Anticipating Montreal's role in 2010 as the next NeMLA host, this panel proposes to explore the city's unique position as a focal point of literary innovation and creativity. Although the majority of the population has traditionally been characterized as either francophone or anglophone, there has also been a vocal presence of other language groups and cultures. Both in the past and in the present day, this metropolitan milieu has provoked questions of identity and survival while sparking frank public debate that continually fuels the city's vital sense of creativity and invigoration. Historically, it has inspired writers as diverse as Émile Nelligan, Hubert Aquin, Nicole Brossard, Leonard Cohen, Hugh MacLennan, Mavis Gallant, Irving Layton, Mordecai Richler, Michel Tremblay, Gail Scott, and Gaston Miron. The city's role as a literary fountainhead continues; Montreal has attracted the highest ratio of artists and creative writers in Canada, and in 2005, was named UNESCO's World Book Capital. This panel proposes to focus on writing that investigates this special urban space through its particular historical significance as expressed through the quotidian relationships between its various communities as well as with the rest of Canada and the wider world. We will explore the varying voices of its multilingual and multicultural communities by asking how the city's literatures reflect its history of conflicts, challenge, and concord, and how those histories further constitute the city as a literary space. Papers can be in either English or French. Please send 200 word proposals to Kelly MacPhail at kelly.macphail(at)umontreal.ca by September 15, 2008.

A regional MLA, NeMLA offers a vibrant yet more intimate conference experience. The 2009 Call for Papers in Boston features almost 350 sessions, covering all aspects of scholarship and teaching in the modern languages and literatures. Special events will include presentations by Ha Jin (Boston University) and John Stauffer (Harvard University) and events with Boston University's Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center and the American Antiquarian Society.

Please include with your abstract: Name and Affiliation Email address Postal address Telephone number A/V requirements (if any; $10 handling fee)

The complete Call for Papers for the 2009 Convention is posted at www.nemla.org. Interested participants may submit abstracts to more than one NeMLA panel; however, panelists can only present one paper. Convention participants may present a paper at a panel or seminar and also present at a creative session or participate in a roundtable.