SFU Represents @ ACCUTE 2009
Clint Burnham
As campus rep for ACCUTE (the Association of Canadian College and University Teachers of English), I felt I should organize at least one session for this year’s conference, held during the Congress of the Canadian Federation of the Humanities at Carleton University in Ottawa this past May. So I pitched two: one on the Canadian avant-garde and poetry, one on psychoanalysis post 9/11. Both were accepted by the organizing committee, and I had enough proposals come in that I was given three sessions: two on poetry, one on psychoanalysis. SFU alumni and graduate students were very well represented in these sessions. Alessandra Capperdoni, an SFU Ph.D., presented a paper on feminism and the avant-garde, discussing especially the work of Vancouver poets Dorothy Trujillo Lusk and Lisa Robertson. Three of the four presenters in the psychoanalysis panel, meanwhile, were from SFU: Dave Gaertner, who talked about the “Aristocrats” joke in relation to humour after 9/11; Heather Latimer, who gave a fine reading of the film Children of Men in terms of reproductive technology; and Jason Starnes, who did a Lacanian critique of WTC conspiracy theories. I have to say, there was a bit of envy (or, as we say in the biz, anxiety about our stealing their jouissance) from colleagues across the country about the strong psychoanalytic presence coming out of SFU these days (our session was co-sponsored by the Lacan Salon) -- but nothing that couldn’t be dealt with in the beer garden afterwards. Another highlight for myself was a poetry reading one evening that featured legendary 60s poet Ken Belford, who regaled us with stories of hanging out with Earle Birney and, a couple decades later, a wet-behind-the-ears Jeff Dersken!