Grand Forks, North Dakota, October 5 and 6, 2012.

Papers from all fields related to Canadian Studies welcome

Conference theme:
Beyond the Border: Canada-US Relations, Past, Present, and Future

In December 2011, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and President Barack Obama issued an action plan called “Beyond the Border: A Shared Vision for Perimeter Security and Economic Competitiveness.” As the title suggests, the plan identified keys areas of cooperation, including security and threat management, trade, economic development, law enforcement, and digital infrastructure and security. The title of the plan, as well as the areas it addresses, suggests two different ways to understand the word “beyond.” The first is as a matter of geography: what is on the “other” side of the border? For that matter, which side is the “other” side? The second is more conceptual. As traffic across the border increases and the border itself becomes more porous, what ideas do we use to talk about the imaginary line dividing Canada from the United States?

In this vein, the Midwest Association for Canadian Studies (MWACS), in partnership with the University of North Dakota Institute for Borderland Studies, is soliciting proposals for papers addressing the theme “Beyond the Border: Canada-US Relations, Past, Present, and Future,” to be included as part of the association’s upcoming biennial conference, which will be held in Grand Forks, North Dakota, on October 5 and 6, 2012. MWACS invites scholars in all social scientific and humanities disciplines to submit proposals for talks, sessions, and/or panels.

Potential topics include (but are not limited to):

- Border security and cybersecurity
- Women of New France and the fur trade
- Critical digital infrastructure and the border
- Métissage, diaspora, and borderlands
- Military history across the borders: The War of 1812
- The contested geographies of the Arctic
- Pipelines, oil, and “frakking”
- Water management and cross-border flooding

Proposals should include the authors contact information and title of the proposed paper, session, or panel, and an abstract of no more than 200 words. Proposals can be uploaded at http://mwacs.undborderlands.org/contact-form/index.php. Please submit .doc, .rtf, .pdf, or .odt files.

The deadline for submissions is flexible, and we will be accepting submissions until further notice. All inquiries can be sent to the conference organizers, Kyle Conway (kyle.conway@und.edu) and Timothy Pasch (timothy.pasch@und.edu).