Selected papers presented at the International Council for Canadian Studies biennial conference held May 25-27, 2005.

This first book-length study of French-language science fiction from Canada provides an introduction to the subgenre known as "SFQ" (science fiction from Quebec). In addition, it offers in-depth analyses of SFQ sagas by Jacques Brossard, Esther Rochon, and Elisabeth Vonarburg. It demonstrates how these multivolume narratives of colonization and postcolonial societies exploit themes typical of postcolonial literatures, including the denunciation of oppressive colonial systems, the utopian hope for a better future, and the celebration of tolerant pluralistic societies. A bibliography of SFQ available in English translation is included.

This book analyses comprehensively the complex linguistic situation in Canada focusing particularly on the position of the French language at both national and provincial levels. Language issues in Canada are of great interest to linguists and sociolinguists for many reasons, not least because of Canada's policy of official bilingualism (Official Languages Act, 1969). The authors address a wide range of topics of interest to undergraduate and postgraduate students of French and Linguistics as well as readers with a specialist interest in Canadian or Quebec Studies. Individual chapters discuss the historical background to the presence of French in Canada, language policy and planning at federal and provincial levels, the changing linguistic landscape of Canada in the twenty-first century, the multilingual community, language contact, code-switching, immersion education and the language of the L2 speaker, the dynamics of French in Canada, language variation and change. The status of French in Canada is of relevance to all researchers with an interest in multilingualism, a crucial issue in this era of globalisation. The authors bring their expertise as linguists to bear on a subject which is of considerable importance internationally as well as within Canada.

Modern states - and novel multinational polities such as the European Union - have to contend with greater degrees, and more complex forms, of diversity. What elements keep complex, «post-national», political entities together? What are the ties that bind people together in a world where they cannot rely on the safety of established national identifications (if they ever could)? This collection of essays by leading political scientists, philosophers and legal academics from Canada and Europe provides a transatlantic dialogue on the ways in which complex states (such as Canada) and non-states (the EU) may broach the modes of difference and diversity that confront them. Authors engage in insightful «diagnoses» of contemporary forms and modes of diversity, as well as critical appraisals of a number of normative responses meant to answer these challenges. These responses range from «reasonable accommodation» and multinationalism to cosmopolitanism. They include the recognition of «post-national», «multinational» or «deterritorialised» democracy and constitutional patriotism, as well as plural or «denationalised» citizenship.

"Selection of the literary articles presented at the 7th triennial conference of the Nordic Association for Canadian Studies ... held in Stockholm, Sweden, in August 2002"--P. 9.

"This volume was inspired by the 48th Conference of Professors of English at the University of Orleans (May 16-18, 2008)."

Acadians remain one of the few North American historical minorities which has been able to survive as a distinct ethno-cultural and linguistic group. This fact is all the more striking since this people suffered a deportation and dispersion, and it does not possess its own territory, nor does it have a government of its own. Acadians therefore have continually had to face the issue of autonomy in all its varied forms. The central issue addressed by this book is an inquiry into the nature of the process which has maintained the unique Acadian minority in existence right up to the present day. This study differs from other multidisciplinary analyses of this community principally because it studies the historical continuity of the dynamic of autonomy that has evolved since the beginning of Acadia. The research for this complete chronological framework encompasses a number of intersecting disciplinary approaches at the historical, political, socio-cultural and existential levels. These differing perspectives are harmonized by their common objective of defining the process of autonomization, and the counter-process of heteronomization, which lie at the heart of each of the periods studied. These approaches allow critical openings between the framework of social history, power relationships and the fundamental aspirations of the minority.