The City and Canadian Literature and Authors
The City and Canadian Literature and Authors
at the Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association (PAMLA) Conference Las Vegas: “City of God, City of Destruction”
Nov 11-Nov 14, 2021
Virtual Panel Session
The theme of the 2021 PAMLA conference focuses on ideas and forms of cities, fictive cities, and symbolic cities, and on various representations of urban cultures and peoples. This panel focuses on real and fictional Canadian cities, expressing visions of city types, culture, and the development of identity through cityscapes in Canadian literature and/or by Canadian writers. Given Canada’s great size but small, dispersed population, “city” has divided Canada into the “Big Three” -- Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver -- and the rest, not only from the Canadian perspective, but also from external perspectives. Canada is further divided into distinct geographical zones: Atlantic (Newfoundland and Labrador, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick), Central (Ontario and Quebec), Prairie (Manitoba, Saskatchewan and parts of Alberta), Mountain/West Coast (Alberta and British Columbia), and North (Northwest Territory, Iqalait, Nunavit). Each of these zones contributes a different perception of what a Canadian city and urban population are. In addition, Canada’s English/French divide, post-colonial status, and position as a British Commonwealth country juxtapositioned with Canadian multiculturalism suggests other aspects of Canadian cities related to historical, cultural, and social considerations. This panel will expose some uniquely Canadian concepts about the city.
This special session “The City and Canadian Literature” calls for proposals for papers on, but not limited to, the following topics related to Canadian literatures/authors:
The Big Three: Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver
Canada’s small cities
Cities and regionalism
City rivalries
Maritime cities
Prairie cities
Feminisms and cities
Dystopian/Utopian cities
History and cities
Canadian cities and their sister cities
Cities and post-colonialism
Cities and religion/secularism
Haunted cities
Multiculturalism and cities
Anglophone and Francophone cities
Stompin’ Tom’s Toronto
Lucy Maud Montgomery’s Charlottetown
Margaret Atwood and cities
Leonard Cohen and cities
Nature in cities
Disconnection/isolation of cities
Stolen indigenous lands
Panel Organizer: Shawna Guenther shawna.guenther@dal.ca
Please submit proposals (max. 300 words) and a brief biography (max. 100 words) for 20 minute papers to PAMLA’s online submission system by April 15, 2021.
https://pamla.ballastacademic.com (login or create an account first)
Shawna Guenther
Organizing Chair, PAMLA 2021
Doctoral Candidate
Dalhousie University
Halifax, Nova Scotia