TransCanada Three:
Literature, Institutions, Citizenship

Call for Papers

Since its inception, the TransCanada project has used three keywords—literature, institutions, and citizenship—exploring them individually and in various combinations to
View PDF poster revisit established discourses and nourish new discourses and practices that simultaneously affirm and subvert notions of a single and stable Canada. Building on the energies, convergences, and accomplishments of the first two TransCanada conferences (Vancouver 2005, Guelph 2007), it is now time to organize our creativity and critique around a set of related keywords to broaden and strengthen the discursive flows produced to date. We wish to pay more explicit attention to literature's sister fields, and to the educational, political, cultural, and physical ecologies that have helped, or may in the future help, Canada to renew itself and to embrace its emergent selves in the current transnational and global contexts.

The venue for TransCanada Three is Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick, a region whose multiple, multi-lingual, and often marginalized histories of settlement and unsettlement speak directly to the interests and aspirations of TransCanada. TransCanada Three will feature three keynote addresses and roundtable sessions which, focusing on papers by plenary speakers, will provide ample time for discussion to stimulate thought and elicit engagement.

We would like to invite papers and artistic presentations that address the following keywords:

We encourage you to bring your own cultural perspectives to bear on the challenges and opportunities these keywords present. Participants may understand these terms, and interactions between or among them, narrowly or broadly. We envisage papers and panels that are both interdisciplinary and anti-disciplinary, that reflect on particular keywords and/or locate them within particular discourses and practices. We welcome paper and panel proposals that connect literary, cultural, and pedagogical work to ecological, affective, and transformative issues and outcomes. And we recognize that in making such connections scholars, practitioners, and teachers experience limitations and risks but also the satisfaction derived from devising new discourses for community and common purpose.

Please submit proposals of up to 300 words for 20-minute presentations for the concurrent research sessions that address the above themes, or submit, along with other scholars, joint proposal/s for particular panels under the central keywords listed above. We also welcome proposals for artistic presentations (video, short film, photography, etc.) that can be showcased during the conference.

TransCanada Three will again feature a special doctoral students' plenary session. Doctoral students who would like to be considered for this session should include a one- page dissertation abstract with their proposal.

Deadline for abstracts: August 15, 2008
Notification of acceptance: Late October 2008

Submission address:

Organizing Committee:

Vetting Committee