Contradiction Studies

ESF Conference „Territory, Tension & Taboo“

Jody Danard (Emerging Scholars Forum of the Association for Canadian Studies in German-Speaking Countries)

10/10/2024 10/11/2024

U Bremen

Join the 21st Conference of the Emerging Scholars Forum of the Association for Canadian Studies in German-Speaking Countries! The CfP for the conference on the topic „Territory, Tension, and Taboo: Canada in Crisis“ is now open. 

Territory as a historical, legal, geographical, or cultural concept has become an essential interdisciplinary nexus within the field of Canadian Studies. Depending on the context, territory has been described as vast, empty, conquered, annexed, unexplored, constructed, claimed, or imagined, among many other adjectives. This conference aims to explore different aspects of territory through the prism of tension and taboo. This includes territorial tensions which have erupted into public conflicts that dominate(d) popular Canadian discourse (e.g. Oka Crisis, 2022 Freedom Convoy, etc.), or territorial confrontations treated as taboo, concealed, or otherwise obscured by Canada’s international reputation as a welcoming and multicultural nation (e.g. Chinese head tax, history of slavery in Canada, etc.). The conference will feature thematic panels for more advanced projects as well as an open forum for ongoing research projects. We therefore welcome emerging scholars at all levels to share their work on the multifaceted territorial crises occurring within and between many overlapping and contested territories that make up the place now known as Canada. 

The conference will take place in person at the University of Bremen on October 10 and 11. Please submit your abstracts by April 30, 2024. More information here.

Back to overview
space

“According to Niklas Luhmann, space is a ‘special facility to negate contradictions’”.

Julia Lossau
problem to be solved

“Contradiction is not primarily a problem to be solved but a motor we cannot do without.”

Martin Nonhoff
articulate

“Contradictions need to be articulated in order to exist.”

Martin Nonhoff
ideal of a contradiction-free world

“Science has long been animated by the ideal of a contradiction-free world in which logical orders could merge with society, politics, culture and language. In the GRC Contradiction Studies we are working on ways of describing the multiplicity and complexity, the danger and beauty of our worlds that clearly go beyond concepts of freedom from contradiction.”

Michi Knecht
paradox

“The basis of law is not an idea as a systematic unified principle but a paradox.”

Andreas Fischer-Lescano