CAPS Annual Conference 2025– Toronto Metropolitan University
We’re going hybrid this year!
Keynote Speakers: TBA
Conference Theme: Postcolonial Studies, Sustainability, and Shared Futures
The Canadian Association for Postcolonial Studies (formerly CACLALS) will host its annual conference from June 1 to 3, 2025, at (TBA) in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Conference Theme
The world is facing multiple ecological and political crises that make shared, sustainable futures difficult to envision, with many of these crises deeply rooted in, and perpetuated by, extractivist and capitalist power structures propagated by colonialism. Additionally, violent conflicts unfolding in the Middle East, Ukraine and across the globe eliminate sustainable futures for multiple lives, ecologies, and communities, all while sustaining robust military economies whose flows of capital and munitions accumulate wealth in colonial centres of power. We invite submissions reflecting on the theme of sustainability in these multiple senses, specifically focused on interventions made by cultural texts, artistic practices, and theoretical frameworks in the fields of postcolonial, decolonial, or anticolonial thought. How do cultural mediations and their particular forms and genres intervene in our understanding and approach toward political/ecological crises and sustainability? Alternatively, how might we rethink the discourse of sustainability itself, troubling its frequently neoliberal, “business-as-usual” investment in maintaining untenable ecologies, materialities, and socialities? Broadly speaking, how do our association’s disciplinary frameworks challenge the market logic of “sustainability” discourse? More urgently, how are we to envision a more equitable world amidst neoliberalism’s nascent decline amidst the emergence of rightwing populism?
In the spirit of anticolonial, decolonial, and postcolonial research, our conference aspires to cultivate a critical discourse on sharing, exchange, and futurist imaginings, particularly in the context of prevalent environmental crises such as wildfires, droughts, and extreme weather events. That is, we encourage reflections on postcolonial studies’ contributions to the environmental humanities in the context of contemporary global conflicts; as postcolonial thought moves beyond anthropocentric frameworks, we have the opportunity to scrutinize the consequences of human-human conflict on more-than-human life and planetary ecologies. We thus invite submissions that explore topics related to the current climate crisis or contemplate the role that scholarship and theory play in conceptualizing a sustainable, collective future.
Information on Presentations
We welcome any of the following presentation modalities for our conference: formal papers designed to be delivered in 15 to 20 minutes; workshops; member-organized panels (including, but not limited to, roundtables, storytelling panels, collaborative presentations); poetry and creative contributions; digital media presentations; or other proposed formats and member-proposed special events. If the latter have funding implications, we ask that the proposal include ideas regarding how partial funding might be secured.
While our CFP centers sustainability and shared futures in postcolonial thought, , CAPS welcomes any proposals related to postcolonial and global literary and cultural studies. For those responding to the themes outlined by our CFP, the following are possible directions:
- Environmental humanities, energy humanities, the inhumanities, and critical animal studies
- Resource access and distribution (including water, land, food, and mineral resources)
- Indigenous foodways; colonial and anticolonial agricultures
- Water, aquatic regions and crossings, hydrocolonialism, and the Black Atlantic or Black Pacific
- Natural disasters (including floods, fires, and droughts), conservation, and cultural survival
- Ecological diversity, eco-alliance, and collective forms of environmental activism
- Environment and race, environmental racism, and anti-black ecologies
- Ecocriticisms of colour; Black ecologies and futurities
- Indigenous ecocriticism, futurities, and solidarity
- Geology, geontology, and colonial geographies
- Sustaining other-than-human materialities, vitalities, animacies, and socialities
- Queer and trans ecologies
- Neocolonialism and extractivism, petro-colonialism, oil, and mining
- The ecopolitics of war, conflict, and violence
- Utopia, dystopia, and other speculative futurities
Submission Instructions
Proposals of not more than 350 words should be uploaded to this online form CAPS 2025 Proposal Submission Form by January 15, 2025. Proposals are double blind-vetted. Please ensure your submission includes all of the required information listed by the form, and keep in mind the following:
- Your proposal should be no more than 350 words. Member-organized panels should include a brief description of the panel and (if applicable) proposals for each presenter.
- Please supply the contact information (i.e., email address) through which you would like to be contacted regarding your proposal and details of the conference.
- Ensure that you supply the 50-word abstract and bio for the program, and indicate any special media or other needs.
- If you are a student and wish to be considered for the Graduate Student Presentation Prize, please indicate this. If you opt to be considered, your proposal will be automatically vetted for the Graduate Student Presentation Prize Panel. Information about the Graduate Student Conference Presentation Prize can be found here.
Association Membership
Membership renewal or new membership must be paid in full by February 20, 2025, for inclusion in the final conference program. Conference fees will be announced via the website and the Congress registration page.
The automated membership system is available on the CAPS website. Conference queries, including those related to fee payments and membership inquiries, should be sent to caps2025conference@gmail.com Please also see the CAPS website for more information about the association and for conference updates.