Composed of iconic Canadian novelist Margaret Atwood and environmental activist Leah Kostamo, the panel will explore the rich, complex portrayal of religion in the Canadian imaginary as a powerful, yet ambiguous force which has the potential to renew and to shatter: bringing liberation and oppression, hope and fear. In a career spanning forty years, Atwood’s seminal work has explored the past, present, and dys/utopian future of religion in Canada: imagining religion as everything from the justificatory ideology in the terrifying patriarchy of A Handmaid’s Tale to the outmanned but idealistic eco-liberatory group, God’s Gardeners, in her Flood Trilogy. The presence of Christian environmentalist Leah Kostamo broadens the discussion from the simply the speculative by providing a unique example of how life can imitate art.

A highlight of Restorying Canada: Reconsidering Religion and Public Memory, this keynote event is free for conference registrants, and open to the public as a ticketed event.

Restorying Canada: Reconsidering Religion and Public Memory

Restorying Canada: Reconsidering Religion and Public Memory is a conference and public event that will inspire bold challenges to historiographic conventions of how we remember, invite critique as well as celebration, and explore multiple media and genres for evoking and interrogating the past, privileging artistic creativity along with academic rigour. For more information, please visit http://artsites.uottawa.ca/restorying-canada/