Congress 2023 took place at York University in Toronto from May 27 to June 2. Over 10,000 scholars, graduate students, and practitioners in the humanities and social sciences gathered together and shared their research.
University of Alberta Press was part of the Expo and had a major staff presence. Acquiring editors Mat Buntin and Michelle Lobkowicz took meetings with authors and scholars with work in progress while Douglas Hildebrand and Cathie Crooks looked after the booth and handled brisk sales of books.
This event was special. It was the first time in four years that Congress took place in person. We were all thrilled to see authors and colleagues and catch up on all the news about the research being undertaken and the books being published. That energy was bolstered by the sunny skies and York’s great facilities for the conference.
Meeting Dionne Brand again was wonderful. An award-winning poet, novelist, and public intellectual, she delivered a plenary talk that built on the ideas expressed in her Kreisel Lecture, an annual event organized by the Canadian Literature Centre / Centre de littérature canadienne. We helped sponsor the talk and published the lecture in 2020: An Autobiography of the Autobiography of Reading. The next lecture, by Wayde Compton, comes out in 2024.
Another highlight was meeting colleagues from UTP Distribution “in real life” and touring the warehouse where people do such a good job of getting our books into the hands of booksellers, librarians, scholars, and readers.
Enjoy some of the photos from the conference, below.
