[Candrama] CFP_Britain, Canada, and the Arts: Cultural Exchange as Post-war Renewal

[Marlis Schweitzer]

FYI... just received this from a UK colleague. I don't recall seeing it 
on Candrama before - apologies if it has and I just missed it.

Best,
Marlis



***DEADLINE EXTENDED
Britain, Canada, and the Arts: Cultural Exchange as Post-war Renewal
15-17 June 2017
CALL FOR PAPERS
Papers are invited for a major international, interdisciplinary 
conference to be held at Senate House, London, in collaboration with the 
School of English, Communication and Philosophy (Cardiff University) and 
the University of Westminster. Coinciding with and celebrating the 150th 
anniversary of Canadian Confederation, this conference will focus on the 
strong culture of artistic exchange, influence, and dialogue between 
Canada and Britain, with a particular but not exclusive emphasis on the 
decades after World War II.

The immediate post-war decades saw both countries look to the arts and 
cultural institutions as a means to address and redress contemporary 
post-war realities. Central to the concerns of the moment was the 
increasing emergence of the United States as a dominant cultural as well 
as political power. In 1951, the Massey Commission gave formal voice in 
Canada to a growing instinct, amongst both artists and politicians, 
simultaneously to recognize a national tradition of cultural excellence 
and to encourage its development and perpetuation through national 
institutions. This moment complemented a similar post-war engagement 
with social and cultural renewal in Britain that was in many respects 
formalized through the establishment of the Arts Council of Great 
Britain. It was further developed in the founding of such cultural 
institutions as the Royal Opera, Sadler’s Wells Ballet, the Design 
Council and later the National Theatre, and in the diversity and 
expansion of television and film.

While these various initiatives were often instigated by a strong 
national if not nationalist instinct, they were also informed by an 
established dynamic of social, political, and cultural dialogue. In the 
years before the war, that dynamic had been marked primarily by the 
prominent, indisputably anglophile voices of such influential Canadians 
in Britain as Beverly Baxter and Lord Beaverbrook. In English-speaking 
Canada, an established recognition of Britain as a dominant, if not 
originating, influence on definitions of cultural excellence continued 
to predominate. In the years following the war, however, that dynamic 
was to change, and an increased movement of artists, intellectuals, and 
artistic policy-makers between the two countries saw the reciprocal 
development of an emphatically modern, confident, and progressive 
definition of contemporary cultural activity.

This conference aims to expose and explore the breadth of this exchange 
of social and cultural ideals, artistic talent, intellectual traditions, 
and aesthetic formulations. We invite papers from a variety of critical 
and disciplinary perspectives -- and particularly encourage 
contributions from scholars and practitioners working in theatre, 
history, literature, politics, music, film and television, cultural 
studies, design, and visual art.


Some indicative post-war cultural figures and areas of influence:

   *   Henry Moore and the Art Gallery of Ontario
   *   John Grierson at the National Film Board
   *   Leonard Brockington and the CBC
   *   Sydney Newman, Alvin Rakoff and British and Canadian television drama
   *   Tyrone Guthrie, Barry Morse, Tanya Moiseiwitch, Alec Guinness, 
Maggie Smith, John Neville, Christopher Newton, Robin Phillips, Barry 
Morse, Brian Bedford, Christopher Plummer, Donald Sutherland, and 
others: developments in staging, acting, repertoire, and theatre-design 
at the Stratford Festival, the Shaw Festival, the Old Vic, the 
Chichester Festival Theatre, the National Theatre
   *   Powys Thomas at the CBC, the Stratford Festival, and the National 
Theatre School of Canada
   *   Celia Franca, Gweneth Lloyd, and national ballet
   *   Robertson Davies as novelist, actor, cultural critic in Britain 
and Canada; at the Stratford Festival; at the University of Toronto’s 
Massey College
   *   Yousuf Karsh and the iconography of the mid-twentieth century
   *  Intellectual exchange and influence: Northrop Frye, Harold Innis, 
Marshall McLuhan, John Kenneth Galbraith
   *   Elizabeth Smart and the London literary scene
   *   Ronald Bryden and theatre criticism in London
   *   Benjamin Britten and Michael Tippett: Canadian tours and compositions
   *   Glenn Gould as musical interpreter, recording artist, celebrity 
personality, documentarian
   *   Mordecai Richler, the cultural scene in London, and the 
dramatization of Anglophone Quebec
   *   Mazo de la Roche and Lucy Maud Montgomery: literary influence and 
adaptations
   *   Ben Wicks as cartoonist, journalist, and post-war memoirist
Other areas of exploration include (but are certainly not limited to):

   *   Quebec and ‘French Canada’ in the British artistic scene
   *   The cultural presence and influence of the Governor General
   *   Publishers and publishing networks
   *   Newspapers, media magnates, and editorialists from Beaverbrook to 
Black
   *  Universities and the ‘modernisation’ of higher education
   *   Popular culture and popular music
   *   Cultural policy-making
   *   Traditions of humour and satire
   *   ‘Distinct cultures’ within the larger nation
   *  Constructions of indigeneity and native culture
   *   National culture as anti-Americanism
   *   Definitions of diversity, audience, and national identity
   *  Architecture and urban development
   *   More recent and contemporary exchanges in literature, art, 
politics, theatre, film, design, television, and the media
Proposals (max. 250 words) for papers of 20 minutes can be sent to the 
organizers, Irene Morra (Cardiff University) and John Wyver (University 
of Westminster), at canbritconference at gmail.com 
<mailto:canbritconference at gmail.com> by 1 December 2016.

http://www.ies.sas.ac.uk/Britain-Canada-Arts 
<http://www.ies.sas.ac.uk/Britain-Canada-Arts>

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