New Histories of the Small Press / Nouvelles histoires des petites maisons d’édition
Annual Conference of the Bibliographical Society of Canada
Federation of the Humanities and Social Sciences, Congress 2025
5–6 June, George Brown College, St. James Campus
200 King St. East, Toronto, ON
Conference Program
PDF version available here.
Day 1 – Thursday 5 June
Rm SJA-560E
8:15 AM Breakfast
8:30 AM Session 1: The Small Press in Ontario
Panel chair: Eli MacLaren
- Nicole Kapphahn (Queen’s University Archives), “Archiving an Evolving Relationship: Queen’s University Archives & the Accession Records of the Oberon Press Fonds”
- Gillian Dunks (McMaster University Library), “Collecting the Residue of the Southern Ontario Small Press: The Contemporary Chapbooks and Small Press Ephemera Collection at McMaster University Library”
- John Shoesmith (Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library), “The Deluxe Treatment: Church Street Press and its CanLit Works”
10:00 AM Break
10:30 AM Session 2: Genres invendables : le recueil de poésie et la micro-périodique
Panel chair: JP Mongeau
- Anthony Glinoer (Université de Sherbrooke), “Imaginaires de l’éditeur de poésie”
- Rachel Nadon (Université Laval), “La promesse de la périodicité”
12:00 PM BSC Annual General Meeting / Catered Lunch
1:30 PM Session 3: Ships, Missions, Settlements: Nineteenth-Century Printers
Panel chair: Gillian Dunks
- Sarah Pelletier (Carleton University), “Nineteenth-Century Canadian Typographical Trade Journals and the (Trans)National Significance of the International Art Printer (Owen Sound, Ontario 1895-189?)”
- Ceilidh Hart (University of the Fraser Valley), “Transforming ‘Emigrant’ to ‘Colonist’: Shipboard Papers and the Mechanics of Colonialism”
- Susan Paterson Glover (Laurentian University), “The Printer and the Press at Stanley Mission, Rupert’s Land, 1865–1876”
3:00 PM Break
3:30 PM Session 4: The Small Press in the West
Panel chair: Ceilidh Hart
- Molly Pearce (McGill University), “Writing Before Region: Marginality and Region in the Early Little Magazines of the Pacific Northwest”
- David Buchanan (Athabasca University), “Small Press, Popular Print: The Lumberman Printing Co. and Rhymes of a Western Logger”
- Eli MacLaren (McGill University), “How to Be (and How to Know) a Poet in Early-Twentieth-Century Alberta”
Day 2 – Friday 6 June
Rm SJA-560E
8:15 AM Breakfast
8:30 AM Session 5: Voix marginalisées et hurlantes
Panel chair: Eli MacLaren
- Rachel Harris (Concordia University) & JP Mongeau (University of Delaware), “Decentering Whiteness: BIPOC Representation in and Beyond Canadian Small Press Histories”
- Danielle Van Wagner (University of Toronto), “Beyond Prison Walls: Transition and the Outside Voice of the Penal Press in Canada”
10:00 AM Break
10:30 AM Session 6: The Digital Small Press
Panel chair: Ruth Panofsky
- Jay Ritchie, “Sustaining Sociality: Towards a Digital Ethnography of Metatron Press (2014–)”
- Antoine Fauchié (Université de Rouen Normandie), “C&F Éditions : l’autonomisation des moyens de production d’une structure indépendante”
12:00 PM Lunch (on your own)
1:30 PM Session 7: Publishing Across Divides of Gender and Geography
Panel chair: Danielle Van Wagner
- Martin Breul (McGill University), “The Allan-Gordon Split: Cold War Dynamics and Canadian Authorship”
- Sophia Arts (University of Toronto), “‘A sudden flowering of heroines’: Jean E. Karl, Atheneum Books, and YA Science Fiction and Fantasy”
- Ruth Panofsky (Toronto Metropolitan University), “‘A ton of gratitude’: Publisher Anna Porter and Author Sylvia Fraser”
3:00 PM Break
3:30 PM Session 8: Small, Smaller, Smallest: Community Press, Fine Press, Zine
Panel chair: Svetlana Kochkina
- Denbeigh Whitmarsh (Queen’s University), “Shoreline Press: A New Model of Community Publishing in Québec’s Eastern Townships”
- Kate MacDonald & Rebekah Bedard (John W. Graham Library), “Un Temps Viendra: The Golden Dog Press & the Canadian Private Press Movement”
- Izabeau Legendre (Université Concordia), “Portrait de l’artiste en éditrice : Le Pantalitaire de Julie Doucet”
5:00 PM Break
Closing Reception
Kelly Library, St. Michael’s College, 113 St. Joseph St.
TTC Subway Line 1 to Wellesley Station. Walk north on Yonge St., turn left on St. Joseph St.
6:00 PM Welcoming Remarks
Presentation of the Marie Tremaine Medal 2025
Closing Address
Claire Battershill (University of Toronto), “Material Experiments: A Brief History of Artist-Author Collaborations at 20th-Century and Contemporary Small Presses”