ACADIA UNIVERSITY, WOLFVILLE, NOVA SCOTIA
                      JULY 4-7, 2013

The early twenty-first century is a complicated time for regional literatures, particularly the literature of a relatively small region like Atlantic Canada. Globalization, interest in diasporic studies, and an increasingly post-national sensibility are pushing the reconceptualization of national literatures, with considerable implications for regional literatures. Furthermore, it is a time when Atlantic Canada is undergoing considerable cultural change and its future is very much in flux, with the prospect of economic crisis on the one hand and the possibility of a resource-based economic resurgence on the other. Additionally, the very concept of Atlantic Canada continues to be contested, particularly because of differences between the Maritime Provinces and Newfoundland.