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.