‘Global Dialogues’ features a range of contributions from emerging and established academics in Comparative Literature and the arts from around the world.

The ‘In Every Issue’ section features:

• ‘State of the Discipline’ by Prof. Subha Chakraborty Dasgupta (Joint Director of the School of Cultural Texts and Records, Editor of Jadavpur Journal of Comparative Literature, Jadavpur University)
• ‘CL History’ by Prof. Jonathan Hart (Editor of Canadian Review of Comparative Literature, former Director of Comparative Literature, University of Alberta)
• ‘U Views’ by Dr. Ken Seigneurie (Director of the Program in World Literature, Simon Fraser University – Surrey)
• ‘Media X’ by Prof. Laura Mandell (Director of the Initiative for Digital Humanities, Media, and Culture in the College of Liberal Arts, Texas A&M University)

Following the ‘Global Dialogues’ theme for this issue, articles and reviews by graduate students offer interdisciplinary and comparative analyses and discussions of interest to scholars working across the humanities. New additions to the CL Hub section add to a growing resource of practical information and unique perspectives of relevance to students, teachers and scholars of literature.

Call for Papers

Women’s Writing in Canada & Québec Today: Alliances/Transgressions/Betrayals
Écritures des femmes au Canada et au Québec aujourd’hui: alliances/transgressions/trahisons

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- October 12-14, 2012, The Banff Centre, Alberta
- Spring 2013, Montreal (dates to be confirmed)

Organizing Committee:

- Simon Harel, Director of the Department of Comparative Literature, Université de Montréal, and 2009 Trudeau Fellow.simon.harel@umontreal.ca<mailto:simon.harel@umontreal.ca>
- Marie Carrière, Director of the Canadian Literature Centre/ Centre de littérature canadienne, University of Alberta. carriere@ualberta.ca<mailto:carriere@ualberta.ca>
- Daniel Laforest, Assistant Professor, Modern Languages and Cultural Studies, University of Alberta. daniel.laforest@ualberta.ca<mailto:daniel.laforest@ualberta.ca>
- Libe García Zarranz, PhD Candidate in English and Film Studies, University of Alberta, and 2010 Trudeau and Killam Scholar.garcazar@ualberta.ca<mailto:garcazar@ualberta.ca>

Confirmed Speakers:

- Christl Verduyn (Davidson Chair in Canadian Studies, Director of the Centre of Canadian Studies, Mount Allison University, NB)
- Catherine Mavrikakis (Author, Université de Montréal, QC)
- Shani Mootoo (Author, Toronto, ON)

Focusing on the first decade of the 21st century, this two-part conference aims to expose the multiple forms, directions, and intersections of Québécois and Canadian women’s writing. In an attempt to foster new collaborations and departures, these twin conferences look for points of convergence and rupture between Canadian and Québécois women writers in the contemporary literary panorama in terms of the aesthetic and political concerns of literary texts, and also of the approaches and methodologies that critics adopt to engage with these writings. We firmly believe that a fruitful dialogue between what hasbeen commonly conceived as opposite literary traditions in Anglophone Canada, Québec and Francophone Canada is imperative in the contemporary moment in order to envision alternative forms of coalition, resistance, and struggle for women writing in Canada today. Through side-by-side and/or comparative examinations of women’s writing produced in Canada and Québec, the conferences will not necessarily attempt to bridge traditions, but rather to dislodge naive accounts and perceptions of the relationship between Québécois and Canadian women’s writing. We are interested in engaging with those dissenting voices, traditions and practices within contemporary women’s writing that advocate for the creation of alternative logics of desire and embodiment, a reconfiguration of social relations, and the formulation of alternative ethical and political positions.

The first conference will take place at The Banff Centre from October 12-14, 2012. This event will coincide with the international writers festival WordFest, thus offering an excellent opportunity to foster conversations between scholars, writers and artists in the community. Located in Banff National Park, overlooking the breathtakingRocky Mountains, The Banff Centre has become a key space for the development of the arts and cultural scenes not only in Alberta and the rest of Canada, but also internationally. With its new mission Inspiring Creativity, the Centrestands as an iconic space invested in the proliferation of learning and knowledge exchange. A number of rooms have been secured at The Banff Centre: http://www.banffcentre.ca/conferences/accommodation/.

