Digital Copies available at: https://uofcfreeexchange.wordpress.com/2020-program Dear Free Exchange 2020 Attendee,

The land we are currently standing on is adjacent to the confluence of the Bow and Elbow Rivers. The Blackfoot name of this land is “Moh’kins’tsis”. Moh’kins’tsis is the ancestral and unceded territories of the Blackfoot Confederacy (comprising the Siksika, Piikani, and Kainai First Nations), as well as the Tsuut’ina First Nation, and the Stoney Nakoda (including the Chiniki, Bearspaw, and Wesley First Nations). This city (colonially known as Calgary) is home to Métis Nation of Alberta, Region III. The Treaty 7 Region is home to Métis, Inuit, and First Nations peoples, as well as Indigenous peoples from across Turtle Island.

As a settler, I am hesitant to welcome you to a space that is not mine, which I too occupy as a permanent visitor; instead, I want to simply thank you for joining us at the 2020 Free Exchange Interdisciplinary Graduate Conference. Our topic this year is Space, Place, and Abyss. With the events currently unfolding on Wet’suwet’en Territories, the topic continues to feel particularly pertinent to our contemporary moment.

Over the next three days, we have an extensive line up. We’ve partnered with the Calgary Distinguished Writers’ Program and we will be “An Evening with Lee Maracle, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, and ” in lieu of having an independent keynote on Friday; on Saturday, we recommend all conference attendees join the masterclasses that are sandwiched between our panels. Our presenters over Saturday and Sunday will be guiding us through topics such as multidirectional spaces, interspaces, and common spaces; the panels are made up of a combination of critical and creative projects.

During the many breaks and meals, please check out our chapbook and raffle table. The book sales go directly to our authors, and all proceeds from the raffle (which feature donated books from amazing writers in the University of Calgary Department of English) will be donated to Unist’ot’en Camp.

We look forward to a Free Exchange of ideas, and we hope you have an excellent weekend!

Sincerely,

Shuyin Yu (she/her) Senior Co-Chair, Free Exchange 2020 PhD Student, Department English

On behalf of: Free Exchange Conference Committee Dear Visitors and Potential Incoming Students,

Welcome to the Free-Exchange Conference, to the University of Calgary Department of English, and—for many—to the city of Calgary (Treaty 7). We are so pleased to have you join us for a weekend of incredible speakers, panels, and social events.

Every year’s conference is a culmination of the dedication, energy, and imagination of a team of graduate students, and once again this year I am impressed with the professionality and collegiality of the 2020 conference organizers. The two co-chairs, Shuyin Yu and Tathagata Som, and their committee, Ben Groh, Amy LeBlanc, and Trynne Delaney, as well as a great host of willing volunteers, have created what is sure to be an incredible weekend.

I find this year’s topic, Space, Place, and Abyss, particularly relevant in the context of the ongoing and complex social and cultural concerns which arise—and have carried over—in this new decade: Indigenous sovereignty, climate change, political tensions across Turtle Island (North America), racism and radicalization, and so much more. I invite you to take this weekend as an opportunity for creating new conversations, ideas, relationships, and practices with each other. I am continually amazed at the diverse and intelligent community of graduate students whom I am fortunate to call colleagues, and as we enter this weekend I invite you to become a part of this lively community!

I also hope that you enjoy all that this city has to offer throughout the weekend: from a vibrant restaurant scene, to museums and art galleries, river walking trails, independent coffee shops, and one of the most beautiful libraries in the world, there are plenty of opportunities to experience the highlights of Calgary during your stay.

Whether you have come from far away or consider Calgary home, I am excited to welcome you to the 2020 Free-Exchange Conference!

Sincerely,

Leah Van Dyk (she/her) President and Director, English Department Graduate Association PhD Student, Department of English

On behalf of: English Department Graduate Association and the Department of English Friday, February 28th

4:00 - 4:30 pm Co-Chairs’ Opening Address, Rosemont Room, Hotel Alma, 169 University Gate NW, Calgary, AB T2N 1N4

4:30 - 6:30 pm Opening Reception, Rosemont Room

6:30 - 7:00 pm Travel Break, MacEwan Hall, 402 Collegiate Blvd NW, Calgary, AB T2N 4V8

7:00 - 9:00 pm An Evening with Lee Maracle, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, and Gwen Benaway, MacEwan Hall

