On 29 -30 May 2023, Canada’s bibliographical and book studies community will gather for the Annual Conference of the Bibliographical Society of Canada at the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences for our first in-person conference since 2019. 

The third decade of the twenty-first century has ushered in unprecedented and challenging events. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the Black Lives Matters movement, alongside escalating climate emergencies, have brought home the urgent need for collective action in support of racial and climate justice. Against this backdrop, our conference theme invites you to explore and reflect critically on the past, present, and future of the book. We invite submissions that pertain, but are not limited, to: 

• Revisions in bibliography and book history as reflections of decoloniality, anti-racism, and social justice 
• Traditions, innovations, and responses to societal challenges in the practice of bibliography, book history, and special collections curation 
• Books and print media as vehicles for inclusion, participation, and belonging 
• Material and digital cultures of the book in relation to climate change, sustainability, and post-industrial technology-driven society 
• Book creation, production, consumption, and collecting in personal, social, and institutional contexts 
• Human interactions with books and print media and their diversity
•  Partnering and collaboration beyond the book: galleries, libraries, archives and museums in partnership with custodians of aural, visual and other forms of knowledge 

Congress 2023 will be held at York University. Many Indigenous Nations have longstanding relationships with the territories upon which their campuses are located that precede the establishment of the University. The area known as Tkaronto has been taken care of by the Anishinabek Nation, the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, and the Huron-Wendat. It is now home to many First Nation, Inuit and Métis communities. We acknowledge the current treaty holders, the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation. This territory is the subject of the Dish with One Spoon Wampum Belt Covenant, an agreement to peaceably share and care for the Great Lakes region. 

Please submit a 250-word abstract proposal and brief biography in English or French (including your full name, professional designation, institutional affiliation, or place) no later than 28 February 2023 to proposals@bsc-sbc.ca. 

Du 29 au 30 mai 2023, la communauté bibliographique et des études du livre du Canada se réunira pour la Conférence annuelle de la Société bibliographique du Canada au sein du Congrès des sciences humaines et sociales, la première en personne depuis 2019. 

La troisième décennie du XXIe siècle a apporté des bouleversement et défis sans précédent. La Commission vérité et réconciliation, le mouvement Black Lives Matters, ainsi que l’accélération des changements climatiques, ont mis en évidence le besoin urgent d’une action collective pour la justice raciale et climatique. Dans ce contexte, le thème de notre conférence vous invite à explorer et à réfléchir de manière critique sur le passé, le présent et l’avenir du livre. Nous invitons des propositions de communications qui abordent, mais ne sont pas limitées, à : 

• La révision en bibliographie et de l’histoire du livre pour refléter la décolonisation, l’antiracisme et la justice sociale 
• Tradition, innovation et réponses aux défis sociétaux dans la pratique de la bibliographie, de l’histoire du livre et des collections spéciales 
• Le livre et l’imprimé comme les vecteurs d’inclusion, de participation et d’appartenance 
• Cultures du livre matériel et numérique en relation du changement climatique, l’avenir durable et la société post-industrielle axée sur la technologie 
• Création, production, consommation et collection des livres dans des contextes personnels, sociaux et institutionnels 
• Interactions entre la personne et le livre et l’imprimé et leur diversité 
• Partenariat et collaboration au-delà du livre : galeries, bibliothèques, archives et musées en partenariat avec des gardiens de connaissances auditives, visuelles et autres 

Le Congrès 2023 se tiendra à l’Université York. De nombreuses nations autochtones entretiennent des relations de longue date et qui précèdent la création de l’Université avec les territoires sur lesquels se trouvent ses campus. Le territoire connu sous le nom de Tkaronto a été objet des soins de la Nation Anishinabek, la Confédération Haudenosaunee et les Hurons-Wendat. Il abrite maintenant de nombreuses communautés des Premières nations, inuites et métisses. Nous reconnaissons les titulaires actuels du traité, la première Nation des Mississaugas de Credit. Ce territoire est soumis au traité de la ceinture wampum (« Dish with One Spoon »), entente définissant le partage et la préservation pacifiques de la région des Grands Lacs. 

Veuillez soumettre un résumé de 250 mots et une courte biographie en anglais ou en français (y compris votre nom complet, titre professionnel, institution ou affiliation) au plus tard le 28 fevrier 2023 à propositions@bsc-sbc.ca. 

Extended deadline for Call for Papers:
NEW: February 12th, 2023

Date: 30.-31.3.2023

Place: Online
For reasons of greater accessibility and sustainability, the conference will be held completely online.

After years of struggle, deflection, and hesitation, ethnographic museums are increasingly accepting the need for decolonization. Often, this is framed in terms of diversity and empowerment and with a special focus on creator communities and their diaspora. We agree: the victims of imperial violence and their descendants need to be at the centre of any fruitful decolonization process.

However, this leaves a momentous gap: what about the creators of the museum, the collectors who often violently amassed the collections, as well as those who are implicated in their legacy today? Whose acts of perpetration, violence, transgression, betrayal, superiority, exploitation, and misunderstanding lie at the foundation of the museum? When it comes to the actors in question and their agency, what prevails is often absence or a retreat into abstraction, both in academia and the museum.

The “Imperial Lives” conference wants to widen this perspective and offer a complementary approach: it aims at exploring ways of overcoming this colonial aphasia by focussing on the concrete, often messy biographies behind the institution “ethnographic museum”. We propose that the encounter with the personified past of empire – the biographies of imperial collectors – creates a space of unsettlement in which the personal implication of all members of a post-imperial democratic society can be explored and collective memory transformed.

Ethnographic museums, as one of the most visible sites of imperial continuity, offer an exemplary field for the exploration of imperial perpetration and implication that goes beyond the bounds of anthropology – especially when it comes to the interaction with broader audiences. This is why the conference will focus on both research and narration, inviting transdisciplinary perspectives from history, cultural, and literary studies as well as artistic, journalistic and activist practices.

We call for contributions addressing issues of biographic knowledge generation and representation, including questions such as:

How can biographic approaches to the legacy of empire contribute to the decolonisation of ethnographic museums?
What may be the archival foundation for biographic approaches to the imperial past? How can imperial personas be portrayed if the only archival material available was produced by themselves? What is the role of ethnographic collections as archives?
What kind of biographies are suited for such decolonial biographic research?
Who should be doing this research? How does the personal situatedness of the researcher affect the outcome?
What forms of representation, what narrative strategies should be used to depict imperial biographies?
With museums as the sites of a society’s collective memory: Which narrative approaches are fruitful contributions to the “work of remembrance”?
What is the relationship between historical factuality and biographic fiction, especially concerning the archival inequalities of empire?
In how far can artistic research and practice enrich modes of biographic display?

Conference language: English

There will be a recording of all papers, keynotes, and panels.

We are inviting scholars from the fields of:

ethnography, anthropology, literary studies, historical science, cultural studies, museology, art history, arts (e.g. fine arts, film, literature etc.), provenance research, journalism.

CfP:

Please hand in your abstract of max. 500 words (in English, + short bio) until 2023/02/12 via:

https://tinyurl.com/abstract-imperiallives2023

For any questions, feel free to get in touch via mail@imperiallives.com