Join us for a 30-minute theatrical performance by Kitchener-Waterloo’s MT Space Theatre.
Close Add to My Schedule TweetIn this presentation, Juan Duchesne-Winter explores the convergence of Amerindian thought (especially Amazonian) described by Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, with the philosophy of Deleuze and Guattari, and related thinkers like Bruno Latour. As an outcome of this convergence, the Abaeté Collective and the AMAZONE network are entertaining a dialogue with contemporary Amerindian thought out of which a new multinatural perspectivism has emerged. Multinatural perspectivism assumes the multiplicity of nature and at the same time posits that all existing beings, animals, humans and others may share a common human point of view in a complementary, non simultaneous manner—a capacity to become subjects within a relative position.. This may answer some questions regarding the shortcomings of multiculturalism regarding issues of cultural difference.
Close Add to My Schedule TweetLeela Gandhi's address traces how various traffics at the crossroads between East and West, and between forces operating within and across the boundaries of colonized nations, may yet contribute to the emergence of rigorous postcolonial disciplinary and interdisciplinary practices. Those practices, she will argue, make the work of literature departments directly pertinent to wider political projects of radical inclusivity.
Dr. Gandhi works at the intersection of multiple disciplines in her investigation of the intricate legacies of colonial encounter, with special reference to India and England.
Drawing on works by Bill Schermbrucker, Yann Martel and Sergio Kokis, Patrick Imbert studies various aspects (now viewed in a positive light) of the chameleon metaphor, which is replacing the metaphor of the root, to evoke identities in permanent transition. He demonstrates that this metaphor ties in with contemporary notions of relational identity as theorized by Frederic Barth.
Close Add to My Schedule TweetIn early nineteenth-century Britain, the amassing of books for a library was considered a gentlemanly practice that was at odds with notions of “crazes” or the overvaluation of the strange and unknown. However, wealthy book gluttons, known as bibliomaniacs, fascinated and horrified their contemporaries for embracing such notions. Their passion for collecting old writings for display rather than use seemed to favour what writing was literally on over what writing was about. In this talk on bibliomania and its opponents, Deidre Lynch traces the complicated relationship between the acquisitive practices and passions shaping English gentlemen’s private libraries and the early nineteenth-century formation of new ideas of a national library and the literary past as a shared public heritage—a relationship cast into high relief by the Roxburghe book sale of 1812, an auction of a library of rare books that broke all records for the prices the ultra-competitive bidders were prepared to pay.
Close Add to My Schedule TweetThe film The Gates of Heaven (50 minutes) extracts one major story sequence from a much larger folk epic known as The Legend of Ponnivala. In it a troubled and barren heroine follows Lord Vishnu’s advice and sets off on a long pilgrimage in search of Lord Shiva’s Himalayan abode. After years and multiple tests of her devotion, she gains access to the Lord’s hallowed Council Chambers. The determined devotee is now able to address the greatest god of all…in person.
Close Add to My Schedule Tweet
There is an understandable tendency in times of uncertainty to seek out security in the form of certain dogmas. Undoubtedly this accounts for, and deeply unites, the apparently opposing trends we see in society toward the pole of religious fundamentalism on the one hand and the natural sciences on the other. But there are alternatives. This keynote address by John Smith (Diefenbaker Memorial Lecture) draws on German philosophical thinkers to explore ways of wandering through the uncertainty.
Close Add to My Schedule TweetFrom its inception, English Canadian literature has struggled between colonial mimicry and cultural appropriation to form a unique voice or cadence (Dennis Lee). Given the recent burgeoning publication of Indigenous, diasporic and eco-critical epistemologies, Daniel Coleman asks what are CanLit criticism’s chances of generating an ethically alert “ecology of knowledges”?
Close Add to My Schedule TweetThis presentation will explore the convergence of Amerindian, especially Amazonian thought, as conveyed by Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, with the philosophy of Deleuze-Guattari and related thinkers like Bruno Latour. As an outcome of this convergence, the Abaeté Collective and the AMAZONE network are entertaining a dialogue with contemporary Amerindian thought, out of which a new multinatural perspectivism has emerged. Hispanic American literary and cultural studies may find important insights in this philosophical and anthropological approach. This may be the answer to some shortcomings of multiculturalism regarding issues of cultural difference addressed by verbal and other expressive arts.
