This special issue invites contributions that examine contemporary representations and practices of relation, belonging, community, intimacy, attachment, solidarity, and distance in the Francophonies of Western Canada. Consult the full call for papers on Fabula.
I would particularly welcome contributions that bring women’s writing, feminist perspectives, and questions of gender into conversation with these themes. For example, I am interested in work that considers how women and gender-diverse subjects negotiate relationships to place, language, community, family, memory, migration, isolation, or minority-language contexts; how literary and cultural works imagine and/or challenge forms of solidarity or care; and how women’s creative practices might challenge normative understandings of community and belonging.
The issue is also attentive to the tensions and ambivalences within relationality: who is included or excluded from a community, whose forms of belonging are recognized, and how relations are shaped by gender, race, class, sexuality, language, geography, and ongoing histories of colonialism.
Contributions engaging with literature, poetry, theatre, visual culture, graphic narratives, film, digital and other cultural productions are welcome, as are interdisciplinary approaches.
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Deadline for abstracts (250–300 words): October 23, 2026
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Deadline for manuscripts: June 1, 2027
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Dr. Dominique Hétu
Associate Professor and Chair / Professeure agrégée et directrice
Department of Francophone Studies and Languages, Faculty of Arts
Brandon University
Brandon, MB, Canada
Pronouns: she/her/elle
Lead editor: Living and Learning with Feminist Ethics, Literature, and Art (U of Alberta P, 2024)
Dernière parution : Il n'y aura pas de safety word (Hurlantes éditrices, 2025)
www.dominiquehetu.ca
Brandon University has campuses on both Treaty 1 and Treaty 2 lands, and we are a gathering place for people from many backgrounds around the world. In this way, we carry on the Indigenous customs of our home in Brandon. We acknowledge Brandon is on shared territory between the Dakota Oyate, the Anishinaabeg, and the National Homeland of the Red River Métis. Today, many other Indigenous people call Brandon their home, including the Ininew, Anisininewuk, Denesuline, and Inuit.
