This panel foregrounds lived, social, and racialized experiences of border crossing and cross-border belonging.

Chair: James Hundley

• Olivia Schmidt
  Brock University
  Student Experiences of Race, Citizenship, and Border Crossing in the Niagara Region
• Alison Jenkins Jayman
  Independent Scholar
  Different Visions, Different Burdens: Women's Perspectives on Public Health Insurance in Ontario and New York

This panel begins the historical arc without making Friday morning “the history block.” It links America 250, Loyalist landscapes, early US–UK–British North America relations, and the Atlantic political economy.

Chair: Brittany Goetting

• Claire Campbell
  Bucknell University
  “Natural Productions and Advantages”: Loyalist Landscapes in a Revolutionary Era
• Patrick Callaway
  University of Maine-Presque Isle
  The Problem of Provisions: Trade and the Year without a Summer in Nova Scotia
• Fr. Thomas Murphy, SJ
  Boston College
  Not a monster I search for to destroy: John Quincy Adams and British North American Autonomy, 1814–1829

This panel turns to contemporary political structures, international relations, political culture, and the unsettling of older Canada–US assumptions.

Chair: Mark McLaughlin

• David J. Rovinsky
  Independent Scholar
  Beyond Oil: Alberta Separatism, Culture War Politics, and the Unsettling of the Canada–U.S. Continental Order
• Chris Kirkey and Amy Sotherden
  SUNY Plattsburgh
  Canada, the United States, and Political Leadership in the International Community
• Andrew C. Holman and Eric Weeks
  Bridgewater State University
  Elbows Up: The Hockey Metaphor and Canadian Political Culture

This panel brings together historical and institutional work on religious networks, accreditation, and cross-border community formation.

Chair: Fr. Thomas Murphy, SJ

• Soren M. Hessler
  Emory University
  The Persistence of U.S.-Canadian Transnational Accreditation and the Canadian Schools' Lunch
• Brittany Goetting
  University of Pikeville
  Where in the World is Ann Hasseltine Judson? The Growth of Shared Religious Missionary Culture Among Northern New England and Canadian Maritime Baptist Women
• Brendan Shanahan
  Yale University
  Canadian Connections: Transnational Nativism, Blue-Collar Immigration Politics, and the American Protective Association in Late Gilded Age Detroit

Bilingual panel: language, identity, and international / economic relations are key themes.

Chair: Brendan Shanahan

• Christina Keppie
  Western Washington University
  L'Acadie moderne — Building a False Narrative?
• Claire-Marie BrissonBilingual
  Harvard University
  A Continental Language: Teaching French as Cultural Diplomacy Between Canada and the United States
• Bendreff Desilus
  Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana / Universidad La Salle México
  Le rôle du commerce transfrontalier dans les relations économiques entre le Canada et les États-Unis

Papers on Arctic security and sovereignty in the Canada–U.S. relationship, and on how the Wartime Elections Act of 1917 led, a century later, to same-sex marriage. John W. Bessai presents on Zoom.

Chair: Scott Piroth

• John W. BessaiOn Zoom
  Independent Scholar
  Staging Sovereignty in the North: Canadian Arctic Security Policy and the Canada–U.S. Relationship, 2025–2026
• Matthew Smith
  SUNY Plattsburgh
  Unintended Consequences: How Canada's Wartime Elections Act of 1917 Resulted in the Legalization of Same Sex Marriage

This panel centers on environmental change, food systems, resource politics, and regional life.

Chair: Claire Campbell

• Brian Payne
  Bridgewater State University
  Whose Fault, Whose Responsibility?: Understanding Poverty in Canada during the Great Depression
• Mark McLaughlin
  University of Maine
  Building Bridges of Interspecies Meaning: Human-Animal Relations as Environmental Indicators in Postwar New Brunswick

This panel joins Indigenous studies, border studies, settler colonialism, and disciplinary reflection.

Chair: Eric Weeks

• Jenni Makahnouk
  McGill University
  What's with All the Cryptids in the Mid-Atlantic? Discourse Analysis of the Scary Beasts Squonking Around the Woods
• James Hundley
  Rowan University
  Border Studies, Settler Colonialism, and the Future of Canadian Studies
• Devan Blackwell
  ACSUS Emerging Scholar
  STATIC TERMS: Film, Pedagogy, and Canada–U.S. Communication

Papers on George Grant's philosophy of national identity, Elizabeth Hay's fiction, and Franco-American archives.

Chair: Claire-Marie Brisson

• Joseph McGinn
  St. Stephen's University / Curtis Institute of Music
  National Identity and “Primal” Experience in George Grant's Philosophy
• Jeanne Minahan McGinn
  Curtis Institute of Music
  Inside Outposts: Elizabeth Hay's Snow Road Station
• Brian George Thomas
  Wayne State University
  Paper Borders: Franco-American Collections and the Politics of Heritage Preservation

Francophone panel linking Québec and Alberta, political ideology, and political memory. Alexandre Couture Gagnon presents on Zoom.

Chair: Claire-Marie Brisson

• Alexandre Couture GagnonOn ZoomIn French
  University of Texas Rio Grande Valley
  Conservative Policy Ideas in Québec and Alberta: Domestic Diffusion or Transnational Borrowing?
  With Daniel Béland, André Lecours
• Alexandre TurgeonIn French
  Lakehead University
  The Future of the Quiet Revolution

This panel ties together changing US-Canada relations, the rise and fall of the federal NDP from the 2011 election to the present, and social trust and accessibility.

Chair: Bendreff Desilus

• Jayantha Jayman
  St. Lawrence University
  Canada's Shift Away from Consenting to U.S. Hegemony: Assessing Structures of Power
• Charles Deshaies
  SUNY Plattsburgh
  Wasn't that a Party? The Riches to Rags Story of the New Democratic Party in Canada, 2011–2026
• Scott Piroth
  Bowling Green State University
  Social Trust and Accessibility in Curling Clubs