The second conference will take place in Montreal in the spring of 2013. A different call for papers for this event will circulate later.

Proposals, submitted in English or in French, may address any form of contemporary writing by women in Québec or Canada, and focus on(but are not limited to) the following:
- Collaboration and coalitions
- Betrayals and disloyalties
- Contact zones and border crossings
- The politics and the poetics of the ‘trans-’: transnational women’s writing, transculturation, transnational poetics, transgender literature
- Ethical choices and practices
- Subjectivity and agency
- Gendered and racialized spaces
- Queer practices and authorship
- The body politic
- Corporeality and embodiment
- Interdisciplinary pedagogies
- Un-narrated urban/ rural spaces
- Contemporary turns in the Humanities: ethical turn, material turn, the affective turn
- Social movements and women’s writing
- Feminism(s) today
- Approaches, methodologies, and theory

Please send a 150-200 word proposal and a 50 word bio to cqww@ualberta.ca<mailto:cqww@ualberta.ca> by March 15, 2012. A selection of papers will be considered for publication.

Appel à communications
Écritures des femmes au Canada et au Québec aujourd’hui: alliances/transgressions/trahisons
Women’s Writing Canada & Québec Today: Alliances/Transgressions/Betrayals

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- 12-14 octobre 2012, The Banff Centre, Alberta
- Printemps 2013, Montréal (dates à confirmer)

Comité organisateur:

- Simon Harel, Directeur du département de littérature comparée, Université de Montréal, Lauréat du prix Trudeau 2009.simon.harel@umontreal.ca<mailto:simon.harel@umontreal.ca>
- Marie Carrière, Directrice du Centre de littérature canadienne/Canadian Literature Centre, University of Alberta. carriere@ualberta.ca<mailto:carriere@ualberta.ca>
- Daniel Laforest, Professeur adjoint, Modern Languages and Cultural Studies, University of Alberta. daniel.laforest@ualberta.ca<mailto:daniel.laforest@ualberta.ca>
- Libe García Zarranz, candidate au PhD, English and Film Studies, University of Alberta, Boursière Trudeau et Killam 2010.garcazar@ualberta.ca<mailto:garcazar@ualberta.ca>

Conférencières confirmées :

- Christl Verduyn (Chaire Davidson en Canadian Studies, Directrice du Centre of Canadian Studies, Mount Allison University, NB)
- Catherine Mavrikakis (Auteure, Université de Montréal, Qc)
- Shani Mootoo (Auteure, Toronto, On)

Axé sur la première décade du XXIe siècle, ce colloque en deux volets entend mettre au jour les multiples formes, tendances, et entrecroisements de l’écriture des femmes du Québec et du Canada . Afin de susciter de nouvelles avenues et collaborations, ces colloques jumeaux rechercheront les points de convergence et de rupture entre écrivaines canadiennes et québécoises du point de vue des dimensions esthétiques et politiques des textes littéraires, ainsi que du point de vue des approches et méthodologies critiques employées en regard de ces écrits. Nous croyons qu’un dialogue neuf et fructueux est désormais impératif entre ce qui a été couramment perçu comme des traditions littéraires opposées ou divergentes dans le Canada anglophone, le Québec et le Canada francophone. Cela afin d’envisager des formes alternatives de coalition, de résistance, et de lutte pour l’écriture des femmes dans le Canada d’aujourd’hui. À travers des mises en parallèle ou des examens comparatifs des écrits des femmes au Canada et au Québec, les colloques ne viseront pas nécessairement à relier sans heurts les traditions, mais plutôt à déloger les lieux communs et les perceptions naïves qui ont cours quant à la relation entre les écritures des femmes au Québec et au Canada. Nous souhaitons nous entretenir avec les voix de la dissension, les traditions et les pratiques au sein de la sphère contemporaine qui préconisent la création de logiques alternatives du désir et de la corporéité, la reconfiguration des relations sociales, et l’inscription de positions éthiques et politiques inédites.

