Calls for Papers

The concept of frontier is most productive in thinking about queer experience. The spatial frontier separates the invisibility of private intimacy from the visibility of public life; the freedom and security of queer districts (for instance, the Village in Montreal, Church Street in Toronto, and Davie Street in Vancouver) from the heteronormative erasure of queer life in towns and cities throughout Canada. The border is also temporal and generational, separating childhood, adolescence, adulthood and old age of those who live their queer experiences in extremely different ways. It marks queer legal status before and after same-sex marriage; queer history before and after the appearance of HIV, AIDS and tritherapies; and larger social histories before and after the sexual liberation struggles of the sixties and seventies.

Many questions may guide an analysis of the concept of the frontier in the representation of queer experience; for instance, what are the borders which separate gays and lesbians in their twenties from those in their sixties? What are the borders which mark class differences in the LBGT community? Which are the frontiers between gender normativity in the public sphere and the challenges of gender performativities of femininity, masculinity, male femininity, female masculinity, the femininity or masculinity of transsexuals, etc.? Sexuality is also problematic and must be understood within a logic of agency and of the multitude of choices which are offered, from total sexual abstinence to the most unrestrained sexuality. Many other factors define, separate and cohere in the multiple experiences of queers in Canada and Quebec: including the plurality of desires, racial, ethnic and cultural identities, nationality and transnationality, postcolonialism and globalization, Indigeneity and autochthony, heteronormativity and homonormativity, the defense of marginality, and so on.

It is in this context that we invite scholars of Québécois, Canadian, and Indigenous literatures to explore the concept of the frontier in works which represent the experiences of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transsexual, trans*, intersexual, genderqueer, Two-Spirit, and/or drag and transvestite subjects—in other words, of queer realities. Papers may include analysis of novels, poetry, short stories, and theatre, and may focus on a single work or a set of texts, relate either to Francophone, Anglophone, or Indigenous literatures exclusively, or be a comparative analysis of the literary traditions of Quebec and English Canada.

All submissions to Canadian Literature must be original, unpublished work. Essays should follow current MLA bibliographic format (MLA Handbook, 7th ed). Maximum word length for articles is 6,500 words, which includes endnotes and works cited.

Submissions should be uploaded to Canadian Literature’s online submission system CanLit Submit by the deadline of September 1, 2014.

Frontières queers dans la littérature québécoise et canadienne

Editeurs invités: Jorge Calderon et Domenico Beneventi

La notion de « frontière » est des plus productives afin de penser l’expérience queer. La frontière spatiale sépare l’invisibilité de l’intimité et la visibilité socio-culturelle ; la liberté et la sécurité des quartiers queers (par exemple le Village à Montréal, Church Street à Toronto et Davie Village à Vancouver) et l’oppression, le danger et l’effacement de la vie queer dans de nombreux villages et villes à travers le Canada. La frontière est aussi temporelle. Elle sépare l’enfance, l’adolescence, l’âge adulte et la vieillesse des personnes qui vivent leur expérience queer de manières fort différentes. Elle marque aussi l’histoire queer avant le droit au mariage de personnes de même sexe, et après ; avant la trithérapie contre le VIH, et après ; avant l’apparition du sida, et après ; avant les luttes de libération sexuelle des années 60 et 70, et après.

De nombreuses problématiques peuvent guider l’analyse de la frontière dans la représentation de l’expérience queer. Par exemple, quelles sont les frontières qui séparent les gays et les lesbiennes dans la vingtaine de ceux dans la soixantaine ? Quelles sont les frontières qui marquent la différence entre les personnes riches et les personnes pauvres ? Quelles sont les enjeux du genre sexuel : la féminité, la masculinité, la féminité masculine, la masculinité féminine, la féminité et la masculinité transsexuelles, etc. ? La sexualité est aussi fort problématique. Il faut ici penser à la multitude de choix qui sont offerts de l’abstinence sexuelle totale jusqu’à la sexualité la plus effrénée et démesurée. De nombreux autres facteurs définissent, séparent et relient entre elles les multiples expériences queers au Canada et au Québec : entre autres la pluralité le désirs, l’identité raciale, ethnique et culturelle, les questions nationales et transnationales, le postcolonialisme et la globalisation, les réalités des Premières Nations et des autochtones, l’hétéronormativité et l’homonormativité, la défense de la marginalité, etc.

