#  International Perspectives on African ("Black") Literature (2014) 

 



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##  May 1–2, 2014

##  About the Conference

 Over the past twenty years, more and more Canadianists and post-colonialists, in Canada and abroad, and across varied academic disciplines, have come to view African-or Black-Canada and its culture(s) as providing a distinct perspective on both Canada itself as well as on the African Diaspora. The purpose of this workshop is to assemble interested scholars from Canada and beyond to share research and thought about African/Black Canadian literature and culture, history and polity, with an emphasis on "(re)locating" African/Black Canada in the world. In other words, the workshop gestures toward placing African/Black Canadian letters and authors vehemently on a global stage.

##  Chair

 **George Elliott Clarke**, William Lyon Mackenzie King Visiting Professor of Canadian Studies, Canada Program, E.J. Pratt Professor of Canadian Literature, Department of English, University of Toronto.

##  Thursday, May 1

###  Session I: Two Views from Abroad

- **“Notes from an Underground: Thinking Black Diaspora in Sweden”**  
    Speaker: **Ylva Habel**, Södertörn University, Sweden.
- **“The Glocality of African Canadian Literature”**  
    Speaker: **Ana Maria Fraile Marcos**, Universidad de Salamanca, Spain.

###  Session II: Black(ness) "Ice(d)"

- **“‘Post-Race’ and Black Canadian Literature”**  
    Speaker: **David Chariandy**, Simon Fraser University.
- **“‘A Second-Rate, Canadian Tone’ African Canadian Criticism…Imported from Detroit?”**  
    Speaker: **Daniel McNeil**, DePaul University.

###  Session III: Precision and Performance

- **“Slaps and Embraces: A Rhetoric of Particularism”**  
    Speaker: **Doris Sommer**, Harvard University.
- **“Modern African Canadian Drama: A Trans-Historical Perspective”**  
    Speaker: **Fathi Darrag**, Shaqra University, Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

###  Session IV: Publishing and Editing

- **“The Poem as Hammer: A Reflection on Publishing Africadian Poets”**  
    Speaker: **Andrew Steeves**, Gaspereau Press.
- **“On Editing Black Canada”**  
    Speaker: **Peter James Hudson**, Vanderbilt University.

###  Session V: Red, Black, and Green

- **“Green Like Me?”**  
    Speaker: **Shannon Prince**, Harvard University.
- **“Toward a History of Epistemologies for Thinking Critically about Black Native Relations in Canada”**  
    Speaker: **Karina Vernon**, University of Toronto.

###  Session VI: ‘Race’ in (Nova) Scotia and North End Halifax

- **“Reading the Body Racial in (Nova) Scotian Fiction: Jackie Kay and Dorothy Mills-Proctor”**  
    Speaker: **Mirasol Eguibar**, University of Oviedo, Spain.
- **“Metaphors of Legibility: Africville and the Memory of Black Halifax”**  
    Speaker: **Jacob Remes**, William Lyon Mackenzie King Research Fellow, Canada Program, Assistant Professor of Public Affairs and History, State University of New York, Empire State College.

###  Session VII: ‘Early’ Africo-Can Intellectuals

- **“Ancient Ideals and the Healthy Self: Mary Ann Shadd's ‘Plea for Emigration’”**  
    Speaker: **Andrea Stone**, Smith College.
- **“‘Neath-Empire, Stenography, and the Travails of Abraham Beverly Walker”**  
    Speaker: **Marc Shell**, Harvard University.

##  Friday, May 2

###  Session I: Dub in Context; Dionne Brand and Afua Cooper

- **“Creolizing the Canadian Canon: Caribbean Dub Poetry in/and Canadian Literature”**  
    Speaker: **Afua Cooper**, University of Toronto.
- **“Dionne Brand and Afua Cooper: Diaspora and Continuities Shaped by National/Regional Cultures”**  
    Speaker: **Maria Lúcia Milléo Martins**, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Brazil.

###  Session II: Nalo Hopkinson, et. al.

- **“Religion and Identity in Nalo Hopkinson’s ‘Brown Girl in the Ring’ and Octavia Butler’s ‘Parable of the Sower’”**  
    Speaker: **Carol B. Duncan**, Wilfrid Laurier University.
- **“Of ‘Historical Fantasy’ and Fantastic Histories: Nalo Hopkinson's Trans-American Imaginary”**  
    Speaker: **Maureen Moynagh**, St. Francis Xavier College.

###  Session III: G. E. Clarke, et. al.

- **“To Hell with Pound: I Sing to Palmares: Revisiting Negritude in Clarke's and Trinidade's Poetry”**  
    Speaker: **Maristela Campos**, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Brazil.
- **“The Place of Spirit in the Modern Long Poem: Dennis Lee, Derek Walcott, George Elliott Clarke”**  
    Speaker: **Gordon Tesky**, Harvard University.

###  Closing Remarks

- Speaker: **George Elliott Clarke**, William Lyon Mackenzie King Visiting Professor of Canadian Studies, Canada Program, E.J. Pratt Professor of Canadian Literature, Department of English, University of Toronto.



 



 

 See also:- [ 2013–2014 ](/academic-year/2013%E2%80%932014)