous body, identity, and land in order to unveil the connection between violence against Indigenous women, land grabbing, and misogynistic settler colonialism. Works that will be studied include An Antane Kapesh\u2019s Eukuan nin matshimanitu innu-iskueu \/ Je suis une maudite Sauvagesse<\/em> (1975), Natasha Kanap\u00e9 Fontaine\u2019s Manifeste Assi<\/em> (2014), and Manon Nolin\u2019s Ma peau aime le Nord<\/em> (2016). Academic perspectives of female Indigenous scholars will be foregrounded in order to ethically engage these texts, to highlight Indigenous methodologies, and to reflect the shift towards anti-oppressive, decolonizing research methods.<\/p>\n

Jessica Janssen<\/strong><\/span> is a PhD candidate in Comparative Canadian Literature at Universit\u00e9 de\u00a0 Sherbrooke. Her project \u201cLanguage, Body, and Land: Indigenous Women Writers in Quebec\u201d\u00a0 involves a detailed comparative study of contemporary Indigenous women\u2019s literature in\u00a0 Quebec through the critical interpretation of spoken, written, and visual texts in dialogue with\u00a0 theories of Indigenous feminism and decolonization.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

Undergraduate panel<\/h4>\n

Adolescent Goals and Protests: The Role of Canadian Regionalism in a Coming-of-Age Drama New Waterford Girl<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

In my presentation on Adolescent Goals and Protests and the Role of Canadian Regionalism in a Coming-of-Age Drama New Waterford Girl<\/em> I strive to produce a nuanced and compelling account on the relationship between the fluctuating notion of Canadian identity and the turbulent stage of adolescence. To support my discussion I will be relying primarily on Frye, Rummens, Leach and Kaye\u2019s arguments, as well as the themes that director Allan Moyle explored in the film itself. Although the narrative of this fifteen year old protagonist Mooney is quite conventional for most North American audiences, namely a small-town girl wishing to pursue a career in New York against her family\u2019s wishes, I hope to highlight its uniqueness that pertains to the Maritimes environment. The role of the marine landscape is crucial not only to the film\u2019s general setting and mise-en-scene, but to the discourse of Canadian regional identity politics as discussed by Alexander Macleod. In this presentation I will be aiming at exposing new perspectives on individual and collective experiences in this Nova-Scotian community, as depicted in the film, rather than attempting to compare it with similar American productions. Finally, although the film was released eighteen years ago in 1999, I hope to generate insightful points on Canadian regionalism relevant today in both cinematic and other cultural texts.<\/p>\n

Lola Borissenko<\/span><\/strong> is a fourth year student Double-Majoring in Cinema studies and English and Minoring in History. Her scholarly passions constitute an interest in post-modernism, 20th Century World History and the role of formal structure in literary and cinematic texts. She also plays tennis on the Varsity Blues team and enjoys painting.<\/p>\n

Identity Creation in the Age of Political Expediency: Muslim, Canadian, or Muslim Canadian?<\/span><\/p>\n

In 1965, the Muslim Students\u2019 Association at the University of Toronto was the first MSA established in Canada. Growing to serve over 4000 students and community members around the city, it is the largest and most active student club on campus. Half a century later, MSAs provide an alternative social scene at almost every major university across the country, fostering a community of active and educated youth, while acting as the bedrock for further activism within the Muslim community.<\/p>\n

At the intersection of spirituality and civic engagement, academia and entertainment, MSAs seek to foster a sense of belonging for students who identify as Muslim and Canadian. Bridging the divide between political body and individual experience, these organizations protect, encourage, de-politicize, and humanize the Muslim presence on university campuses, and through their alumni, within the larger Canadian context.<\/p>\n

This paper seeks to unpack the complexities of immigration, diaspora, language barrier, and political trauma within the fabric of the Muslim community through MSAs, and the ways in which Canadian spaces, safe though they may be, pose the same threat to Muslims as Portia and the Venetian judicial system did to Shylock: to see them as \u201calien\/that by direct, or indirect, attempts [seek] the life of any citizen\u201d (4.1.345-347). By analyzing socio-political landscape in \u201cThe Merchant of Venice,\u201d we seek to underline the various factors that created the anger that exudes Shylock\u2019s character and point to a larger and more cyclical pattern of victimhood and political subjugation portrayed as divinely justified punishment. Through these avenues we strive to create a platform to discuss the same patters of socio-political manipulation and subjugation to separate and other the Muslim body and discuss the ways in which Muslim social groups strive to normalize themselves. We ask three questions: When do Muslims cease to be politicized others? When do Canadian citizens of the Muslim faith become Canadian first? What role do MSAs play in that endeavour?<\/p>\n

Amina Mohamed<\/span><\/strong> is a Muslim writer, poet and researcher investigating the ties between political terminology and subsequent individual identity creation.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