9:00 - 11:00 pm Pub Night Social, Last Defense Lounge, 3rd floor of MacEwan Hall

Saturday, February 29th

8:00 - 8:30 am Breakfast, Rosemont Room, Hotel Alma

8:30 - 9:45 am Panel 1: Multidirectional Space, Rosemont Room

Chair: Hebe Tocci Marin Stephen Bauhart, “Real History, Fictional Places: Transmedia Dungeons and Dragons” Dania Idriss, “Our House in the Valley”

9:45 - 10:00 am Travel Break, Executive Council Chambers, 2nd floor of MacEwan Hall

10:00 - 11:00 am Masterclass with Lee Maracle, Council Chambers

11:00 - 11:15 am Break, Council Chambers

11:15 - 12:15 pm Masterclass with Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, Council Chambers

12:15 - 1:30 pm Lunch Break, Rosemont Room

1:30 - 2:30 pm Masterclass with Gwen Benaway, Council Chambers

2:30 - 2:45 pm Travel Break, Rosemont Room

2:45 - 4:00 pm Panel 2: Interspace, Rosemont Room

Chair: Mahmoud Ahabneh Marjorie Rugunda, “Rejecting the African ‘single story:’ Female Subjectivities in Mati Diops Atlantics.” Denise Weisz, “Smuggling and F(l)ailing Across the Border: Immigration Narrative and Textual Stutter in Othello” (in absentia) Lizette Gerber, “The Radical Black Geographies of Victor LaValle’s The Ballad of Black Tom”

4:00 - 4:15 pm Break, Rosemont Room

4:15 - 5:30 pm Panel 3: Abyss, Rosemont Room

Chair: Ben Groh Hannah Anderson, “The Great Depression” Ian Kinney, “Air Salt” Kaitlyn Purcell, “Nexopia Dot Com”

5:30 - 6:00 pm Wrap Up, Rosemont Room

6:00 - 8:00 pm Free Time / Travel to Kensington (Sunnyside Station)

8:00 - 11:00 pm Pub Night Social, Midtown Kitchen & Bar 302 10 St NW, Calgary, AB T2N 1V8

Sunday, March 1st

9:30 - 10:00 am Breakfast, Rosemont Room

10:00 - 11:15 am Panel 4: Place Past Time, Rosemont Room

Chair: Kirsten Cordingley Apala Kundu, “Reading the inclusion/exclusion nexus through an exploration of space in Punyakante Wijenaike’s Giraya” (in absentia) Srigowri Kumar, “’Looks like you’ve got a funny one here:’ Homophobic Spaces of Belonging in Shyam Selvadurai’s Funny Boy” Laura Brooks, “Queer Fantasies: Queer Space in She- Ra and the Princesses of Power’s ‘Princess Prom’”

11:15 - 11:30 am Break, Rosemont Room

11:30 - 12:45 pm Panel 5: Transgression, Rosemont Room

Chair: Trynne Delaney Paul Meunier, “Navigating the “House”: Transgressing Spatial and Temporal Boundaries for Poetic Futurities” Amy LeBlanc, “Feeling Space and Place: The Story of a Modern Woman in London”

12:45 - 2:00 pm Lunch, Rosemont Room

2:00 - 3:15 pm Panel 6: Common, Rosemont Room

Chair: Min Lei Jeffrey Pettis, “Mapping the Abyss: The Epistemology of Space in Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves” Joel Ferguson, “The Lost Cafeteria” Jeremy Blunt, “Morrison’s A Child of the Jago as a residuum of the weird”

3:15 - 3:30 pm Raffle Draw, Rosemont Room

3:30 - 4:00 pm Co-Chairs’ Closing Speech, Rosemont Room

4:00 - 6:30 pm Travel/Ice Cream Social, Made by Marcus (Hillhurst) 221 19 St NW, Calgary, AB T2N 2H9 Biographies

Keynote Speakers (in partnership with CDWP)

Gwen Benaway is a trans girl of Anishinaabe and Métis descent. She has published three collections of poetry, Ceremonies for the Dead, Passage, and Holy Wild, and was the editor for an anthology of fantasy short stories, Maiden Mother and Crone: Fantastical Trans Femmes. Her writing has been critically acclaimed and widely published in Canada, and in 2019 Holy Wild won the Governor General's Literary Award for Poetry in English. She was a finalist for the Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBTQ writers from the Writer’s Trust of Canada, the for Trans Poetry, and the National Magazine Awards and Digital Publishing Awards for her personal essay, A Body Like A Home. Her fourth collection of poetry, day/break, is forthcoming from Book*hug in April 2020. She lives in Toronto, Ontario and is a Ph.D student at the University of Toronto in the Women and Gender Studies Institute.

