EGSA 20th Annual Conference (2027): Horizons in the Making
We live in one, shared world marked by political uncertainty, environmental crises, and technological transformation. Yet we also inhabit different worlds, wherein what we can access, know, and imagine is shaped by our particular historical, social, and embodied positions. How do our collective and individual experiences shape our understanding of the present and our sense of what is possible? Whose perspectives come into view, whose remain excluded, and how might these perspectives be expanded or transformed, to carry a possibility of renewal?
These questions all concern the horizon: the Greek horos which denotes a boundary that distinguishes and delimits. Beyond this, however, a horizon carries within it the prospect of renewal. Edmund Husserl understands the “horizon” as the background of experience and the field of possibilities surrounding what is presently perceived. Seeing horizons as sites that signify both boundaries and beginnings, José Esteban Muñoz describes queerness as always on the horizon and only visible in the horizon. For this reason, he claims that “we must strive, in the face of the here and now’s totalizing rendering of reality, to think and feel a then and there.” Meanwhile, Glen Sean Coulthard foregrounds Indigenous activism rooted in the creation of alternative modalities of living and world-building.
Our conference theme, Horizons in the Making, is thus an invitation to consider the limits of the present and the possibilities for renewal and transformation. It is also a call to discuss the tensions that emerge between the need for recognition and the right to remain opaque; the impossibility of a panoramic view and the risks of acting on partial knowledge; and the dangers of totalizing tendencies in utopian imaginations. How do these tensions manifest across different literary texts, from Ovid to Kafka and beyond, as well as across objects, media, and creative practices such as visual art, performance, and archival work? How do these works contest the boundaries of their forms, genres, and modes of representation? How might queer, racialized, and Indigenous communities, whose perspectives have been historically excluded from dominant horizons of understanding, challenge existing inequalities and develop alternative practices of knowledge production? The English Graduate Students’ Association at the University of Ottawa welcomes submissions on any of the above-noted subjects, whether in the form of traditional academic papers or more creative and experimental approaches. Presentations should be 15–20 minutes long.
Topics and approaches may include but are not limited to:
● Utopia, dystopia, temporality, and futurity
● Phenomenology, epistemology, and hermeneutics
● Hope, renewal, and transformation
● World-making and imagination
● Joy, humour, and play
● Visual arts, performance, and creative practices
● Postcolonial and decolonial knowledge-making
● Climate, ecology, petrofiction, and extraction
● Transition, metamorphosis, and queer and trans life-making
● Fantasy and science fiction
● Book history, print culture, and digital humanities
Submission Instructions: Horizons in the Making will take place in person at the University of Ottawa from March 12 to 14, 2027. Please submit an abstract of no more than 300 words as a Word document or PDF to uottawa.conference@gmail.com by January 15, 2027. Please do not include your name or institutional affiliation (if applicable) in the abstract; include this information in the body of your e-mail and confirm that you are able to present in person.
Indigenous Affirmation: We pay respect to the Algonquin people, who are the traditional guardians of this land. We acknowledge their longstanding relationship with this territory, which remains unceded. We pay respect to all Indigenous people in this region, from all nations across Canada, who call Ottawa home. We acknowledge the traditional knowledge keepers, both young and old. And we honour their courageous leaders: past, present, and future.