Close Add to My Schedule TweetIn his talk, leading Canadian writer Nino Ricci addresses the crossroads between the arts and sciences, and that between the pre-digital and digital ages. He focuses on a most current debate, and places the contemporary world at a crossroad with ideas about the unity of knowledge that developed from classical antiquity to the Enlightenment.
Close Add to My Schedule TweetThe plenary address for the Canadian Law and Society Association will be given by one of Canada’s most respected legal historians, Philip Girard, whose talk will explore the early modern roots of Canadian legal culture in the intersection of the English, French and Aboriginal legal traditions.
Close Add to My Schedule TweetThe acquisition of second language vocabulary remains an area that is under-represented both in the research literature and in teacher training programs. Marlise Horst discusses vocabulary research that parallels and confirms classic Second Language Acquisition (SLA) research findings and highlights its potential for improving language teaching and enriching mainstream SLA research.
Close Add to My Schedule TweetKatalin Fábián will discuss how Hungary’s growing trans-national exposure has profoundly affected the thematic focus of women’s activism. Women’s movements in Hungary are at a major crossroads: Should they leave some of the most pressing concerns behind as they shift from broad welfare considerations and toward specific, internationally resonant issues?
Close Add to My Schedule TweetEven during classical antiquity, the dramatic arts were used to help people to understand their lives through the image of the lives of their neighbours, and to develop skills that would be of great value to their educational process. This session, hosted by Manfred Schewe, Department of German, University College Cork, Ireland, will demonstrate various forms of drama pedagogy lesson design through practical exercises. The presentation will conclude with some remarks on the concept of performative foreign language teaching.
Close Add to My Schedule TweetProvoked by the uncomfortable fit between transnational feminist practices observed at the World Social Forum over the last decade and theorizations of transnational feminism in the North American academy, Janet Conway undertakes a genealogy of ”transnational feminism” in both sites in order to illuminate and elicit questions about their theoretical and activist practices.
Close Add to My Schedule TweetMaori scholar Alice Te Punga Somerville will “reach across an ocean” to explore connections between Maori and Aboriginal Canadian writers. She asks “How do we articulate what we share, when our closest point of connection is our respective insistence on our uniqueness?” and “What might this situation mean for reading nationally, transnationally and—perhaps—'Indigenously'?”
Close Add to My Schedule TweetOne standard argument in Anglo-American philosophy of religion is that religious language is unintelligible or not cognitively meaningful. In this Jay Newman Memorial Lecture, William Sweet will review some of the history of this philosophical debate, note some contributions from recent discussion in theology on this question, and propose how one might defend the intelligibility of religious language.
Close Add to My Schedule TweetThis address is part of a study of royal pardon in Scotland between the 11th and 16th centuries. Cynthia J. Neville, a prize-winning scholar, has published extensively on the legal and social history of northern England in the period 1200–1500 and, more recently, on the subject of Gaelic lordship in later medieval Scotland.
Close Add to My Schedule TweetTwo leading Canadian labour and social historians—Andrée Lévesque and Gail Cuthbert Brandt—will share their insights and scholarship in a discussion of the many changes and challenges facing feminist scholars teaching women’s and gender history from the 1960s to the present.
Close Add to My Schedule TweetDistinguished speaker, Andrew Hodges, discusses his 1983 work, Alan Turing: The enigma, which combined his interests in science, technology, history, and gay rights. He maintains his interest in Alan Turing along with his research and teaching in mathematics and fundamental physics.
Close Add to My Schedule TweetEmmanuel Bochud, Manager of Social Circus Training, Global Citizenship, Cirque du Soleil will present: At the heart of Cirque du Soleil Social Circus: Where circus arts and social development come together.
Headsets for simultaneous translation will be available for pick-up from 17:00–17:25
Reception to follow the keynote address.
