中国加拿大研究网

-----The Report of the PANCS in New Delhi in 2007
Written by He Jiantao College of Sociology and History, Fujian Normal University
As the Canadian studies in Pacific Asia region expands fast and further deepens constantly, it has become an urgent requirement and necessary development trend to foster and reinforce the linkages, to facilitate the cooperation among the Asia Pacific Canadianists. In order to achieve such an important objective and to contribute to the development of a new generation of Canadianists, the Pacific Asia Network of Canadian Studies (PANCS) was held in New Delhi in India from November 2nd to 3rd, jointly organized by Indian Association for Canadian Studies in collaboration with Centre for Canadian, US and Latin America Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University.

  The Pacific Asia Network of Canadian Studies (PANCS), such a meeting form was gestated at the ICCS meeting in 2006. It was decided to form a regional network in Asia Pacific region. On 2 April 2007, delegates from the region met in Hong Kong, and it was decided to call the network the Pacific Asia Network of Canadian Studies. Based on the examples of the European Network of Canadian Studies and the Latin American Network, the PANCS is the summit academic meeting on Canadian Studies in Asia Pacific region. Its purposes are to develop the Asia Pacific dimension of Canadian Studies, to promote the communication among all the organizations of Canadian studies and to foster the new scholars in this region. To reach these goals, the PANCS organizes the workgroups on new themes for Canadian Studies, the joint academic events among the Asia Pacific Canadian Studies associations, the annual Asia Pacific Student Seminar on Graduate Work in Canadian Studies, the regular meetings of presidents or representatives of Asia Pacific and Canadian Studies Associations. Now the PANCS is expanding Canadian Studies into new geographical areas throughout the whole of Asia and the Pacific areas and into new fields such as human resource development, public administration, law, integration and identity, new technologies, development aid, economics and trade indigenous studies, media studies, human rights, terrorism, the environment etc.

  The Canadian government gave great financial support to this seminar. The officers from Canadian High Commission, the scholars and postgraduates from India, Australia, China, China Taiwan, Israel, Korea, Japan, New Zealand etc, about 50 people in all, attended this important meeting.
On the evening of November 1, Mr. Kenneth Macaitney held a cocktail evening party to welcome delegates to PANCS on behalf of Canadian High Commission. The romantic and warm light, delicious food and wine, especially friendly communication on Canadian Studies made each guest spend a beautiful night. On the morning of November 2, presidents of each Association for Canadian Studies coming from the countries and regions mentioned above held a president meeting. Presidents reviewed the last Pacific Asia Network of Canadian Studies held in Hong Kong in China, discussed the budget and activity program of 2007-2008, and made the arrangements for the coming seminar. After that, delegates held a meeting of expanding Canadian Studies at Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute in the afternoon, and delegates outlined the respective studies on Canada and had an in-depth discussion on how to promote the Canadian Studies in a frank, serious and friendly atmosphere. When the meeting was over, Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute invited participants of the PANCS to a reception dinner at Indian International Centre.
   On the morning of November 3, the International Postgraduate Seminar on Canadian Studies began formally in hot applause. Chairman on duty, Professor Steward Gill presided over the opening ceremony. Professor R.K. Dhawan, President of Indian Association for Canadian Studies made a ardent speech of welcome, he looked back on the Indo-Canadian intimate relationship, fully affirmed the young scholars’ important and positive role, and he hoped the seminar would help in developing inter-disciplinary studies and contribute to the growth and expansion of research at international level. Whereafter, 10 postgraduates delivered the wonderful speeches around the topic of “Canada in the Asia Pacific” and answered the audience’s questions. After the postgraduates’ speeches, Professor Harish Narang chaired the panel discussion on “the Future of Canadian Studies: the role of the youth”, the panelists all agreed that young scholars’ role should paid more attention to, and the further hope was also put forward to young scholars. Finally, chaired by Israeli Professor Daniel Ben-Natan, Doctor B.M. Bhalla delivered a farewell speech in which he congratulated on the excellent speeches made by postgraduates, wished and believed that there would be a brighter future for Canadian Studies. Then when the dusk came, the representatives participating in the conference attended the farewell dinner together and said goodbye to each other in the candle light.
   At this conference, undoubtedly, it could be said that the international postgraduate seminar on Canadian Studies was a beautiful landscape, and postgraduates’ speeches brought the conference to a climax. The seminar included four sessions in all, and now the main opinions of postgraduates in each session are summarized as follows, hoping they can be referred by those who need them.
