The Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies Conference

Event Date: 
Monday, July 11, 2022 - 10:00am to 12:00pm EDT
Event Location: 
via Zoom
Event Contact Name: 
Cynthia Haggerty
Event Contact E-mail: 

ACLALS public events (all times Eastern)

Link: https://ryerson.zoom.us/j/94129881816

Co-sponsored by Lakehead University, St. Jerome’s University, St. Mary’s University University of
British Columbia, University of New Brunswick, University of Toronto, and Toronto Metropolitan
University

Mon. July 11

10am-12pm Opening ceremony by Elder Joanne Dallaire (Toronto Metropolitan U)

Keynote Address by Lillian Allen (OCAD U), “Ah Soh Wi Sey: A people’s poetics blazing through to
the heart of what matters”

The ‘commons’ for some has always felt like something we were allowed but had no ownership in; immigrants, visitors, charity cases, the serviced, the accommodated. Even in the area of language, cultural forms and genres we found ourselves othered. I’ll discuss a poetics as exemplified by the spoken word and dub poetry movements which seized upon the inherent sovereignty of voice (already paid for at the moment of creation) and over the last couple decades created a sparkling new emerging and expanding commons to champion the voice of young people and misfits, to hold these voices as community and to engage with each other, society, and the world. My keynote will be a hybrid presentation utilizing pre-language and post language aesthetic in a poetic romp that will demand both a listening of intellect and body.