Kick-Off Kanada Forum

On November 6, 2025, Anglistik III/American Studies will host the kick-off event for the newly established regional CanadaForum. A cooperation of universities in the south-western area of Germany (Mannheim, Trier, Saarbrücken, Mainz/Germersheim), the CanadaForum seeks to bring together scholars from various disciplines with a scholarly interest in Canada.

 The Forum will be inaugurated with a guest lecture by Prof. Myra Bloom (English, York University, Toronto) on “Canadian Literature and the Culture of Confession.”

SO 418, 10.45 – 11.45 a.m. All guests are welcome.

 Details on the guest talk: Confession is everywhere in our culture. It drives banal social media posts, sensational reality television shows, revolutionary social justice movements, and is prominent in literature. Confession has also been central to feminist movements throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. Nevertheless, self-disclosure comes laden with an array of dangers, particularly for women: that they will be disbelieved or retraumatized, seen as narcissistic and/or unliterary, or professionally stereotyped and blocked from opportunities. In this talk, Myra Bloom will discuss how writers negotiate the potentialities and pitfalls of confession, focusing specifically on Canadian women/nonbinary writers including Tanya Tagaq, Nelly Arcan, Sheila Heti, and Sina Queyras, whose experiments in life writing are fueling literary innovation in Canada and beyond. Bloom will also show how “CanLit” itself has become confessional, as personal disclosure increasingly shapes its texts, institutions, and discourse.

For further information visit: https://www.uni-mannheim.de/news/kanada-im-fokus-neues-netzwerk-an-der-universitaet-mannheim/