Le premier colloque aura lieu au Banff Centre les 12-14 octobre 2012. Sa tenue coïncidera avec le festival international d’écrivains WordFest, offrant par là une excellente occasion d’engager des dialogues entre chercheurs, écrivains et artistes oeuvrant dans la communauté. Situé dans le parc national de Banff, surplombant le paysage magnifique des Montagnes Rocheuses, le Banff Centre s’est imposé comme un lieu sans équivalent pour le développement des arts au Canada et sur la scène internationale. Fort de sa mission visant à « inspirer la créativité », le Banff Centre est devenu un fleuron canadien qui accueille chaque année parmi les plus grands noms dans toutes les disciplines artistiques. Des chambres ont été retenues au Banff Centre: http://www.banffcentre.ca/conferences/accommodation/.

Le second colloque aura lieu à Montréal au printemps 2013. Un appel de textes distinct circulera.

Les propositions, soumises en français ou en anglais, toucheront toutes les formes contemporaines de l’écriture des femmes au Québec ou au Canada, et pourront se concentrer sur les thèmes suivants (liste non exhaustive):
- Collaboration et coalitions
- Trahisons et déloyautés
- Zones de contact et traversées frontalières
- Esthétique et politique du ‘trans-’: écriture transnationale des femmes, transculture, poétiques transnationales, littérature et transgenre
- Choix et pratiques éthiques
- Subjectivité et agentivité
- Espaces raciaux ou sexualisés
- Pratiques et postures d’écriture queer
- Le corps politique
- Politiques du corps et de la corporéité
- Pédagogies interdisciplinaires
- Espaces urbains ou ruraux inédits
- Tournants contemporains en sciences humaines: tournant éthique, tournant matérialiste, tournant affectif
- Mouvements/engagements sociaux et écriture au féminin
- Féminisme(s) aujourd’hui
- Approches, méthodologies et théories

Faire parvenir votre proposition (150-200 mots) et une notice biographique (50 mots) à l’adresse cqww@ualberta.ca<mailto:cqww@ualberta.ca> avant le 15 mars 2012. Une sélection parmi les contributions sera retenue pour publication ultérieure.

Mount Allison University, Sackville NB, 20–23 September 2012

Poetic discourse in Canada has always been changing to assert poetry’s relevance to the public sphere. While some poets and critics have sought to shift poetic subjects in Canada to make political incursions into public discourses, others have sought changes in poetic form as a means to encourage wider public engagement. If earlier conversations about poetics in Canadian letters, such as those in the well-known Toronto Globe column “At the Mermaid Inn” (1892-93), sought to identify an emerging cultural nationalism in their references to Canadian writing, in the twentieth century poetics became increasingly focused on a wider public, with little magazines, radio, and television offering new spaces in which to consider Canadian cultural production. In more recent decades, many diverse conversations about poetics in Canada have begun to emanate from hyperspace, where reviews, interviews, Youtube/Vimeo clips, publisher/author websites, and blogs have increased the “visibility” of poetry and poetics.

Acknowledging the work that emerged from the 2005 “Poetics & Public Culture in Canada Conference,” as well as recent publications considering publics in the Canadian context, we are interested in examining a growing set of questions surrounding these and other discursive shifts connected with Canadian poetry and poetics. How have technological innovations such as radio, television, and the Internet, for example, made poetry and poetics more accessible or democratic? How does poetry inhabit other genres and media in order to gesture toward conversations relevant to political, cultural, and historical moments? What contemporary concerns energize those studying historical poetries and poetics? How do commentators in public and academic circles construct a space for poetry to inhabit?

The conference sets out to explore the changing shapes of and responses to poetic genres, aesthetic theories, and political visions from a diverse range of cultural and historical contexts. In the interest of reinvigorating conversations about the multiple configurations of poetics, poetry, and the public in Canada, we invite proposals for papers (15–20 minutes) on subjects including, but not limited to:

• Public statements/declarations of poetics
• Publics and counterpublics in Canadian poetry
• The politics of public poetics –Tensions between avant-and rear-garde poetics in Canada
• Shifting technological modes of poetic and critical production (print/sound/video/born-digital)
• Poetics of/as Activism
• Public Intellectualism and Poetics
• Recovery and remediation of Canadian poetry and poetics
• Poetics and collaboration in Canada
• People’s poetry and /or the People’s Poetry Awards
• Poetry and environmental publics in Canada

Proposals should be no more than 250 words and should be accompanied by a 100-word abstract and a 50-word biographical note. Please send proposals to publicpoetics@mta.ca by 29 February 2012. For more information visit www.publicpoetics.ca.

