The Folklore Studies Association of Canada/l’Association canadienne d’ethnologie et de folklore (FSAC/ACEF) will hold its 2023 annual meeting, in collaboration with Cape Breton University, in Sydney, Nova Scotia, May 25-27. The theme of the conference is “Face to Face.”

We will be meeting at the Eltuek Arts Centre in downtown Sydney. The building is completely accessible and is only a few minutes’ walk from downtown restaurants, bars, and hotels.

Details on hotels will be forthcoming.

FACE TO FACE

For much of the history of folklore and ethnology, the idea of “face to face” – encounter, communication, transmission, performance – has been central to our understanding. Mediated and digital culture challenged that premise, and we came to realise that “the folk” avail themselves of whatever is at their disposal to connect and communicate expressively: it is not co-presence in shared space and time, but mutual concern and community building through the expressions themselves.

Within this context, for ACEF/FSAC’s first non-virtual meeting in four years, we are inviting people to consider the ongoing meaning of face-to-face and the study of informal expressive culture: how custom, artistic performance, protest, verbal art, heritage can value – and perhaps at times over-value – face-to-face encounter, and what is re-gained and what is potentially at risk as we return to face-to- face under the auspices of “back to normal.”

Final conference program