Where From Here? Canadian Literary Cultures

In September of 2022, Sarah Roger, myself, and a team of fabulous graduate students organized a Canadian literature conference at the University of Guelph. The conference, Where From Here? Canadian Literary Cultures, asked participants to think about their revised ideas about Canadian literature after the pandemic, after the garbage fire (?), after the pandemic. The CFP began…

“Where From Here?” is an interdisciplinary conference that engages the fractious yet productive debates over nation and literature to ask what comes next for Canadian literary and cultural studies. What are the new stakes of Canadian literature in the wake of Canada’s colonial history, the rhetoric of reconciliation, and the experience of working and writing during the pandemic

Haunted by the ghost of Northrop Frye and his unshakable question “Where is here?”, “Where From Here” brings together scholars, writers, artists, and public intellectuals to critically reexamine the texts and the field of Canadian literature. How have we used literature, film, social media, podcasts, and other narrative forms to connect with one another and to transform our understanding of here? What contemporary concerns and formal innovations are Canadian writers grappling with in their works? How have the staid categories of regionalism and place faded or reemerged? Do Black and Indigenous authors seek to transform CanLit or do they write beyond its limiting confines? How can the history of Canadian literature inform our future vision of the field? How has precarity upended our field and ideas of public intellectual work more generally? What matters to our students and what are the future horizons of Canadian literary studies? 

This conference was originally scheduled to happen in Hamilton, ON in June, 2020 but then COVID, moving institutions, kinda hating CanLit, etc. We almost abandoned the whole project but then, during the pandemic, we connected with so many of our friends and colleagues who wanted to get together and talk. So we did and it was a great success!

The fabulous keynotes were given by Michael Bucknor, Dani Spinosa, and Gregory Betts and they addressed the state of the field, the meaning of CanLit, the history of CanLit as struggle, as well as the sorry state of the field and of our various institutions. We had amazing papers from a wide range of established and emerging scholars discussing historical texts, contemporary works, and thinking about where CanLit might go. Sadly, this is literally the only picture I took.the entire time:

Thankfully, Julia Polyck-O’Neill was kind enough to share some of her photos. Thanks Julia!! There are some pics of our keynotes as well as the poetry reading featuring Klara du Plessis, Gary Barwin, Gregory Betts, Ryan Fitzpatrick and many of my other favourite people!


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