The First Paper-Reading Session
This session was chaired by President of Association for Canadian Studies in China, Professor Guo Jide. Ms. Chin-Jung Hsu, who is pursuing the master degree at English Department of Shih Hsin University in China Taiwan, firstly made a speech on a novel called Chorus of Mushrooms. Her paper is called “Japanese Canadian Women and their Life Experience in Hiromi Goto’s Chorus of Mushrooms”. First of all, a brief introduction of the novel is made in her paper and she thinks that this novel describes different life experiences of three generations of Japanese Canadian women, and that Goto not only express the conflict between grandmother, daughter, and granddaughter, but also portrays how the Japanese Canadians struggle with their milieu so to establish themselves in an “unfamiliar” community, and then she uses the idea of “transculturation” to show how immigrants can smoothly assimilate from one culture to another.
The second speaker in this session was Mr. Huaxiang, who is studying in the master graduate program at the school of Foreign Languages & Literature, Shandong University in China, his paper title is “Imaginative Vision: The Apocalyptical Light in Frye’s Thought”. In his paper, he provides a clear and full demonstration of the “Imaginative Vision”. In his opinion, nearly all the aspects of Frye’s thoughts have been assessed by scholars all round the world and not unrewardingly at that. The only unsatisfactory point is that researches done from perspectives like culture studies, historical and ideological studies and formal aesthetics are mutually isolated from one another, i.e. there is no continuous systematic guiding direction, which shows the “partiality” of the “perspective”. In addition, he thought the idea of “standing back” proposed by Frye should be adopted in Frye studies.
The last speaker in this session was Ms.Eriko Tomotake, who is from the law School of Tokyo. She made a speech with the title of “Japan as Described in School Textbooks Published in Quebec in the 19th century”. Her paper firstly stresses that old school textbooks are valuable sources of historical reference for our generation today, and then her paper reveals the past relationship between Quebec and Japan through examining the history of Quebec and the textbooks published in the 19th century.
The Second Paper-Reading Session
The chairman of the second session is President of Association for Canadian Studies in China Taiwan, Professor Andy Leung.  
In this session, the first speaker was Mr. Stephan Haigh, a Canadian Doctor in politics from University of Otago in New Zealand. His paper title is “Canada and Pacific Asia: A new Framework for Identity and Allegiance”. He points out in his paper that traditional states had “hard shells”, by means of which they were eminently capable of manufacturing and consolidating differences between “inside” and “outside”, to the point where the latter could more easily be cordoned off, for closely related reasons states were largely able to envelop domestic societies, such that individuals were less citizens than they were subjects, beholden to the state and to a significant degree “absorbed” it.
However, under conditions of thick globalization, these dubious capabilities have been severely eroded. More than ever before, identities are now created and chosen, rather than simply “discovered” as brute facts—and the ability of a bounded political community to full control the process of creation and choice is now limited, such that its representational legitimacy is subject to question. At the same time, a sense of the common global human condition grows by the day, incorporating powerful new referents as well as mounting tangible evidence of universally shared fate. So “Westphalia” is no longer tenable, and regional and cosmopolitan identities can now more successfully complete for citizens’ allegiance. Based on the above-mentioned comments, he raised a question about how to cope with the relationship between Canada and Asia Pacific region, and he also examined the possibilities of potentials for a larger regionalized identity.
When Mr. Stephan Haigh finished his speech, Ms. Thari Sitkil walked up to the platform, who is a research scholar at Jawaharlal Nehru University in India. She began her speech with her paper title---“Asymmetric Federalism: A Comparative Study of Quebec in Canada and Jammu and Kashmir in India”. Her paper indicates that both Canada and India have special features of asymmetric federalism to address their ethnic and language citizens. She thinks that Kashmir has special features in the Indian Constitution to provide for special needs of the Kashmiris, and in Quebec, with French-speaking in the majority in the state, it has gained special privileges for its development process and role in the polity.
The Third Paper-Reading Session
Shortly after the high tea, the third session of the postgraduate seminar started at 13:45. This session was chaired by Professor. Myung-Bae Yeom, President of Association for Canadian Studies in Korea.
There were three speakers in this session. Ph.D. Sumita Puri was the first one, who is studying at English department of Delhli University in India. His topic is about the poetry. The title of his paper title is “The personal and the political in Margaret Atwood’s Poetry”. What he emphasizes is the nationalism and feminism in Margaret Atwood’s Poetry. In his opinion, there are two predominant concerns in Margaret Atwood’s Poetry---the personal and the political. Her poetry project her multiple responses to the marginalization and exploitation of women and the indigenous as a result of varied forms of empowerment. Her poetry gives voice to this quest for locating one’s identity both as an individual and as well as a Canadian.
