Conferences and Symposia

Friday, 16 July 2010
10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Uni-Club, Konviktstraße 9

German-Canadian Centre and North American Studies Program present:

International Symposium "Complicating Canada"
featuring Imre Szeman (Canada Research Chair in Cultural Studies and Professor of English, Film Studies, and Sociology, University of Alberta), Sandra Fischer, Andrew Pendakis, Sabine Sielke, and Eva-Sabine Zehelein (all University of Bonn).

Glimpsed from abroad Canada often resonates a certain tepid benevolence. Against nationalist agendas it promises a multicultural alternative that is inclusive, flexible and tolerant and seems to produce literatures that echo the official multicultural politics. Against aggressive militarisms it claims to intervene globally through a discriminate logic of peace and democracy promotion. Against corporate medicine it posits a health care system, organized around social care and equality. Given these coordinates, it becomes easy to allow a vision of Canada’s “liveable” cities to starkly contrast with projections of a squalid urban US-America.

This conference, organized by Sabine Sielke and Andrew Pendakis, brings together scholars from different disciplines in a debate that aims at expanding conceptions of Canada. Exploring the cultural, political, and economic contradictions softened by dominant imaginings of Canada, the symposium, focusing on specific and paradigmatic processes of contemporary Canadian cultures, figures in the pressures of global markets in order to re-evaluate the status of some of Canada’s most cherished social ideals.

Sa, 20.06.09 | 9.30-18.30 Uhr | Uni-Club, Konviktstraße 9

Internationales Symposium "Organic Material: the Many Threads of Canadian Book History"
mit u. a. George Elliott Clarke (Department of English, University of Toronto, Kanada), Danielle Fuller (Director, Regional Centre for Canadian Studies, University of Birmingham) und David Staines (Department of English, University of Ottawa, Kanada)

To book historians, the book is not a mere object but organic material, germinating reciprocal relationships between authors and readers, editors and publishers, marketers and critics. The international symposium facilitates debate and discussion about the nature of book history, a discipline that weaves together social history, cultural studies, descriptive bibliography, and literary analysis. Our debates address Canadian publishing practices of large nationalist to small regional presses, international readership communities, and the manipulation of textual graphics. The presenters’ expertise stems from their diverse roles in the collaborative process of book production and reception, as authors, editors, reviewers, and critics.

Download the full program here. [112 KB]

13.06.2008

Symposium “Attention: Provocations on the Culture of Canadian Visual Forms”
Mit ‘Provokationen’ von Dr. Timothy Kaposy (Universität Bonn), Dr. des Michael Butter (Universität Freiburg) Prof. Kass Banning (University of Toronto), Prof. Mary O’Connor (McMaster University), Prof. Maria Whiteman (McMaster University) und Prof. Dr. Sabine Sielke (Universität Bonn)

25.-26.10.2007

Verschleierungstaktiken: Strategien eingeschränkter Sichtbarkeit und Täuschung in Natur und Kultur