In conjunction with the conference, a one-day workshop will be hosted by The Canadian Writing Research Collaboratory / Le Collaboratoire scientifique des écrits du Canada. This purpose of this workshop (CWRCshop) is to introduce, in accessible and inviting ways, digital tools to humanities scholars and to encourage digital humanists, via a turn to close reading, to connect with the raw material, which is the basis of digitization efforts.

The PUBLIC POETICS conference is organized by Bart Vautour (Mt. A), Erin Wunker (Dal), Travis V. Mason (Dal), and Christl Verduyn (Mt. A). The conference is sponsored by the Centre for Canadian Studies at Mount Allison University, the Canadian Studies Programme at Dalhousie University, and The Canadian Writing Research Collaboratory / Le Collaboratoire scientifique des écrits du Canada. We plan to publish a selection of revised/expanded papers as a special journal issue and/or a book with a university press.

http://acla.org/acla2012/?page_id=1131

Parameters of Change: Perception of Minorities in Comparative Perspective

Seminar Organizer(s):

• Monika Albrecht (University of Limerick, Ireland, (Monika.Albrecht@ul.ie), Giuliana Adamo (Trinity College Dublin, Ireland)

Integration, assimilation, and many related issues such as the recent European retreat of multiculturalism are subject to vigorous scholarly, political and public debates. While TV and TV film/series in many European countries nowadays prominently represent people with a migrant background, writers and other artists with origins in those countries tend to be rather hesitant to include ‘other’ Europeans in their works. All the more of interest are those who do. The panel shall focus on the question of how writers, filmmakers and other artists from a wide range of non-migrant European backgrounds are envisioning the development of an ethnically diverse Europe. We are most interested in their inherent visions of multicultural or ethnically diverse societies, that is, in their idea of how it could work and how it would not work, in the preconditions under which acceptance of difference is possible and in the conditions that make it more difficult. The panel should cover roughly the last four decades of cultural productions on ‘other’ Europeans with a special emphasis on changes and potential turning points throughout these years (including and beyond 9/11).

Overview articles are most welcome, but also papers on individual writers/artists. We are in particular looking for papers that address, but are not limited to, one of the following topics:

• ‘guest workers’ in mainstream literature of the 1970s and 1980s,
• processes of normalization and leveling of differences,
• dividing minorities into good and bad, desired and not desired,
• the new stereotype of the perfectly integrated migrant,
• the migrants’ place in the collective imagination and fantasy of the ‘natives,’
• merging of minority perception with other contemporary issues,
• pros and cons of 9/11 as a caesura in the perception of minorities.

Any other means of engaging with the perception of minorities are welcome!

Congrès 2012 – Perspectives comparées sur les croisées de chemins et les contre-courants

Les croisées de chemins sont des intersections critiques, des points de jonction où des décisions sont prises, et où des orientations aux conséquences d’envergure sont choisies. Les contre-courants, quant à eux, se fondent l’un dans l’autre, stimulant et agitant les débats.

Dans le cadre du Congrès de la Fédération canadienne des sciences humaines organisé conjointement par les Universités Wilfrid Laurier et Waterloo, du 27 au 29 mai 2012 l’Association canadienne de littérature comparée (ACLC) offre à ses membres l’opportunité d’approfondir les concepts de « croisée de chemin » et de « contre-courant », ainsi que leurs implications pour la discipline. Quels sont les principaux contre-courants de la littérature comparée en 2012? La littérature comparée au Canada est-elle à la croisée des chemins, internationalement ou globalement? Comment ses travaux en sont-ils informés par des chemins de croisées et des contre-courants avec d’autres disciplines? Comment des chemins de croisées et des contre-courants peuvent-ils êtres mobilisés dans ses approches aux textes, aux genres, et aux pratiques culturelles?

Forms of Life: Literature, Politics, Aesthetics

The Department of Comparative Literature

Binghamton University

March 2^nd-3^rd 2012

What comprises the matrix within which a given language has meaning? How is meaning constructed and how is it operative across social, cultural, and linguistic impasses? How is conflict and antagonism orchestrated both across and within disparate forms of life? To interrogate the emergence of sense as well as the conflicts that arise as a result of making sense, we welcome submissions that theorize the concerns outlined above with a particular eye toward their theorization as forms of life. In this way, we seek submissions that span disciplinary boundaries and topics, broadly speaking, related to literature, linguistics, politics, alternative and utopian imaginaries, aesthetics, and tactics of resistance.