Born in North Vancouver, Lee Maracle is a member of the Sto:lo nation. She is the author of a number of award winning and critically acclaimed literary works. She is co-editor of a number of anthologies including My Home as I Remember. Maracle has published in some of the most prestigious anthologies and scholarly journals worldwide. She is Traditional Teacher for First Nations House at the University of Toronto and teaches in the Indigenous Studies program. She holds an honorary doctor of letters from St. Thomas University, and is a Senior Fellow of Massey College. A recipient of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee medal and the Order of Canada, Maracle has served as Distinguished Visiting Scholar at four universities. She holds three teaching awards and seven writing awards, including the Premier’s Award for Excellence in the Arts and is a finalist for the prestigious Neustadt award, often referred to as the American Nobel.

Leanne Betasamosake Simpson is a renowned Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg scholar, writer and artist, who has been widely recognized as one of the most compelling Indigenous voices of her generation. Working for over a decade an independent scholar using Nishnaabeg intellectual practices, Leanne has lectured and taught extensively at universities across Canada and has twenty years' experience with Indigenous land based education. Leanne's books include Dancing on Our Turtle’s Back, The Gift Is in the Making, Lighting the Eighth Fire (editor), This Is An Honour Song (editor with Kiera Ladner) and The Winter We Danced (Kino-nda-niimi editorial collective). Her latest book, As We Have Always Done: Indigenous Freedom Through Radical Resistance, was awarded Best Subsequent Book by the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association. Leanne was named the inaugural RBC Charles Taylor Emerging writer by Thomas King in 2014 and in 2017/18 she was a finalist in the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize and the Trillium Book Award. She has published extensive fiction and poetry in both book and magazine form. Leanne is also a musician combining poetry, storytelling, song writing and performance in collaboration with musicians to create unique spoken songs and soundscapes. She was awarded the inaugural Outstanding Indigenous Artist at the Peterborough Arts Awards in 2018. Leanne is Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg and a member of Alderville First Nation

Panelists

Hannah Anderson is a creative writer and Master of Arts student at the University of Calgary. Though she bounces between genres like a ping pong ball, her work usually includes fabulism, mental health, and frequently dramatic family dynamics. Her last two manuscript works have included sassy talking animals. She is also a nationally ranked varsity athlete for University of Calgary Dinos Rowing. She was awarded the SSHRC Masters competition scholarship in 2019 for her thesis manuscript Spatial, a novel varsity rowing and the systemic issues facing female athletes in Canada.

Stephen Bauhart is a first year PhD student at the University of Calgary, having just completed an MA in literature at the University of Calgary and with it an MA thesis titled What is Done in Silence: Agency, Narrative, and Silence in J.M. Coetzee’s Foe and Slow Man. Having also completed a double major in literature and philosophy at UBC and an MA in philosophy at the University of Warwick, Stephen is now changing his research focus from a more philosophical analysis of Postcolonial literature to an analysis of Dungeons and Dragons as a transmedia property, a pursuit he feels is timely given tremendous proliferation and popularity of transmedia properties.

Laura Brooks is a Master’s student in English studying at the University of Calgary. Her research explores the intersection between queer theory, video game studies, and young adult literature. She challenges the boundaries of academic discourse by reaching out to larger queer gaming communities. Her thesis project seeks to bring queer video game theory into the literary world by examining the growing genre of young adult fiction centered around video games. Using queer failure as her weapon of choice, she aims to show the inherent queerness of video game literature.

Jeremy Blunt is a PhD student in the English department at the University of Calgary. His research is (mostly) focused on the convergence of ecocriticism and Old English poetry. Joel Ferguson grew up in the Nova Scotian village of Bible Hill and presently divides his time between Winnipeg and Montreal, where he is finishing his Masters in Creative Writing at Concordia University. His poetry has been published internationally, and has most recently appeared or is forthcoming in antilang mag, Arc Poetry Magazine, Contemporary Verse 2, EVENT, The Honest Ulsterman, The Malahat Review, Meniscus, Orbis, Prairie Fire, Southword Journal, and Steel House Review. His first book-length collection of poetry, The Lost Cafeteria, is forthcoming from Signature Editions.

Lizette Gerber is a SSHRC-funded first-year PhD student in the department of English and Film Studies at the University of Alberta. She has many research interests, but they can be broadly categorized under speculative fiction, black studies, and intersectional feminisms. Her MA project analyzed N. K. Jemisin’s novel The Fifth Season through an African American lens of vital materialism, and her dissertation will explore the melancholic multiplicities of the bodies, spaces, and temporalities depicted in speculative fiction by black women. In her free time, she obsesses over horror films, video games, and Dungeons and Dragons.