A Sorry State
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

My discussion of the “Canadian Sorry” pertains to the (ab)use of the word “sorry” as a sort of shibboleth vital to the consolidation of Canadian identity. After considering its features, ironies, impasses, and so on, I consider the unapologetic and the apologized-to: indigenous Canadians, as well as what I term “the inconvenient immigrant” with reference to the work of Rawi Hage. I explicate the work of Derrida (Avouer – l’impossible; On Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness) and Rebecca Comay (“Terrors of the Tabula Rasa” in Mourning Sickness) on the (im)possibility of forgiveness and the Nachtr\u00e4glichkeit of apology. I examine several essays by Barbara Cassin in her book Sophistical Practice which discuss stasis and her work on South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and discuss the relation and parallels between South African apartheid and the Canadian Native Reserve system. I return to Patrick Wolfe and critique Erin Manning’s book Ephemeral Territories as paradigmatic of liberal ideology (with recourse to Zizek). I then move to a discussion of Glen Coulthard’s Red Skin, White Masks, and the ongoing debate between Barbara Cassin and Alain Badiou. I question Badiou’s diminution of evental status of the Oka Crisis in his book Being and Event II: Logics of Worlds, and suggest that indigenous resurgence in Canada constitutes an event. I conclude by suggesting that if the event makes the impossible possible then it it may suggest the (im)possibility of reconciliation lies in the end of Canada.<\/p>\n

Taylor Ableman<\/span><\/strong> is an undergraduate at the University of Toronto, specializing in Literature and Critical Theory and majoring in Philosophy.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

Performing (in) Canada<\/h4>\n

Can an insistent act of \u201cquixotism\u201d build public sphere?: Tony Nardi\u2019s \u201cTwo Letters\u2026 And Counting!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In my paper I will analyze Tony Nardi\u2019s critique of Canadian culture industry through his series of performances, which he acted live from 2005 to 2012. His performances found stages in Toronto and Montreal and he evolved the text through Q&A sessions that took place after each performance. Content of the performance was withdrawn from the real cases that offended Nardi as a professional actor in Canada. He actually wrote these letters to the people who offended him, but since he can got no answer back, he decided to make the issues public. The first letter he wrote is directed towards a middle-person who is offering an offensive Italian role to Nardi; the other to the art critique who wrote a criticism for a Comedia dell\u2019Arte play staged in Toronto, who picked up the only actress who knew what she was doing to label as \u201cunrealistic\u201d (when Comedia dell\u2019Arte and realism can only be an oxymoron). Finally the third letter is written to the bureaucrats who hold (and distribute) the arts\u2019 funding resources in Canada. Performance of the letters are stylized as semi-reading, semi-acting that has the gist of slam poetry\/spoken poetry. In my paper I will look deeper into how Nardi\u2019s work created a public and how this public engaged (or disengaged) with the letters based on the analysis of some of the debates that are documented in the printed version of \u201cTwo Letters\u2026 And Counting!\u201d.<\/p>\n

Deniz Ba\u015far<\/span><\/strong> is a doctoral student at the University of Toronto\u2019s Centre for Drama, Theatre, and Performance Studies. She has a Master\u2019s Degree in Modern Turkish History from Bo\u011fazi\u00e7i University with her graduation thesis named \u201cPerformative Publicness: Alternative Theater in Turkey After 2000s\u201d, and she had her Bachelor\u2019s Degree in Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University in Urban Planning.<\/p>\n

Besides Experience: Affinity & Maternity<\/span><\/p>\n

Besides Experience: Affinity & Maternity<\/i>\u00a0is a poetic performance in which I reflect on two notions of what I call \u201cunexperienced belonging\u201d (a term which gives experience back to what\u2019s unexperienced through the phantasmatic channels of cinematically mediated belonging). This performance works alongside two films: What Time Is It There? <\/i>by the Taiwanese filmmaker Tsai-Ming Liang and Mommy<\/i> by the Quebecois filmmaker Xavier Dolan. It first writes through the difficult passage of ostensibly \u201cbeing\u201d Chinese-Canadian\u2014my unchosen identity\u2014while becoming, through the fascination of spectatorship, Taiwanese-Quebecois\u2014a hyphenation with which I can hold an affinity without the burden of identity. Secondly, the performance sits with the scenes of motherhood depicted on screen. Without getting too Freudian about it, it suggests that, for the son, being-with the mother always means a transposition of mother onto child. What the performance will be fixated upon is how the son translates the mother\u2019s behaviours\u2014habits, vices, neuroses\u2014into his own idiom by reading a scene from What Time Is It There? <\/i>in which the son and mother argue over superstitions of ghosts and a scene form Mommy <\/i>in which son and mother argue over the son\u2019s delinquency alongside the endings of both films, in which mother and son merge into one another through cinematic palimpsest. I will be drawing on theories of queer motherhood by Roland Barthes and his critics. Against the notion of an essence of \u201cCanadian-ness,\u201d I will posit \u201cbeing Canadian\u201d as a contingent adjacency that follows from both affinity and maternity.<\/p>\n

