TransCanada / TransQuebec Pilot Project:
Canadian Literature/s and Nation/s
An Interprovincial, Interuniversity, and Interdisciplinary Graduate Colloquium
A Three-year Pilot Collaborative Program sponsored by
TransCanada Institute
The School of English and Theatre Studies, University of Guelph &
The Département d'études Anglaises, Université de Montréal
Directed by Smaro Kamboureli and Heike Härting (Département d'études Anglaises)
Project description:
This interprovincial and interuniversity graduate colloquium addresses pedagogical and research concerns of doctoral students specializing in anglophone and francophone Canadian literatures and cultural studies at the Département d'études Anglaises, Université de Montréal, and The School of English and Theatre Studies, University of Guelph.
The colloquium, which takes place in English, includes students who examine the ways in which contemporary Canadian literatures, national policies, and cultural politics address and reshape such vital institutions and discourses as the nation and citizenship, indigeneity, diaspora and transnationalism, cosmopolitanism, as well as Canadian cultural and media discourses that deal with these issues.
A three-year pilot project, the colloquium takes place twice a year, rotating between Montreal and Guelph, with participating students presenting individual and collaborative work.
Rationale and Objectives:
This colloquium is designed to provide students of anglophone and francophone Canadian literatures and cultural studies with an opportunity to present and discuss their doctoral research projects and to foster a continuous intellectual exchange of ideas as well as dissemination and research initiatives across the linguistic and cultural divides of the two 
provinces. The objective is to create a collaborative milieu of intellectual and pedagogical dialogue that will not only reflect on, but also actively seek to develop, the interdisciplinary scope of the students' research projects. While students from these two provinces and institutions share a mutual interest in developing critiques of the transnational, postcolonial, and global contexts and genealogies through which Canadian culture/s emerge and are disseminated in their various manifestations, this collaboration promises to enrich their individual projects as it will address their different linguistic and cultural locations and theoretical orientations.
Colloquium plan:
Each colloquium is designed as a two-and-a-half or three-day event, with ample time for students to present their 
projects and dialogue with other participants about them. The program, organized around presentations, workshops, and small and large group discussions, also includes special sessions that focus on the interprovincial and intercultural aspects of the event, questions of methodology, collaboration, and dissemination. Though the co-directors are directly involved, for pedagogical and training purposes, the organizational responsibility for each colloquium lies with a designated group of students.
TC/TQ Colloquium One, Guelph 2007
Friday May 18, 2007
- 4:00 pmWelcome and comments from
Smaro Kamboureli and Heike Härting - 4:15 pmMeet and Greet
- Round-table Introductions
- 6:30 pmCatered in-House dinner
- Red Papaya Thai-Vietnamese
- Social Evening w/ Literary Readings from Colloquium Participants
- Host: Paul Danyluk
Saturday May 20, 2007
- 9:30 amPhD dissertation panel (moderator: Rob Zacharias)
- Constructions of the Body
- Ben Authers
University of Guelph
“Embodying Harm: Pornographic Representation, R v Butler, and Margaret Atwood's Bodily Harm” - Amy Kebe
Université de Montréal
“Caribbean Canadian Women Writers: Theorizing Transnationality and Postmodernity” - 11:00 amBreak
- 11:30 amPhD dissertation panel (moderator: Louisa Sorflaten)
- Institutional Paradigms
- Richard Cassidy
Université de Montréal
“The Bathtub State: or, Cracks in the Institutional Spaces of Literary Knowledge Practice” - Debra Henderson
University of Guelph
“Made in Canada: Policy, Cinema, and the (Re)ordering of Priorities” - 1:00 pmLunch at TCI House
- 2:30 pmPhD research panel (moderator: Ben Authers)
- Power and Complicity
- Andrea Beverley
Université de Montréal - Robert Zacharias
University of Guelph
“Nation, State, and Literature: Violence and the Imagined Community” - 4:00 pmBreak
- 4:30 pmPhd research panel (moderator: Debra Henderson)
- Liminally Located
- Paul Danyluk
University of Guelph
“Situating Performance Poetries: Teaching and Researching Beyond the Pages of CanLit” - Sarah Henzi
Université de Montréal
“So What is Native/First Nations Literature About, Anyway?” - Louisa Sorflaten
University of Guelph
“Imagining Canadian Citizenship Through Canadian Poetry” - 6:00 - 7:00 pmFree Time
- 7:00 pmDinner —Bombay Café
- 9:00 pmDowntown Guelph Adventures!
Sunday May 21, 2007
- 9:30 amInter-Provincial Dialogues (moderator: Paul Danyluk)
- Roundtable debriefing of weekend activities
- Discussion of expectations for Session 2 in Montréal
- 12:00 pmLunch at TCI House
- 1:00 pmDepart for Montréal
This event has been made possible due to the generous support of:
University of Guelph
The School of English and Theatre Studies
The Office of the Dean, College of Arts
Associate Vice President of Academic Research
The TransCanada Institute
Université de Montréal
Département d'études anglaises
Direction des relations internationales