After Ph.D. Sumita Puri’s speech, Ph.D. Raj Mohan from University of Kerala in India made a speech on the issue of environment. His paper name is “Voices of Technological Hazards on Environment in Rudy Wiebe’s Oeuvre”. Ph.D. Sumita Puri thinks that Wiebe sympathizes with the indigenous people and tries to raise voice against the displacement and marginalization of these original inhabitants of the land (the Cree, the Métis and the Inuit) in west Canada and also in the Arctic. He reveals the nightmarish consequences of human destruction of nature and its unique cultures. What is more, Wiebe sincerely listens to the voices of technological hazards on environment as result of Euro-American imperialism and colonization.
About twenty minutes later after Ph.D. Raj Mohan , Ms. Se Young Park studying at English department of Chungnam National University in Korea ended this session with her paper. The name of her paper is “Study of Lexicon of Canadian English”. She mainly discussed the features of Canadian English. She thinks that English Canadians have developed the vocabulary they have needed in their special environment by borrowing from indigenous languages and from French, by coining new words, and by adapting and extending traditional English words, such that there are a number of words that are peculiar to usage in Canada. And the creation of lexical Canadianisms reflects Canadians’ history, culture and general way of life, such a feature is helpful to maintain Canadian identity to some degree.
The Fourth Paper-Reading Session
At 14:45 in the afternoon, the final session of the postgraduate seminar began chaired by Professor Yuki Shimomura, President of Association for Canadian Studies in Japan.
There were two students in all making speeches in this session. The one was Mr. He Jiantao, who is working on the master's degree in world history at Fujian Normal University in China. His subject is about Americanization, and the name of his paper is “Hurricanes from The South—on the Americanization of Canada since World War Two”. In his paper, he points out that the concept of Americanization seems to remain disputable, but generally speaking, its original meaning refers to the process of American mainstream culture assimilating immigrants from other different countries. Later, as America rose as a great power and expanded throughout the world, it is used to describe the process of American popular culture influencing, reshaping other countries' culture and the latter’s converging to the former.
In the paper, Mr. He cites much data to prove that Canada has been facing the grave threat and challenges caused by Americanization. In his eyes, there are six reasons that have leaded to the Americanization of Canada such as the historical factors, the geo- factors, and the deconcentration of Canada's culture pluralism, Candian dependence on America in economy, the stimulation of American Exceptionalism and the gap between US-Canadian culture competitiveness. He thinks it is very difficult for Canada to avoid the influences of the U.S.A, but he firmly believes that Canada will not lose its national identity that has been handed down from generation to generation, will not be engulfed by American culture. Because Americanization has not changed the unique national characters of Canadians, the social structure of Canada and the pluralism of Canadian culture. Instead, it has objectively made Canadian culture meet the need of social further developments.
The other speaker was Mr. Ofer Kenig studying at the department of Political Science of Hebrew University in Israel. He drew our attention to the leadership selection in Canada. His paper title is “Democratization of leadership Selection: Putting the Canadian Experience in Comparative Context”. In his paper, according to his research on the leadership contests that were held in 23 parties from ten parliamentary democracies between early 1960s and 2006, he draws the conclusion that the last two decades saw a significant shift in party leader’s selection methods. Many parties—including the main Canadian parties---opened their leadership selection procedure to wider selection bodies (selectorates).Such a step was expected to reduce the parties’ elitist and oligarchic tendencies by attracting a broader spectrum of Candidates (both in numbers and in demographic attributes) and producing more competitive contests.
Reviewing the whole process of the conference, the rich academic atmosphere could be felt everywhere. Whether the famous scholars home and abroad or the young postgraduates who are on the threshold of academic studies, every one concentrated on the meeting with a sincere and desirous attitude. Without a doubt, just as Professor R.K. Dhawan spoke in his welcome speech, this seminar is a meaningful and productive seminar. It is believed that this seminar will serve as an impetus to young scholars working in the Asia Pacific region, and the whole Canadian Studies will be prompted greatly too.
In addition, some delegates visited several places of historical interest in New Delhi such as Bahai Temple (also called Lotus temple), Minar Qutb Minar and Indian Gate.
According to the arrangement, the next PANCS will be held at University of Queensland in Australia from July 1st to July 3rd.
At last, please allow me to express my sincere thanks to the Canadian government, the Canadian Embassy in China, Associations for Canadian Studies in China and in India and Fujian Normal University for giving such a precious opportunity, thank my dear research supervisor, Prof. Wang Xiaode and all the teachers and friends who gave me help. I wish and firmly believe the PANCS will make greater progress and the PANCS’ tomorrow will become brighter.