The form of life, but even more broadly, the theorization of sense and meaning, have historically been thought and inhabited in and through a variety of frameworks and styles of thought. Linguistically, forms of life have been theorized as the condition of possibility for sense itself. Ecologically, thinking the operation and function of alternative forms of life offer a means of thinking against and beyond anthropocentrism. Forms of life have been theorized in relation to global biopolitical regimes and concomitant forms of resistance. The very practices of making sense and meaning come to be interrogated within and across a variety of disciplines, often at the expense of disciplining knowledge itself. The question of forms of life, but even more broadly, the question of making sense, is one around which the work of many scholars has revolved: Ludwig Wittgenstein on language games, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri’s work on the multitude, Giorgio Agamben on bare life, Chantal Mouffe on liberal democratic projects, Michel Foucault on biopolitics and securitization, Sylvia Federici on feminism and a politics of the commons. We also see these questions to stand in relation to Jasbir Puar’s work on terrorism and homonationalism, Deleuze and Guattari’s work on signification and assemblage, and Judith Butler’s work on the politics of gender and frames of war. While this is by no means an exhaustive theoretical list, it does hint at the depth of the theme our conference seeks to interrogate.

In keeping with the interdisciplinary emphasis of Binghamton University’s Department of Comparative Literature, we seek work that engages in the conjunction of multiple frames of epistemological inquiry, from fields including, but not limited to: critical theory, translation, postcolonial studies, decolonial studies, queer and gender studies, psychoanalytic theory, critical animal studies, ethnic studies, urban studies, science and technology studies, media and visual culture studies, continental philosophy, and historiography.

Workers, writers, and thinkers of all different disciplinary, inter-disciplinary, and non-disciplinary affiliations are welcome, whether academically affiliated or not. Submissions may be textual, performative, and/or visual. Please submit an abstract of approximately 200 words to Matt Applegate at formoflife2012@gmail.com by December 15th, 2011.

Program Information

Program Faculty: Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, Franco ‘Bifo’ Berardi and Pierre Huyghe (additional faculty to be announced soon)

Organizers: Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, Kitty Scott, Imre Szeman, Heather Zwicker

The Retreat constitutes a section of dOCUMENTA (13) that will take place at The Banff Centre during the course of the exhibition in Kassel, Germany (June 6 – September 16, 2012).

Through the act (v.) and space (n.) of retreat, participants will raise questions about the character of our society and the modes of artistic and cultural investigation being introduced today to create new modes of becoming and belonging.

To enter or enact a retreat (re-trahere = with-draw) is to draw together, in refuge, seclusion, separation, and sharing—not in order to abandon active life with others, but to consider ourselves, with others. The choice to retreat, to move to a space away yet in the world, can open up the possibility of redressing forms of disparity and can disturb relations of power, even if the act itself may seem a reduction of means or a lack of means altogether. By choosing to retreat, one may be seeking an opportunity to withdraw from the bombardment of information with which we are blessed and cursed today. To retreat might constitute a rejection of the deadened political status quo in order to nurture more radical possibilities of human communality. One may step away from mainstream society and human interaction by following a religious or spiritual vocation to retreat, entering a concentrated space of silence and meditation to re-centre living and dying. Devising alternative economies based on gifting, barter, and exchange rather than on money is also an example of a retreat from the dominant socio-economic paradigm. All these modes of retreat point to opportunities for the strengthening and revitalization of body and spirit in order to return to that dangerous mess of social life and everyday consciousness that is caught up in the speed of contemporaneity. Retreat is not abandonment of social challenges, political antinomies, or cultural dead ends, but a temporary condition whose intent is to generate permanent change.

