Locations and Dislocations: Places and Spaces in Contemporary Women’s Writing
International Contemporary Women’s Writing Association Conference
3-5 July 2019, Algoma University, Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, CanadaCall for PapersThe 2019 Contemporary Women’s Writing Association International Conference theme is inspired by
its location at Algoma University in Sault Ste. Marie, Northern Ontario, Canada. Algoma University
occupies the historical site of the former Shingwauk Residential School to which displaced Anishinaabe
children were sent to receive a colonial “education.” Survivors of the Shingwauk Residential School
formed the Children of Shingwauk Alumni Association and have helped guide the development of
education here, launching the first major, permanent, residential school Survivor-driven exhibition in a
former residential school building in 2018. Algoma University sits alongside Shingwauk Kinoomaage
Gamig (an Anishinaabek institution for university studies) on this sacred site set aside for the fulfillment
of Chief Shingwauk’s vision of respectful inter-cultural education. Surrounded by iconic Canadian
maple bush in the heart of the Great Lakes, Anishinaabe people refer to this region as “Bawating”—“the
place of the rapids”—and it has a long history as a meeting and trading place. As a declining steel town,
Sault Ste. Marie raises crucial questions about the future of post-industrial cities. The city has staged the
often fraught encounter between economic development based on extractive and heavy industries and
the preservation of areas of outstanding natural beauty. Sault Ste. Marie is also a border city twinned
with Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, U.S.
The Contemporary Women’s Writing Association invites submissions for 20-minute presentations that
examine how contemporary women writers have engaged with places and spaces in all the complexities
suggested by Algoma University’s location. How should we treat historical sites of violence? Can they
be reclaimed and what is the role of writing in that process of reclamation? What kinds of spaces are
depicted as “sacred” by contemporary women writers? How do particular landscapes play a role in
constructing national myths and identities? What does it mean to have an Indigenous connection to land
and place? In what ways have contemporary women writers depicted borders? How are contemporary
women writers writing the city? What contributions has contemporary women’s writing made to our
cultural and political debates about how to interact with natural spaces?
Submissions are welcomed on any genre of women’s writing from the 1960s to the present day. Topics
may include, but are not limited to, the following:
• Historical places as memorials or counter-memorials
• Indigenous ways of relating to place
• Depictions of sacred places
• Landscapes and national identities
• The City
• Genres defined by their settings (e.g. campus novels)
• Domestic spaces
• Contrasts between rural and urban settings
• Preserving or losing spaces
• Moving between spaces
• How contemporary women writers inherit or re-write literary modes of depicting landscape
• Nostalgia, solastalgia and/or eco-anxietySubmit 300-word abstracts for a 20-minute presentation to LocationsDislocationsCWWA@gmail.com
by March 18, 2019.