C’est dans ce contexte que nous invitons les spécialistes de littérature québécoise, canadienne, et autochtone à explorer la fonction de la notion de frontière dans des œuvres qui traitent principalement de l’expérience de gays, de lesbiennes, de bisexuel(le)s, de personnes bispirituelles des Premières Nations, de drag queens et kings, de travesti(e)s, de transsexuel(le)s, d’intersexuel(le)s, en d’autres mots de la réalité queer. Les études peuvent porter sur le roman, la poésie, l’essai et le théâtre. Elles peuvent être centrées sur une œuvre en particulier ou sur un ensemble de textes. Elles peuvent porter soit sur la littérature francophone, soit sur la littérature anglophone, soit sur la littérature autochtone. Ou encore elles peuvent comparer les traditions littéraires francophone, anglophone, et autochtone au Québec et au Canada.

Tous les articles soumis à Canadian Literature doivent être des travaux orginaux et ne doivent pas avoir été publiés auparavant. Les articles doivent être présentés en suivant les règles bibliographiques du MLA. (MLA Handbook, 7e éd). Le nombre maximal de mots pour un article est limité à 6 500 mots, ce qui inclut les notes en fin de texte et la liste des références.

Les articles doivent être téléchargés à partir du système en ligne du site Web de Canadian Literature à CanLit Submit au plus part le 1er septembre, 2014.

Science & Canadian Literature is a special issue dedicated to the subject of science in/and Canadian poetry and prose.

In the three decades since the last science-themed issue of Canadian Literature appeared, much has changed in both literary and scientific circles. New literary theories have come to shape our critical conversations, new Canadian authors have emerged, publishing has been fundamentally changed with the advent of the Internet; at the same time, sheep have been cloned, food has been genetically modified, computers have shrunk to pocket size. And neither of these circles exists in isolation: each has affected the other, with differences that have made a difference (to borrow the language of ecologist Gregory Bateson) across the disciplinary boundaries.

Canadian writers frequently engage science as a topic in both poetry and prose, and have achieved international recognition for this work. High-profile writers who have special literary interests in science, such as Atwood, Gibson, and Bök, are only part of the story: many other writers engage science as part of their oeuvre, including writers of poetry (Dewdney, McKay, Sarah, Outram, Ormsby), fiction (Wright, Bowling, Lam, Brand, Wong), and non-fiction (Grady, Major, Suzuki, Savage, de Villiers).

Science is commonly perceived as a universal, trans-national entity, but it is interesting to combine it with a national perspective: is there a way in which Canadian literature reframes science as a literary subject? Does a Canadian context influence writing about science (both literary and scientific)? Are there special concerns or issues about science that occur in Canadian writing? While not all articles in the issue need address the nationalism question, we encourage submissions with an eye to the Canadian context.

While the issue is focused on science as theme or form in literature (or on science as literature), not on science fiction or speculative fiction, studies that focus on specific scientific issues or hard science in science fiction (as opposed to social or political topics, ethics, etc.) are welcome (for example: genetic engineering in Oryx and Crake).

Suggested areas for investigation

• Scientific theories and Canadian literature
• Scientific language and metaphors in Canadian literature
• Scientific aspects of medicine and Canadian literature
• Science, material culture and literature
• Computers/computer science in literature
• Science, the environment/ ecology/ natural history and Canadian literature
• Scientist-biography as a literary subject in Canada or by Canadian writers
• The representation of scientists in Canadian literature
• Poetics and science in Canadian writing
• Science and/as literary form in Canadian writing
• Science and society in Canadian literature
• Canadian writers of science in an international context (the Canadian expat scientist)
• Canada as a scientific subject
• The culture/science wars from a Canadian perspective
• Science writing in Canada
• ’Pataphysics’ (the science of imaginary solutions, cf. Bök) as scientific/literary work
• Science-technology in Canadian literature

All submissions to Canadian Literature must be original, unpublished work. Essays should follow current MLA bibliographic format (MLA Handbook, 7th ed). Maximum word length for articles is 6500 words, which includes notes and works cited.

Submissions should be uploaded to Canadian Literature’s online submission system at canlitsubmit.ca by the deadline of September 1st, 2013.

Questions in advance of the deadline may be addressed to

Amanda Jernigan (ahjernigan@gmail.com), Travis Mason (tvmason@dal.ca), and Janine Rogers (jrogers@mta.ca).