TransCanada Institute News
Expeditions of a Chimaera – Monday October 26, 4:30pm
Expeditions of a Chimaera
Oana Avasilichioa and Erin Moure
Monday October 26, 2009 at 4:30 p.m.
TransCanada Institute
9 University Avenue
Posted on Oct 6, 2009
Upcoming Special Issue of University of Toronto Quarterly
The Spring 2009 issue (78.2) of the University of Toronto Quarterly, “Discourses of Security, ‘Peacekeeping’ Narratives, and the Cultural Imagination in Canada,” will be coming out soon. It features a number of articles by leading scholars in the Humanities including an introduction by Heike Harting and Smaro Kamboureli.
Posted on Jun 3, 2009
Performance Poetry Colloquium and Jam Session
Performance Poetry Colloquium
TransCanada Institute
University of Guelph
March 20, 2009
Keynote Speaker
Douglas Barbour
Critical Respondent/Panel Moderator
Darren Wershler
Featured Readers
Paul Dutton & angela rawlings
Poet/Performers
Clifton Joseph, Gerry Shikatani, Chet Singh and Jarret Prescott, d’bi young
As Steve McCaffery argues in “Sound Poetry—A Survey,” sound poetry is an act of freedom in that it is based on “the need to test all categories, confront the fixist and offer both the problems and the solutions of new possibilities” (18). In sound poetry by the Four Horsemen and early work by bill bissett the body was the interface for poetic practice; the body was both the source of creative tension and of creative communication as performers pushed their voices beyond semantic registers and the tyranny of capital embedded in dictionary meaning. Similarly, dub poetry’s reggae rhythms mix with a speaking/singing body to transcend oppressive realities with spiritual connections that invigorate the will to make change.
In drawing together the social politics of dub poetry and the language politics of sound poetry this meeting of poetic minds and bodies is an attempt to outline the rhizomatic tendrils that underlie the diverse range of performance poetries in Canada. This event is not intended to mark direct lines of influence, nor function merely as a celebratory showcase of performance poets. Instead, the tensions between these poets’ different forms and practices and their diverse genealogies should stimulate debate on the role of performance as a catalyst for social and poetic change.
Bringing together performance poets working in diverse poetic and linguistic registers offers an opportunity to focus on performance as it signals a distinct engagement with audience, text, the body, temporality, and space. Of particular interest for this event are the pedagogical implications (pedagogy understood here in its broad sense) of performance poetries, that is, how the politics of non-semantic or non-referential poetics is responsive to and can interact with socially-motivated politics expressed through the materiality of the body and language.
Schedule
10:00-11:00 Keynote Address: Douglas Barbour
Response: Darren Wershler
11:00-11:15 Break
11:15-12:00 League of Canadian Poets sponsored reading by Paul Dutton
12:00-1:00 Lunch (provided for invited guests)
1:00-2:00 Panel 1: Performance, Pedagogy and Politics
Panelists: d’bi young, Chet Singh, Clifton Joseph
2:00-2:30 Social Break
2:30-3:15 Canada Council sponsored reading by angela rawlings
3:30-4:30 Panel 2: The Performance Script: Notating, Inscribing, Improvising
Panelists: Doug Barbour, Paul Dutton, angela rawlings, Gerry Shikatani
4:30-5:00 Break / Reception
5:00-7:00 Performance Poetry Jam
Registration: www.transcanadas.ca/registration
Posted on Mar 11, 2009
TransCanada Institute 2008-2009 Lecture Series
Dr. Len Findlay, University of Saskatchewan
“From Extraordinary Renditions to Ordinary Hope: Recent Events Through a
Humanities Lens”
March 18, 2009
4 p.m.
TransCanada Institute
9 University Ave. E.
Guelph, ON
Posted on Feb 27, 2009
TransCanada/School of English and Theatre Studies Annual Lecture
Dr. Mark Lipton, University of Guelph (SETS)
“Post Literacy, Social Media and Open Metaphors for Educators, Litigators and Health Care Providers”
March 10, 2009
4:30 p.m.
TransCanada Institute
9 University Ave. E.
Guelph, ON
Mark Lipton – TransCanada/SETS Lecture
Posted on Feb 27, 2009
Narrating Mennonite Canada: History and / as Literature
Please register in advance by going to the following site: www.transcanadas.ca/registration, or by email: transcan@uoguelph.ca, or by phone: (519) 824-4120 ext. 56825
Posted on Feb 17, 2009
Barbara Godard: Canadian Literature at the Crossroads of Language and Culture
Barbara Godard: Canadian Literature at the Crossroads of Language and Culture
(Click here for PDF version)
Posted on Jan 23, 2009
Richard Van Camp: Dogrib author reads
Click image to enlarge.
- Richard Van Camp ~ Dogrib author reads
Posted on Jan 21, 2009