Close Add to My Schedule TweetTerry Marsden is internationally respected for his interdisciplinary work on local and global food systems, alternative and conventional food chains, and rural-urban dynamics. In this talk, he addresses these various “crossings” of food and the challenges they pose to scholars and citizens alike.
Close Add to My Schedule TweetAnna Smol will discuss translations and adaptations of Beowulf, particularly those intended for children and the general public. The discussion will focus on two eras that saw a surge in such publications—the developing and intersecting disciplines of medieval studies, and childhood studies in the pre-WWI era, exemplified in the practice known as “boyology.” The presentation will explore how contemporary adaptations of the text address our relation to the past.
Close Add to My Schedule TweetDiana Masny explores the way children simultaneously acquire two or more writing systems, to help us understand literacies as processes in a multilingual context. Her address is based on research in Multiple Literacies Theory (MLT), where literacies are conceptualized as processes through which individuals transform themselves. Literacies thus imply the act of reading, reading the world and self as texts.
Close Add to My Schedule TweetIn this talk, Eszter Szalczer offers a new reading of Strindberg’s The Stronger as a seminal experiment in the staging of the modern subject, one that prefigures the groundbreaking modernist dramaturgy of the late Strindberg and anticipates the work of Beckett and Pinter.
Sponsored by the Canadian Institute for Nordic Studies.
Close Add to My Schedule TweetIn this plenary session, Steve Leafloor will look at the techniques and programming of “BluePrintforLife” as a way of exploring creative ways of connecting mind, body and spirit,andas a pathway to healing in remote Inuit and First Nation communities.
Close Add to My Schedule TweetAward-winning researcher, writer, producer and technology expert Stephen Brier, co-director of the New Media Lab at the Graduate Center, City University of New York, will present the 2012 keynote address of the Canadian Historical Association. He will examine the changes that interactive technology has produced in presenting history, and highlight future challenges.
Close Add to My Schedule TweetIn fall 2011, La civilisation du journal. Histoire culturelle et littéraire de la presse française au XIXe siècle (The Civilization of the Newspaper: Cultural and Literary History of the 19th Century French Press) will be published (Paris, Nouveau Monde éditions). This collective volume, compiling some 60 authors from a range of disciplines (history, literature, sociology, art history, visual arts and media studies), offers a unique chance to study what may be an approach "at the crossroads" of knowledge. We will endeavour to highlight the degree to which a systematic study of 19th century newspapers (combining close and distant reading) can help examine the century's complex historical and political transformations, cultural transformations in their expression and materiality, literary and cultural innovations, and ways in which social identities have been developed and redefined. If we have been long aware of advances made by the press, here we can see what Henri Berr (pioneer of interdisciplinarity and founder in 1900 of Revue de synthèse) called "advances via the press" – and thus acquire the tools we need to face the future.
Women’s early twentieth-century Chinese journals offer unparalleled access to details of everyday life. Particular methodological approaches and digital innovations facilitate access to this rich material and to the periodical press more broadly. In this presentation, Joan Judge will assess such women’s journals as nodes of social interaction by analyzing their more “porous” sections, including readers’ columns and social surveys.
Close Add to My Schedule TweetRecent geographical scholarship has adopted intersectional analysis as a dominant paradigm. But the road to intersectionality has been politically fraught and methodologically challenging. This presentation by Audrey Kobayashi (Suzanne Mackenzie Memorial Lecture) recounts some of the conversations that took place along this road.
Close Add to My Schedule TweetAllyson Hewitt leads the social innovation programs at MaRS, including the Ontario node of the national initiative, Social Innovation Generation (SiG@MaRS). In this community keynote, she discusses “social innovation”—what it means, its developments and, most importantly, where it’s going. Her talk touches on the work of SiG@MaRS as a part of the social innovation ecosystem in Ontario. She also addresses current global trends while inspiring audience members to think differently about opportunities to create social impact.
