Call for papers: due January 13th!

The Institute for Comparative Studies in Literature, Art, and Culture (ICSLAC) and the Art History Graduate Students’ Society (AHGSS) present Off the Record, a collaborative interdisciplinary conference to be held on March 24th and 25th, 2017 at Carleton University, located on unceded Algonquin Anishnaabeg territory (Ottawa).

The social inequalities of our time are a legacy of these processes through which “the human” is “freed” by liberal forms, while other subjects, practices, and geographies are placed at a distance from “the human. – Lisa Lowe, 2015

Lisa Lowe begins The Intimacies of Four Continents (2015) asserting that the historical archive of the West “mediates the imperatives of the state, [subsuming] colonial violence within narratives of modern reason and progress.” Her affirmation highlights how notions of liberal democracy, freedom, and official multiculturalism are linked to a history of assimilation and exclusion. These historical developments privilege European and North American cultural and political models, relegating non-Eurocentric citizens, communities, and governing bodies to “geographical and temporal spaces that are constituted as backwards, uncivilized, and unfree.”

During Off the Record, we seek to raise questions concerning the flattening of historical narratives surrounding nation-building practices. In this inaugural year of collaboration, ICSLAC and AHGSS welcome submissions for research papers, panels, and workshops from graduate students at the MA and PhD levels, as well as from emerging and independent scholars. We are interested in submissions that critically consider, but are not limited to:

– material culture and the archive

– migration and diasporic communities

– Indigenous politics, identity, and resurgence

– decolonial/anti-colonial methodologies and globalisms

– urban planning, the built environment, and the politics of space

– heritage conservation and public history

– minor transnationalisms and cultural transfers

Proposals must be sent to icslacahgss2017@gmail.com by Friday January 13, 2017. Proposals will be selected through a blind jury process. Please include your name, institutional affiliation, and bio (max. 100 words) in the body of your email and attach an abstract (max. 300 words) and a list of keywords, without any identifying information, as a PDF file. If you are submitting a workshop proposal, please outline the intended length and structure in your submission.

Keynote: TBA

The Call for Papers notice is available in PDF: CFP-Off the Record

*Detail from Shelby Lisk’s, Modified Landscapes – Indian Act (Tom Thomson), 2013

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Conference Committee 2017

Conference Co-Chairs: Sarah Fox (AHGSS), Emily Putnam (AHGSS), Victoria Nolte (ICSLAC)