The question of why the practice of retreat is important, of why it is different from forms of self-alienation, and of why (what might seem like) passivity could be a positive form of agency, remains open. However, the notion and the act of retreat, withdrawal or exodus could be a necessary ground for politics and the politics of aesthetics today, since the productive process of cooperative constitution at the core of the social also owes its potential and validity to the act of spontaneous refusal. Politics and art are projects of infinite creative production triggered by a force that always starts from choice—choosing to do or not to do—and propelled forward by local affections and joyful passions. In retreat, consciousness produces itself by stating the full presence of the present-being without witness and without stage, sensing a homo- or homeo- (‘similar’ or ‘common’ or ‘shared’ in Greek, belonging to humus or the ‘earth’, rather than to homo-, ‘human’, as in Latin) enriched by the love of a collective intelligence yet to be regained.

In The Pleasure of the Text, Roland Barthes states, “there is only one way left to escape the alienation of present day society: to retreat ahead of it.” The Retreat of dOCUMENTA (13) and Banff Research in Culture will generate new ways of retreating ahead of the limits, aporias, problems, and crises of a century caught between imaginative and conceptual fertility and sterility—not to effect some questionable escape, but to allow for the generation of new spaces of openness, freedom, and possibility.

Program Details

Banff Research in Culture (BRiC) is a research residency program designed for scholars engaged in advanced theoretical research on themes and topics in culture. In 2012, graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, junior faculty (pre-tenure), activists, writers, and practicing artists from around the world will convene at The Banff Centre to contemplate the theme of “the retreat” for two weeks in this intensive summer residency.

BRiC is designed to offer researchers with similar interests from different disciplinary and professional backgrounds an opportunity to exchange opinions and ideas. Participants are encouraged to develop new research, artistic, editorial, and authorial projects, both individually and in connection with others.

During the residency, participants will attend lectures, seminars, and workshops offered by visiting faculty from around the world. The residency will help to develop new approaches toward the study and analysis of culture, as well as creating lasting networks of scholars who might use this opportunity as the basis for future collaborative work.

The Banff Centre is a world-renowned facility supporting the creation and performance of new works of visual art, music, dance, theatre, and writing. The 2012 edition of BRiC, on the theme of “the retreat,” is organized in conjunction with dOCUMENTA (13), one of the world’s most important regularly occurring exhibitions of contemporary art.

This program is generously supported by The Banff Centre, the Canada Council for the Arts, dOCUMENTA (13), The Kahanoff Foundation, and the University of Alberta.

Program Fees

Program Fee: $1064 (shared room), $1475 (single room) Program fees reflect the cost of accommodation, meals and tuition at The Banff Centre. This program is generously supported by The Banff Centre; the Canada Council for the Arts; dOCUMENTA (13); The Kahanoff Foundation; the Canada Research Chair in Cultural Studies, the Faculty of Arts, Vice-President Research, and the Senate of the University of Alberta. Includes: • Regular flex meal plan for duration of program. Additional meal credits can be purchased through the Office of the Registrar at any time during the residency as individual needs require. • Accommodation for duration of program (single rooms subject to availability) • Shared office space (no studio space or access to studio facilities) • Access to Banff Centre facilities including the Paul D. Fleck Library, Sally Borden Recreation Centre, and artist rates for Banff Centre events Please note that the program fee is subject to change. GST will be applied to the program fee, where applicable. Applicants are also encouraged to approach their local arts councils and agencies for financial assistance to offset travel costs.

How to Apply

For more information on the program, including information on how to apply, please visit:

http://www.banffcentre.ca/programs/program.aspx?id=1210

For more information regarding the BRiC program please write to  bric@ualberta.ca

petrocultures@gmail.com

Call for Paper, Panel and/or Workshop Proposals

Petrocultures : Oil, Energy, Culture

University of Alberta: September 6-8^th, 2012

Research Trip to Fort McMurray Alberta: 9-11^th, 2012

The “Petrocultures: Oil, Energy, Culture” conference will take place on September 6 – 8^th, 2012, at the University of Alberta (Edmonton, Canada).  Keynote speakers include Allan Stoekl (Penn State University), Warren Cariou (University of Manitoba) and Ursula Biemann (video artist, Switzerland).

