CAAS 2021

GREAT DIVIDES

Canadian Association for American Studies

ANNUAL MEETING

22-24 October 2021

University of Saskatchewan

 We acknowledge that the land on which this meeting is hosted is Treaty 6 territory and the Homeland of the Métis, and we acknowledge the diverse Indigenous peoples whose footsteps have marked this territory for centuries. We pay our respect to the First Nations and Métis ancestors--past and present--of this place and reaffirm our relationship with one another.

About

Great Divides

Great Divides is an interdisciplinary conference, hosted by the University of Saskatchewan/Treaty 6 territory & Métis Homeland and the Canadian Association for American Studies. It will take place online from October 22-24, 2021.

The Pacific, Arctic, and Atlantic Oceans are seamed together by the Continental Divide of the Americas. Branching off from that divide are numerous other hydrological divides that, contrary to their name, tie the Americas together from north to south and east to west, from the Bering Sea to the Gulf of Mexico. While possessing a specific geographical denotation, “Great Divides” nonetheless evokes other kinds of geographical, geopolitical, and ideological divisions, some imposed by nature and others as a result of human intervention, including generational, class, and race-based divides. What ruptures do these divides threaten to maintain, enlarge, or create anew? How do discourses of “division” historically belie networks of continuity and affinity? What role might American Studies scholarship play in revealing the seams and unities that exist within these divides? See the Call for Papers for more information.

The conference program will operate on Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) and take place over Zoom. All presenters will need to have active CAAS memberships by the time the conference begins. CAAS memberships and a subscription to the organization's journal, the Canadian Review of American Studies (CRAS) are one and the same thing. Please visit https://utpjournals.press/journal/cras to purchase a new membership or renew an existing one.

Although we may not be able to meet in person, we nonetheless look forward to the conversations that this virtual format will enable us to have, and the connections it will enable us to make or renew despite the "great divides" of geography and timezone that separate us.

Ross Daniel Bullen, CAAS President
Jenna Hunnef, CAAS Vice-President