Fan Wu<\/span><\/strong> is a translator, workshop facilitator, poet, an academic with one eyebrow raised, and a whirling dervish. He lives somewhere between Toronto and the ship of dreams full of rosy-cheeked seamen in Jean Genet\u2019s Querelle<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

Canadian Nationalism(s)<\/strong><\/h4>\n

\u201cContributing to Canadians\u2019 understanding of themselves\u201d: Imperial Oil\u2019s Newcomers<\/em> and the national narrative<\/span><\/p>\n

To mark its centennial anniversary in 1980, Imperial Oil commissioned a series of short stories by prominent Canadian literary figures to be featured in a national project titled The\u00a0 Newcomers: Inhabiting A New Land<\/em>. Newcomers was primarily a CBC miniseries and a book\u00a0 published by McClelland and Stewart, but it was also a ballet by the National Ballet of Canada,\u00a0 and a series of accompanying classroom guides, instructing teachers on how to best incorporate the stories in their curriculums.<\/p>\n

In this paper I examine the story of Canada contained within the many bodies of the Newcomers text. But in addition, I investigate the story Imperial Oil is telling about itself and Canada by creating this sweeping project.<\/p>\n

Surrounding the Canadian centennial and its own 100 year anniversary, Imperial Oil spent an\u00a0 enormous amount of time and money telling stories about land and people in Canada. Imperial Oil\u2019s stories are opportunities for corporate ideologies to be considered amongst the varieties of literature set forth when we discuss Canadian narratives. These stories complicate the\u00a0 soundscape of Canadian voices by being spoken by a corporate citizen. With the Newcomers<\/em> miniseries and book, as well as archival documents collected at the Glenbow Archives in Calgary, this paper investigates the values and boundaries of the Canadian national narrative when oil culture speaks for multiculturalism.<\/p>\n

Judith Ellen Brunton<\/span><\/strong> is a PhD student at the Department for the Study of Religion at the University of Toronto and co-facilitator of the Jackman Humanities Institute working group Imagining and Inhabiting Resource Landscapes. Her doctoral work focuses on Alberta\u2019s oil<\/span> public and the moral category of \u201cthe good life\u201d.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cThey think it\u2019s their game\u201d: Hockey as Canadian Nationalism and Reconciliation in Richard Wagamese\u2019s Indian Horse<\/em>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

Michael Buma writes that \u201chockey works to unite, but we need to recognize that it also works to divide\u201d (Refereeing Identity<\/em> 38), and in his novel, Indian Horse<\/em>, Richard Wagamese explores the problems of hockey as Canadian identity, and how this identity often excludes the indigenous from the Anglo-Canadian. Richard Wagamese uses hockey as\u00a0 a central metaphor in his novel to examine who is included and excluded in the hegemony of Canadian national identity. Moreover, Wagamese not only establishes the ideological split of indigeneity outside of the Canadian identity, but he also proposes an alternative notion of reconciliation between indigenous and Anglo-Canadian cultures that moves away from ideas of victimhood and instead focuses on the self and community engagement within the indigenous culture. The novel posits that hockey should be an inclusive community for sharing, creativity, and joy; but that the community of the game is threatened when politics and unnecessary competition become involved. Wagamese illustrates the historic break between indigenous and settler communities, and through the Canadian symbol of hockey presents both the dangers of a settler mentality as well as the redemptive nature of the game when it is apolitical and lead by notions of play rather than sport; this is reflective of a potential reconciliation Wagamese presents between Canada and indigenous cultures.<\/p>\n

Jamieson Ryan<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span><\/span>is a Ph.D candidate at Queen’s University, where he is studying North American Contemporary Literature. His research interests include: Canadian literature, hockey, masculinity, trauma, and bereavement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Canada and the World \/ Canada dans le monde \u201cThe people of Canada understand me\u201d: V\u00e1clav Havel\u2019s Drama of Language on the Canadian Stage In October 2016 the Czech Republic commemorated the 80th anniversary of the birth of former playwright-turned president V\u00e1clav Havel, whom the Canadian National Post called \u201cthe Czech who unleashed the tides […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":2,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P50Bdb-12","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/conference.complit.utoronto.ca\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/64"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/conference.complit.utoronto.ca\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/conference.complit.utoronto.ca\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/conference.complit.utoronto.ca\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/conference.complit.utoronto.ca\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64"}],"version-history":[{"count":58,"href":"https:\/\/conference.complit.utoronto.ca\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/64\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":315,"href":"https:\/\/conference.complit.utoronto.ca\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/64\/revisions\/315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/conference.complit.utoronto.ca\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}