Petrocultures will bring together scholars, writers, filmmakers and artists from around the world who are engaged in an exploration of the social and cultural dimensions and impacts of  oil and energy.  The conference will examine and (re)assess how energy has been and remains an intrinsic part of socio-political life and cultural productivity, with a focus on two areas of research:

1)  How does our understanding of socio-cultural objects, events and phenomena change if we frame an analysis of them explicitly in relation to oil (and energy more generally)? What insights would we gain across the disciplines from such a theoretical/methodological maneuver? For instance, what might happen if we frame cultural and intellectual periods (as we do in the study of literature) not in terms of movements (e.g., modernism), nations (British modernism), or centuries (18^th, 19^th, 20^th…), but in relation to dominant forms of energy at any given moment?

2)  How do energy resources that fuel the exploitation of the environment impact not only everyday life but also the form and content of its representation? What is the potential of these cultural representations produced through multiple technologies of publication and artistic/communicative production (e.g., art, film, literature), to rupture and/or change the ways in which we live with and relate to oil?

We invite papers, panels and workshop proposals that take up the above questions as well as contributions that address any of the wide range of topics related to petrocultures:

• labour in petrocultures (influx of temporary foreign workers, transient labour forces, the rights or lack thereof of labour, etc.)
• the composition of communities in historical and contemporary oil economies
• education in energy societies
• health (sex, drugs, addiction)
• the intersection of cultural and environmental issues (resource management, water and oil, etc.)
• Aboriginal cultures and societies (land and mineral rights, community safety, race in petrocultures, etc.)
• gender issues and women’s rights in male dominated labour markets
• politics and social-political life in petro-states
• and the impacts of all of these issues on forms of cultural production (art, literature, film, etc.) that attempt to represent and address the socio-cultural realities of living alongside oil technologies.

Papers will be accepted based on the merit of the proposed study, originality of approach, and fit with the aims and theme of the conference.  Graduate students are especially encouraged to apply. Please indicate when you submit your abstract whether you are interested in also participating (at your own cost) in a three day excursion on (September 9^th- 11^th) to Northern Alberta to tour the oil/tar sands. A selection of papers and presentations from the 2012 conference will be published in an edited collection on Petrocultures by McGill-Queen’s University Press.

Deadline for submission: October 15, 2011.  Decisions will be announced by December 1^st, 2011.  Please send all proposals to:  petrocultures@gmail.com (c/o Imre Szeman and Sheena Wilson)

Types of submissions:

• · 15-20 minute individual presentation: conference paper.
• · 45-60 minute panel/roundtable (3-4 presenters).
• 90-minute workshop (hands-on learning, interactive): Interactive sessions that encourage participant involvement.  These workshops can be focused on generating discussion and recording ideas on specific subjects and themes.  These workshops can also encourage creative responses to oil and energy (e.g., through a writing workshop, a visual arts workshop etc. )

Propose an individual paper: Please send a 250 word abstract and a 100 word biography, as well as your contact information.

Propose a Panel: Please send a 250 word abstract for the panel, with a descriptive title for each presentation, and a 50 word bio and contact information for all members of the panel. When submitting the proposal, please copy it to all panel-participants to facilitate future correspondences.

Propose a Workshop: The Petrocultures conference will be the ideal venue for exploring theoretical and practical approaches to oil and energy in culture.  If you would like to lead a workshop session either independently or with other presenters, please submit a 250 word abstract for the workshop, with a 100-word bio for all workshop leaders.

September 9^th -11^th : Following the three-day academic conference, there is an optional research trip being organized to Ft. McMurray in Northern Alberta.

Petrocultures is supported through funding from the Kule Institute for Advanced Study (University of Alberta), The Alberta Institute for American Studies, Campus Saint Jean (University of Alberta), and the Canada Research Chair in Cultural Studies.

Le Département de français de l’Université de Victoria sollicite des candidatures pour un poste à temps plein titularisable au rang de “Senior Instructor” avec date d’entrée en fonction le 1er juillet 2012.

Responsabilités: enseignement de cours de français langue seconde à tous niveaux du programme de premier cycle; participation au bon fonctionnement du département et recherches reliées à la pédagogie.

Qualifications : Doctorat (PhD) en études françaises. Anglais et français au niveau langue maternelle ou équivalent. Solide expérience en enseignement du français langue seconde au premier cycle du niveau post-secondaire et en enseignement des langues assisté par ordinateur (documenté par un dossier pédagogique avec évaluations et synthèse pédagogique). Avoir une certaine expérience des moniteurs/trices de langue (Teaching Assistants) serait aussi un atout.