Dania Idriss is a writer of Middle Eastern folk horror and gothic literature. She is a PhD student at the U of C.

Srigowri Kumar is a doctoral candidate at St. John’s University in Queens, New York, and is scheduled to defend her dissertation in January 2020. Her research interests are in postcolonial studies, theories of subject formation and theories of space/place. Her dissertation focuses on how postcolonial fiction from the South Asian diaspora theorizes the concepts of space and place to offer a nuanced, specifically literary interpretation of the limitations on our ability to imagine/locate postcolonial being(s), belonging and freedom.

Ian Kinney holds an MA in English from the University of Calgary. Kinney plays with found text. In their debut book of poetry entitled, Air Salt: A Trauma Mémoire as a Result of the Fall (University of Calgary Press, 2019), Kinney (un)writes his hospitalization and recovery from a seven story fall. This bisexual settler poet lives in Calgary, and occasionally cares for his family’s Kinnship House, a net-zero homestead on the Kainai territory between Lethbridge and Vulcan, Alberta. A memoir written by an amnesiac, Air Salt stitches splintered narratives with projective verse, cutting up and reassembling writing that Ian found as a result of the fall.

Apala Kundu is presently a 1st year pre-doctoral fellow pursuing her Ph.D in English at the University of Pittsburgh. Her research looks at migration narratives within the Indian Ocean arena. Apala earned her B.A. and M.A. in English from Presidency University in 2015 and 2017 respectively, graduating top of her class in the M.A. program. Her varied areas of interest include postcolonialism, migration and diaspora studies, Indian Ocean literature, gender and sexuality studies (including queer studies) and graphic narratives.

Amy LeBlanc is an MA student in English Literature and creative writing at the University of Calgary and non-fiction editor at filling Station magazine and the incoming Managing Editor for 2020. She is the author of two chapbooks, most recently “Ladybird, Ladybird” published with Anstruther Press (August 2018). Amy’s debut poetry collection, I know something you don’t know, is forthcoming with Gordon Hill Press in Spring 2020. Her short story collection Homebodies is forthcoming with Pedlar Press in 2021. Her novella Unlocking is forthcoming with the UCalgary Press in their Brave and Brilliant Series in 2022. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Room, PRISM International, and the Literary Review of Canada among others.

Paul Meunier: is currently an English PhD student at the University of Calgary, where he also completed Bachelor and Master’s Degrees in English, and creative writing. Paul’s poetry explores spaces between experimental form and subject representation, and his work has been published in NōD Magazine, filling Station Magazine, and The Anti- Languorous Project. Paul’s SSHRC-funded dissertation, “Mapping Poetics,” navigates Calgary’s queer history through his own poetic experimentalism, forming new spaces to write back, reach forward, and explore shifting forms of queer futurity. Paul also studied photography at the Alberta College of Art + Design (now AUArts!), where he likes to haunt the halls.

Jeffrey Pettis is an MA student at the University of Western Ontario. His research focuses predominantly on literary theory, modern, and postmodern literature. He received his Bachelor of Arts (Hons.) and B.Ed from Queen’s University in 2011 and 2012, respectively. He lives and works in Guelph as a high school teacher in the Upper Grand District School Board. He has presented and published about gender and pop- culture as an independent scholar and released his first poetry chapbook, Citrus and Shadow, in 2019 with Vocamus Press.

Kaitlyn Purcell is a proud member of Smith’s Landing First Nation. She is a PhD student in English and creative writing here at the University of Calgary. Her novella ʔbédayine (Beh-DIE-yew-neh) was recently published with Metatron Press.

Marjorie Rugunda: graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism and Media studies and English literature (Hons) from Rhodes University, South Africa (2017 & 2018). She is currently pursuing a Masters in English literature at the University of Calgary. She was the receipt of the Andrew W. Mellon Scholarship for Urban Connections in African Popular imaginaries in the English department at Rhodes University. Her research interests are post-colonial literature, African popular imaginaries and female subjectivities in African literature. She enjoys reading in her free time, writing and photography.

Denise Weisz is an English Language and Literature Ph.D. student at Indiana University Bloomington, who came to Indiana after earning a B.A. in English and Linguistics from the University of Texas at Austin. She specializes in late nineteenth-century American fiction, especially dialect literature written by immigrants and African Americans, depictions of speech disorders in text, the role of orthography and lexicography in the formation of American nationalism, and ecocritical conceptions of the American frontier. She also taught English in the Czech Republic from 2017-2019, and remains interested the practice of language pedagogy regarding international perceptions of American English.

