Indigenous Literary Arts of Truth and Redress / Arts littéraires autochtones de vérité et de réparation

2019-08-16

CALL FOR PAPERS

Studies in Canadian Literature / Études en littérature canadienne

Indigenous Literary Arts of Truth and Redress

Studies in Canadian Literature / Études en littérature canadienne (SCL/ÉLC) invites essays arising from and/or emerging after the fifth annual gathering of the Indigenous Literary Studies Association (ILSA) held on unceded Musqueam (xʷməθkʷəy̓əm) territory at the University of British Columbia in June 2019. We invite contributors to reconsider dominant discourses of reconciliation through explorations of Indigenous literatures as expressions of truth, reformation, reclamation, resurgence, and redress.

This special issue takes its cue from the critical need to decolonize the ways in which neo-colonial notions of truth and reconciliation are mobilized in public discourses. As a political and social project, reconciliation has become enmeshed in troubling rhetorics of closure and settler innocence, understating the importance of truth and ignoring calls for Indigenous sovereignty. While Indigenous peoples have been involved in the project of reconciliation for decades through resistance and resurgence initiatives, public discursive practices of reconciliation are focused on fostering an illusion of easy harmony, understanding, and the nationalist project of settler-state unity. This special issue seeks to animate “redress” as the missing step between truth and reconciliation in Canada. We welcome submissions that consider truth, sovereignty, and redress in connection to Indigenous narrative arts in their multiple and expansive dimensions, including discussions of literature, film, theatre, performance, storytelling, song, hip-hop, and other forms of creative expression.

Possible topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

Literary Illuminations of Truth, Reformation, Reclamation, and/or Redress
Land-based Sovereignties, Pedagogies, and the Literary Arts
Kinship and Community Responsibility in Discourses of Truth and Reconciliation
Reconciliation as Discourses of Power and Privilege
Indigenous Ways of Understanding Truth and Redress
Embodied Forms of Resurgence
Indigenous Literary Protocols and the Creative Processes of Truth-Telling
The Place of Oral Traditions in Truth and Reconciliation Discourses
The Role of Material Cultures in Truth and Reconciliation Discourses
Indigenous Performance Arts as Arts of Truth, Self-Determination, and Reclamation
Land, Stories, and Narrative Arts in Action
Truth and Redress in Urban Indigenous Communities and the Literary Arts
Artistic Expressions of Sovereignty and Redress
Narrative Arts, Redress, and Indigenous Popular Culture

Submissions should be 6000-8000 words, including Notes and Works Cited. English submissions should conform to the MLA Handbook, 8th edition; French submissions to Le guide du rédacteur (by the Translation Bureau, 1996). Please submit essays electronically via Word attachment to scl@unb.ca.

Deadline for submissions is September 30, 2020. For more information, visit the journal’s website at http://journals.hil.unb.ca/index.php/SCL/ or contact Michelle Coupal (Michelle.Coupal@uregina.ca), Allison Hargreaves (allison.hargreaves@ubc.ca), or Svetlana Seibel (svetlana.seibel@uni-saarland.de).