Le Département de français (http://web.uvic.ca/french) de l’Université de Victoria (http://opportunities.uvic.ca) en Colombie-Britannique fait partie de la Faculté des Humanités et a pour mission de promouvoir des pratiques pédagogiques et intellectuelles inspirantes et novatrices. Il offre un programme de cours aux niveaux sous-gradués et gradués (maîtrise en littérature, langue et culture).

Dossier de demande: lettre de motivation, curriculum-vitæ, exemplaire des publications, dossier pédagogique. À envoyer, ainsi que trois lettres de référence confidentielles sous plis séparés, à:

Mme Claire Carlin, directrice intérimaire
Département de français
PO Box 3045, STN C
Victoria BC V8W 3P4

email: ccarlin@uvic.ca
tél: (250) 721-7364
fax: (250) 721-8724
http://web.uvic.ca/french

Date limite du dépôt des dossiers: le 15 novembre 2011

 Afin de promouvoir l’égalité en matière d’emploi, l’Université de Victoria encourage les demandes émanant de femmes, de personnes ayant un handicap, de membres de minorités visibles, d’Autochtones, de personnes de toutes identités et orientations sexuelles, ainsi que de toutes autres personnes susceptibles de contribuer à la diversité de la communauté universitaire.

Toutes les candidatures seront considérées, cependant les réglementations canadiennes en matière d’immigration exigent d’envisager en premier les candidatures émanant de personnes ayant la citoyenneté canadienne ou le statut de résident permanent.

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The Department of French, University of Victoria, invites applications for a regular faculty position at the rank of Senior Instructor, effective 1 July 2012.

Responsibilities: The primary duty of those holding this rank is teaching at all levels of the undergraduate program and coordination of the language program.  Secondary expectations concern departmental and university level service and scholarship related to teaching.

Qualifications: Candidates must have completed a Ph.D. in French studies or a related field, have native or near-native fluency in French and in English, and an extensive and well-documented record of successful teaching of French as a second language at all undergraduate levels, as well as knowledge of information technology and its application in second language instruction. Experience in the supervision of teaching assistants would be an asset.

The Department of French (http://web.uvic.ca/french) at the University of Victoria, British-Columbia, offers undergraduate degrees and a graduate degree (M.A. in Literature, Language and Culture).  Located within the Faculty of Humanities, the Department is committed to innovation and excellence in teaching and research.

Applications, including a cover letter, a CV, copies of publications, and a teaching dossier including evaluations and a summary of achievements, must be sent together with three confidential letters of reference (sent under separate cover), to:

Dr. Claire Carlin, Acting Chair
Department of French
PO Box 3045, STN C
Victoria BC V8W 3P4
email: ccarlin@uvic.ca
phone: (250) 721-7364; fax: (250) 721-8724
http://web.uvic.ca/french

 The deadline for completed applications is 15 November 2011.

The University of Victoria is an equity employer and encourages applications from women, persons with disabilities, visible minorities, aboriginal peoples, people of all sexual orientations and genders, and others who may contribute to further diversification of the University.

All qualified candidates are encouraged to apply; however, in accordance with Canadian Immigration requirements, Canadians and permanent residents will be given priority.

Professional level proficiency in Spanish and English required. Knowledge of Portuguese preferred. Applicants must hold the Ph.D. by date of appointment. The target starting date of appointment is August 16, 2012. Salary commensurate with qualifications and experience.

To apply, create your candidate profile through the University of Illinois application login page at http://jobs.illinois.edu<http://jobs.illinois.edu/>  and upload your application materials: letter of application; CV, including contact information for three professional references; one or two sample publications and/or dissertation chapters; and evidence of excellence in teaching (statistical summaries for two courses preferred). Referees will be contacted electronically upon submission of the application. Only electronic applications will be accepted.

To ensure full consideration, all required materials must be submitted by October 24, 2011. Letters of reference must be received no later than October 31, 2011.

For further information regarding application procedures, you may contact SLCL-HR@illinois.edu.

The University of Illinois is an Affirmative Action /Equal Opportunity Employer and welcomes individuals with diverse backgrounds, experiences, and ideas who embrace and value diversity and inclusivity. (www.inclusiveillinois.illinois.edu<http://www.inclusiveillinois.illinois.edu/> )