Panel Chairs

Mahmoud Ahabneh is pursuing a PhD in English Literature at the University of Calgary on Treaty 7 territory. His research centers around Trans-Indigenous Literatures, postcolonial theories and decolonization.

Kirsten Cordingley completed her BA in English at the University of Calgary before living briefly in Banff and Montreal. She then returned to UofC where she is currently in the course-based MA program. She is interested in the link between space and female subjectivity in literature. In her time between degrees, Kirsten worked as a collections assistant in a museum and as a writer and researcher. Now, she works as a student assistant at the University of Calgary Press where she is gaining an introduction to the world of publishing. She loves to travel and visit new bookstores.

Trynne Delaney (she/her) is a writer of Black/EuroSettler heritage currently pursuing her MA in Creative Writing at the University of Calgary. In her spare time she makes sourdough and is attempting to learn to skateboard. Her article Sk8 or Die was published by GUTS Canadian Magazine and most recently her poem eroison* was featured in the League of Canadian Poets chapbook "These Lands."

Ben Groh is a PhD student in English at the University of Calgary. He is preparing to write his dissertation on Walter Benjamin, about whom he has amassed too many quotations.

Min Lei is a PhD candidate at the Department of English, U of Calgary. She is also a PhD candidate in Beijing Foreign Studies University. Her research interests are contemporary and war literature.

Hebe Tocci Marin is a Brazilian scholar who is interested in Science Fiction, Speculative Fiction, and the relationship between literature and technology. She holds an M.A. degree in English-language literature (2016) from Sao Paulo State University (UNESP), and is currently a PhD student at the University of Calgary. She has presented her works at a number of conferences and symposia, and has published papers about contemporary SF and its connection to religion. Her ongoing research investigates representations of digital technologies in Canadian SF collection Tesseracts.

Conference Chairs and Department Leadership

Shuyin Yu, the senior co-chair (2018-2020), is a PhD student in the Department of English (where she also serves as EDGA treasurer) at the University of Calgary on Treaty 7 Territory. Her doctoral research focuses on contemporary East-Asian North-American young adult literature and how mythology/mythopoesis help create alternative spaces for marginalized youth. If you see her, ask her about her great pyrenees, Mozzarella.

Tathagata Som, the junior co-chair (2019-2021), is a PhD candidate in the department of English at the University of Calgary. He works in the intersecting fields of environmental humanities, postcolonial studies, and South Asian studies. He completed his B.A. and M.A. in English at the University of Calcutta and Presidency University respectively. He is also a poet and his short story “The Lascar” was published in Postcolonial Text in 2019.

Leah Van Dyk (she/her) is a doctoral student and EDGA President and Director in the Department of English at the University of Calgary. She gratefully researches and studies as a settler on the traditional territory of Treaty 7, with her primary research interests located around the environmental humanities and radical revisionings of being in community—both pedagogically and practically—as a model of literary practice. She has work forthcoming in English Studies in Canada, is passionate about community projects, and is overly fond of coffee. Special Thanks To:

The space and place upon which we occupy, Moh’kins’tsis, for none of this could exist without the land and water upon which we stand.

The peoples of Treaty 7: the Blackfoot Confederacy (the Siksika, Piikani, and Kainai First Nations), the Tsuut’ina First Nation, and the Stoney Nakoda (the Chiniki, Bearspaw, and Wesley First Nations).

The generous support of the University of Calgary Department of English and the English Graduate Program.

The kind support of the University of Calgary Department of English faculty who donated books for the raffle and their time for the conference.

The Free Exchange Committee and volunteers, whose support before and during the conference keep it running smoothly; as well as the members of the English Department Graduate Association (EDGA), whose support is integral to the conference.

Mimi Daniel, Karen Preddy, and Brigitte Clarke, whose labour and time and effort keep everything (during the conference, and more generally in the department) running.

The Calgary Distinguished Writers’ Program, whose generous support allowed for us to have a truly spectacular keynote and masterclasses opportunities.

Caitlyn Spencer, who is a miracle worker and adapted to the CDWP and Free Ex partnership with incredible grace. Their kindness, support, work, and time have been invaluable to this year’s conference.

The University of Calgary Graduate Students’ Association Quality Money Fund, allowing us to have a truly free exchange of ideas.