Cultural Circulation University of Vienna, 24–26 September 2010
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Cultural Circulation University of Vienna, 24–26 September 2010 “Canadian Writers and Authors from the American South—A Dialogue” International Colloquium, Vienna “Cultural Circulation: Canadian Writers and September 24–26, 2010 Authors from the American South—A Dialogue” Friday, September 24: Jacques Pothier (Université de Versailles-St. in the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Sunday, September 26: Quentin): “Northeast by South: Faulkner’s Dr. Ignaz-Seipel-Platz 2 University Campus, Courtyard 8, Unterrichtsraum Yoknapatawpha and Antonine Maillet’s Acadia.” 9.00 a.m. Cultural Export and Exchange 2.00 p.m. Welcome by the Austrian Evening Program: Visit to Heurigen Academy of Sciences and the University Chair: Hans Bak of Vienna Thomas McHaney (Georgia State University): Greetings by “Voice Not Place: North Ca rolina Writer Leon Herbert Matis, Rooke Makes a Success in Canada” former Vice-President of the Academy of Dieter Meindl (University of Erlangen): Sciences, “Import- Export Canada/American South in the H.E. Dr. John Barrett, Saturday, September 25: 2.30 p.m. Continental Dialogues in Short Short Story” Ambassador of Canada in Austria, University Campus, Courtyard 1, Aula Fiction Ian MacRae (Wilfrid Laurier University): Jan Krc, Chair: Alfred Hornung “Inventing the World: Jack Hodgins, and Reading Counselor for Public Affairs, US-Embassy in 9.00 a.m. African Americans and Their the Canadian Historical Imaginary in Southern Vienna, Canadian Destination Reingard Nischik (University of Konstanz): Contexts” Andrea Seidler, “Two Nations, One Genre? The Modernist Short Chair: Carmen Birkle Vice-Dean, Faculty of Philological and Cultural Story in the United States and Canada“ 10.45 a.m. Coffee Break Studies, U of Vienna, Richard J. Ellis (University of Birmingham): Pearl McHaney (Georgia State University): Werner Huber, “The Blessed Shores of Canada: Stowe, the South “‘Hard Beauty’: The Confluence of Eudora Welty 11.15 a.m. Regional Biospheres and the Chair, Department of English and American and Issues of Liberty” and Alice Munro: Mississippi-South and Ontario- Transcontinental Perspective Studies, U of Vienna, Jutta Zimmermann (University of Kiel): South Portraits of the 1930s and 40s” Chair: Richard Ellis Franz Karl Stanzel, Emeritus, “From Roots to Routes: Alex Haley‘s Roots and Charles Reagan Wilson (University of Department of English Studies, U of Graz Lawrence Hill‘s TheBookofNegroes” Mississippi): “Parallel Spiritual Worlds: Alice Michael Lofaro (University of Tennessee): Hans Bak (Radboud University Nijmegen): Munro Country and the American South of Welty, “Progress Priced Too Dear: Negotiating the Opening panel, Journeys across Space “Flights to Canada: Jacob Lawrence, Ishmael Faulkner and O‘Connor” Southern Pastoral in the Restored Text of James and in the Mind Reed and Lawrence Hill” Danièle Pitavy-Souques (Université de Agee’s ADeathintheFamily”. Chair: Waldemar Zacharasiewicz Sharon Monteith (University of Nottingham): Bourgogne): “The Concept of the Two Arcadias Caroline Rosenthal (University of Jena): “The Bridge from Mississippi’s Freedom Summer in Canada and in the American South – Rational “Culinary Transgressions: Food Practices Laurie Ricou (University of British Columbia): to Canada: Pearl Cleage’s BourbonattheBorder ” Arcadia vs. the Rough, Wild Arcadia” Faulkner, and Constructions of Female Identity in Gail “When the South goes Northwest” Welty, Margaret Atwood, Alice Munro. Anderson- Dargatz‘s TheCureforDeathby Christoph Irmscher (Indiana University): 11.15 a.m. Coffee Break Lightening and Fanny Flagg‘s FriedGreen “John James Audubon in Labrador” 4.45 p.m. Coffee Break TomatoesattheWhistleStopCafé” Aritha van Herk (University of Calgary): 11.45 a.m. Southern Authors as Catalysts Katerina Prajznerova (Masaryk University): “My Love Affair with Shreve McCannon. Chair: Christoph Irmscher “Gilean Douglas’s Cascades and Wilma Edmonton as Destination of Desire” 5.15 p.m. Sojourns North and South– David Williams (University of Manitoba): 6.30 p.m. Dykeman’s Appalachians as Literary Bioregions” “Metropolis and Hinterland: Faulkner and 4.00 p.m. Coffee Break Chair: Caroline Rosenthal MacLeod” 1.00 p.m. : 4.45 p.m. Acadia and Cajun Culture William Virgil Davis (Baylor University): Marcel Arbeit (Palacky University, Olomouc) Alfred Hornung (University of Mainz): “I (Elizabeth): Hot Mississippi Summer in Cold Chair: Sharon Monteith “Crisscrossing the Continent from Black Mountain “The Southern Education of David Suzuki” to Vancouver” Canadian Winter” Jutta Ernst (University of Hildesheim): Nahem Yousaf (Nottingham Trent University): Rosella Mamoli Zorzi (University of Venice): General discussion “‘Beyond the Bayou’ Socio-Cultural Spaces in “Rewriting the Grimms: Eudora Welty and “Ondaatje’s New Orleans’ Experience as Coming Kate Chopin’s Louisiana Short Stories” Margaret Atwood” ThroughSlaughter (1976)” Bernd Ostendorf (University of Munich): 2.00 p.m. Close of Conference “Et in Acadia Ego: Versions of the Pastoral in the 1.30 p.m. Lunch for Speakers Evening program: Optional Visit to State Cajun Renaissance from 1968 to Date” Opera Lunch International Colloquium Vienna, September 24–26 2010 2 3 Cultural Circulation: Canadian Writers and Authors from the American South—A Dialogue advocated by Duncan, who visited Canada and indeed implicated, in the debates Abstracts and met with Bowering. “Tish,” based over slavery because of her location on the Black Mountain example, shifted within the penumbra of slavery, living Canadian poetic practice and, for a while, as she did in Cincinnati, Ohio (having the curious and essentially mysterious worked to establish a Female Institute Marcel Arbeit genre of the slave narrative by African- world of the Canadian movement there), just across the Ohio River from the “I (Elizabeth): Hot Mississippi Summer in American novelist Ishmael Reed; and (c) advocated for and illustrated its American slave state of Kentucky and in a city that Cold Canadian Winter” TheBookofNegroes (2007) by Canadian phenomenological roots. had substantial investment in slavery’s In her autobiography Landscapesof author Lawrence Hill, the much laurelled This paper will attempt to describe the continuation, even if located in the “free” theHeart, Elizabeth Spencer described account of the passage from Africa to background, document the influences, and North (the way Stowe’s geographical Canada as very enthusiastic in accepting North Carolina to Nova Scotia (and back detail the reciprocal relationships between spatial situation mirrors – in the exact foreign writers, who, like herself, came to to Africa) of the female slave Aminata the American Black Mountain poets and sense of the word ‘mirrors’, with the image live there, as their own. Although very few Diallo. Focusing on the representation of their Canadian counterparts. reversed – that of Twain deserves more of her stories are set in Canada, she had the “flight to Canada” motif I will read the emphasis). “Canada” serves as a means her share in building modern Canadian three texts – one visual, two literary – as an Richard Ellis of ideological mythologisation for Stowe literature, together with other immigrant intertextual triptych of different modes of “The Blessed Shores of Canada: Stowe, the in the consequent ramifications of these writers, like the Czech Josef Škvorecký, revisiting the history of slavery through art. South and Issues of Liberty” ambiguities. whom she also mentions in her memoir. This paper will explore the way in which The protagonist of her best Canadian William V. Davis the bifurcation in the plot line of Harriet Jutta Ernst story, “I, Maureen,” married into a rich “Crisscrossing the Continent: Black Beecher Stowe‘s UncleTom‘sCabin needs “’Beyond the Bayou’: Socio-Cultural Montréal family but, suffering from feelings Mountain to Vancouver” to be fundamentally informed by an Spaces in Kate Chopin’s Louisiana Short of alienation, decides to start a new, Late in his life, in “Asphodel, that Greeny understanding of how she is engaging with Stories” more creative life with a different identity Flower,” William Carlos Williams wrote: “It the abolitionist myth of the underground Kate Chopin has usually been classified as in another quarter of the city. Spencer’s is difficult / to get the news from poems / railway to Canada and the ideological a Southern local colorist whose prose is metaphors, connected with living on the yet men die miserably every day / for lack function that it served in the abolitionist comparable to the works of New England fringe and trying to forget or ignore the / of what is found there.” Charles Olson’s movement. I am here understanding the writers such as Sarah Orne Jewett and past, are relevant both for Canadian and “improvisatory” and postmodern (a term status of Canada as a modern myth in Mary E. Wilkins Freeman. Although this Southern culture: Québec within Canada he early on applied to poetry) poems, as the abolitionist movement – in the sense assessment is not completely invalid, parallels the South within the globalized well as his landmark essay, “Projective of the term deployed by Roland Barthes it tends to gloss over the innovative United States. Spencer’s study of a woman Verse,” which called for “composition by in his “Myth Today.” My argument will representation of socio-cultural domains who refuses to be confined by class, field” and which argued that “form is never be that a “constantly moving turnstile of and of cross-border interactions in marriage or ethics will