ACCUTE is hosting a Twitter Conference! Twitter conferences are accessible, create a permanent record of scholarship, support conversations with diverse audiences, and best of all, the presentations are short and planned in advance. Authors present their papers as threaded tweets, and audiences from around the world can read and comment from the comfort of their couch. There are no financial costs for participants, observers, or organizers.

Following the theme of Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences 2021 Conference at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, our Graduate Student Twitter Conference will also address the theme of “Northern Relations”, understood as openly as possible, and will run concurrent with the virtual conference. The Twitter Conference will take place 29 May to 1 June 2021.

Theme: Northern Relations 

For those unfamiliar with Twitter Conferences, we recommend looking at the website of the Beyond 150: Telling Our Stories and consulting their FAQ here:
Try searching for the hashtag (#Beyond150CA) for examples of papers delivered on Twitter.

As one of Canada’s major northward-facing research institutions, the University of Alberta has invited Congress delegates to turn their attention to the North, and invited northern peoples—Indigenous and non-Indigenous—to lead the conversation. As a theme, “Northern Relations” encourages delegates to explore the connections between peoples, communities, cultures, and ways of knowing, while also listening to those voices that speak directly to some of the most pressing matters of relation (to the land, to each other) in the North: climate change, governance, social justice, anti-Black racism, decolonization, reciprocity, education, and much more. A relation is not only an association and an affiliation, it is also an act of telling or reporting; relations are at the heart of how peoples communicate, organize knowledge, and understand their place in the world. Edmonton, for thousands of years a traditional gathering place for diverse Indigenous peoples, is an ideal location to consider not only relations across the North, but also relations between the North and the South. Join us to listen, learn, and relate.

How do Twitter Conferences work?

After having your proposal approved, presenters write “papers” consisting of 12-18 tweets (maximum 280 characters each) that will be prepared ahead of time. Presenters will be allocated a time slot to post their threaded conference paper, each post of which must be marked with a conference hashtag and numbered to maintain the sequence of posts. Presenters will stay online for 15 minutes after their paper is delivered to answer questions and respond to comments on their thread.

The top two Twitter Essays, based on the amount of public interaction, quality of content, and discussions, will be workshopped with the English Studies in Canada (ESC) editorial team into full-length articles or reviews for publication in ESC.

The schedule of papers in the Twitter Conference will be included in ACCUTE’s program for Congress 2021.

Proposals

We seek short paper proposals and review proposals from Graduate Student researchers in English Studies (MA, MPhil, or PhD level) who focus on any facet of the theme of “Northern Relations.” The deadline for proposals is Monday, March 1, 2021. Proposals should be 75 words using clear and accessible language suitable for public audiences.

Papers/Twitter Essays are to be based on original research and will consist of 12-18 tweets during the researcher’s 15-minute time slot. We encourage participants to use media (photographs, videos, maps, timelines, pieces of software, art, links etc.) within their papers.

Reviews are to be similar to classic book reviews in academic journals. Scholars should propose to review a book, project, piece of software, piece of hardware, app or another piece of technology within 12-18 tweets and a 15-minute time slot. (Please note that the review format is for discussing the projects and work of other people, your own projects and work should be presented as a paper).

Conference Organizers

Dr. Gregory Betts (Brock), Dr. Allan Pero (Western), Meghan Burry (Queen’s)

Send Proposals or Enquiries to info.accute@gmail.com

The deadline for submissions is March 1, 2021.