Close Add to My Schedule TweetThis will be an address by the recipient of this year’s SDH-SEMI Outstanding Achievement Award
Close Add to My Schedule TweetImogen Tyler's work centers on the ways that protest is simultaneously used by protestors (with a particular focus on detained migrants and asylum seekers) and by others to censure populations involved in protest. Her address will follow a series of sessions and interdisciplinary special events focusing on migration.
Close Add to My Schedule TweetIn the face of intractable social and ecological problems, we need innovative solutions that can be disseminated across scales. Such social innovation increases societal resilience through increasing adaptive and transformative capacity. In this presentation, Frances Westley will explore the nature of social innovation, its relationship to resilience, and barriers to such innovation.
Close Add to My Schedule TweetRick Helmes-Hayes’s Measuring the Mosaic is a comprehensive intellectual biography of John Porter (1921-1979), author of The Vertical Mosaic (1965), and the pre-eminent English-language Canadian sociologist of his time. His biography offers a detailed account of his life and an analysis of his extensive writings on class, power, educational opportunity, social mobility and democracy.
Close Add to My Schedule TweetThe problems of modern society are beyond any one sector, discipline, or level of government to solve. Climate change mitigation and adaptation, as well as biodiversity, are two examples that illustrate how complex our challenges are. The academy has failed to communicate both the urgency of the problems and the science surrounding these issues. In her Wiley Lecture, Ann Dale will discuss how the lack of integration between the natural and social sciences continues to be major barrier to communicating useful knowledge to decision-makers and the public. Why have we failed? What have we learned? What can we do better? Has the space for meaningful dialogue on critical issues such as population and consumption shrunk, and why? How do we as academics, re-enlarge this space, re-engage and diffuse the necessary and critical trans-disciplinary knowledge to key actors?
Close Add to My Schedule TweetIn his talk, Tom Gunning addresses how film and film studies scholarship in the twenty-first century have come to a crossroads as we see the proliferation of new media forms, including computer graphics, digital cinematography and handheld screens.
Close Add to My Schedule TweetSociology is conventionally understood as one of several social scientific disciplines that complement each other in comprehending the human condition. Yet since the 1970s, the 'cultural turn' to constructivism and the deepening crisis of capitalist modernity have subverted the conventional view. In this lecture, William K. Carroll proposes a re-visioning of sociology and its relationship to the late-modern world it inhabits.
Close Add to My Schedule TweetGlobalization is most commonly seen as a process in which cheap labour in the Global South undercuts the social standards that workers in the North have achieved over long periods of organizing and struggle. Sharit Bhowmik introduces us to the realities of workers in the South and asks how the labour and living conditions of workers all over the world can be improved.
Close Add to My Schedule TweetInterdisciplinary scholarship in media theory has started to grapple with the complex materiality of the technologies that mediate a broad range of contemporary social, cultural and artistic practices. In this lecture, Jussi Parikka addresses the aesthetic and technical history of emerging media through contemporary trends in media archaeology and German media theory.
Close Add to My Schedule TweetIn her keynote address, Karen Houle discusses philosophy, fiction and poetry. She takes up her abiding concern with our destruction of the natural environment and the way in which we have thus rendered the world uncertain.
Close Add to My Schedule TweetQueer Bathroom Monologues is a performed ethnography by Sheila Cavanagh. Giving life and form to the oral testimonials about homophobia and transphobia, the performance is inspired by interviews with lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender interviewees about their experiences in public toilets. Queer Bathroom Monologues was the winner of the Audience Pick at the Toronto Fringe Festival in July 2011. Donations will be accepted at the door.
Close Add to My Schedule TweetTo date, the meager literature on music and social/political protest has fetishized solo song over the soundscape of collective protest—the singing, chanting, and sound-producing of massed participants in rallies and similar events have eluded music scholars. However, these soundscapes have created collective frames for protesters while articulating objectives to politicians, corporate entities, the public and the media. These dual functions are well embodied in the “human microphone” of the Occupy protests. In this talk, James Deaville interrogates “human microphonality” as a musical mechanism for bodily and affectively framing groups of protesters as they dynamically (and at times disruptively) assert a socio-political message.
Close Add to My Schedule Tweet