2024 Annual Conference at McGill University


Topographical: The Place of Books

Annual Conference of the Bibliographical Society of Canada
Federation of the Humanities and Social Sciences, Congress 2024


June 17-18, 2024
McCall MacBain Arts Building
853 Sherbrooke St. West
McGill University (Downtown Campus)
Montreal, QC  H3A 0G5

June 19, 2024
Biblio-Bière
presented the by BSC Special Collections Interest Group 
See more details and register here.

Conference Program

PDF version available here

Day 1 – Monday 17 June  
Arts 150 

8:30 AM         Session 1: Publishing in the Likeliest and Unlikeliest of Places

Panel chair: Gillian Dunks

Ceilidh Hart, “Civilizing the City: The Cultural Work of The Cariboo Sentinel”

Jordan Patterson, “Lights Too Bright: Vintage Contemporaries, Jay McInerney, and the Curse of New York City”

Danielle Van Wagner, “Printing on the Inside: The Production of Books in Canada’s Prisons and Penitentiaries”


10:00 AM       Break


10:30 AM          Session 2: Cold Worlds: Publishing Canadian Authors, 1960–90

Panel chair: Danielle Van Wagner

Martin Breul, “Beyond the Garrison: The Publication of Canadian Short Fiction in the German Democratic Republic”

Ruth Panofsky, “‘So Much for Author-Publisher Hatreds’: Allan Fotheringham and Anna Porter”

Susan Brown, “The Early Canadian Cultural Journals Index: Remediating and Resituating Cultural Heritage Bibliographical Data”


12:00 PM        BSC Annual General Meeting

Catered Lunch


1:30 PM          Session 3: The Latest Views of Early Canada

Panel chair: Ruth Panofsky

I.S. MacLaren, “Building Paul Kane into a ‘Man of Science’”

Sarah Dorward, “Embracing Elsewhereness: May Agnes Fleming and Late Nineteenth-Century Transatlantic Authorship”


Day 2 – Tuesday 18 June                                     
Arts W-120

8:30 AM         Session 4: The Discovery of England

Panel chair: Mathieu Bouchard

Tristan B. Taylor, “‘R. P. of This Same Town’: Situating the South English Legendaries”

Gillian Dunks, “‘Scenes of Past Delights’: Britain as Place in the Otley Chapbook Series”

Mary Erica Zimmer, “Between Space and Place: Browsing the Bookshops in Paul’s Cross Churchyard”


10:00 AM       Break


10:30 AM       Session 5: Paradise and Labyrinth

Panel chair: Rachel Harris

Ian E. Wilson and Margaret J. Dixon, “Sir Arthur G. Doughty: Uncovering Identity Through Bibliography”

Ruth-Ellen St. Onge and Bronwen Glover, “Situating Bookbindings in Space and Time”

Lauren Williams, Jennifer Garland, Ann Marie Holland, and Jacquelyn Sundberg, “When Places Elude the Book: Preparing Special Collections for a Move”


12:00 PM        Lunch (on your own)


1:30 PM          Session 6: Print and Digital Intersections

Panel chair: Isabelle Robitaille

Lisa Teichmann, “Translational and Biographical Trajectories of Migration”

Vincent Cellucci and Angeliki Sioli, “The Broadside: the Political, Cultural and Economic Importance of Poetic Ephemera Continues in the Twenty-First Century”

Risa de Rege, “Plotting Plots and Mapping Music: Mapping Texts in the Digital Humanities”


3:00 PM          Break


3:30 PM          Session 7: Transcending Place: Prayer, Music, Fame

Panel chair: Christopher Lyons

Susan Cameron, “A Tale of Two Books: Glimpses of Places and People”

Billy Johnson, “Sundry Places and Common Grounds: The Commonplace Books of H.A.S. Hartley and Wellington Ney States”

Annika Fabbi, “‘What’s in a Score?: Exploring the Publication History of J. S. Bach’s Capriccio, BWV 992”


5:00 PM          Break


McLennan Library, Fourth Floor

5:30 PM          Svetlana Kochkina, BSC President & Guylaine Beaudry, Trenholme Dean of Libraries

Book Launch: I.S. MacLaren, Paul Kane’s Travels in Indigenous North America: Writings and Art, Life and Times (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2024)

Exhibition: Ann Marie Holland, Jennifer Garland, and Lauren Williams, “Textures of Book History,” McGill Rare Books and Special Collections

Visit to the Book Arts Lab

Catered Reception


Post-Conference Activity – Wednesday 19 June
McLennan Library, Fourth Floor

All are welcome to join the BSC Special Collections Interest Group for Biblio-Bière, a celebration of great books, craft beer, and congenial company. Organized by Chris Lyons and Rachel Harris.

10:00 AM Guided visit, Rare Books and Special Collections, McGill University
12:00 PM Lunch (Lola Rosa Restaurant, 545 Milton Street, Montreal)
1:30 PM Guided visit, The Word Bookstore and owner’s residence
We will meet at the iconic bookstore, 469 Milton Street, Montreal
3:30 PM BENELUX Brasserie Artisanale, 245 Sherbrooke St W, Montreal

The visits are free. Lunch and BENELUX are at the participants’ expense. There is a limited number of places: please register here.