Transdisciplinary collaboration between local universities can thrive when
scholars combine resources and begin to create projects with a local
audience in mind. The Atlanta Studies Network supports an interdisciplinary group of scholars, students, instructors, professionals, and community members who engage with the Atlanta metro area as a space for research, teaching, and activism. Through the development of digital resources, events, methods, projects, and platforms this network seeks to promote research and understanding of Atlanta’s past, present, and prospective future. Over the past 8 years, the network has created a geospatial storytelling platform that combines thousands of maps from multiple institutions, a teaching site where k-12 and college instructors can share assignments and syllabi focused on our city, an online journal with
thousands of readers, digital museums about historically significant spaces in the city, and may other events, projects, and resources. This presentation will provide an overview of the Atlanta Studies Network with a particular focus on mapping, 3D visualization, and digital curation.

Brennan Collins is the Associate Director of the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning at Georgia State University for Digital  pedagogy and Atlanta Studies. The interdisciplinary nature and technology focus of these program allows him to work with a diverse faculty in exploring inventive pedagogies. He is particularly interested in creating transdisciplinary and interinstitutional projects and platforms that explore the urban landscape to develop student critical thinking and create opportunities for community engagement. This work explores the intersection of the Humanities with the emerging fields of mapping, digital heritage, data visualization and curation, and immersive learning. He teaches courses in Multiethnic U.S. Literature and comics.

Indigenous art has always been interconnected with the avant-garde, and it is increasingly fallacious to speak of the difference between Indigenous and avant-garde art. My talk will highlight some of the achievements and dynamics of avant-gardism in the contemporary Canadian context, including highlighting some of the implications of the Indigenous Renaissance on the category of avant-garde art and literature. The first part of my talk will elaborate on the idea of avant-gardism, especially in Canada, while the second half will focus on what happens to this category when we attend to Indigenous art and culture.

Gregory Betts is the current Craig Dobbin Professor of Canadian Studies at University College Dublin. While he is a poet, with six books to his name, he is primarily known for his research into the Canadian avant-garde. On that subject, Betts wrote the definitive study called Avant-Garde Canadian Literature: The Early Manifestations (University of Toronto Press) and recently, just this year, published an essential status-update of contemporary avant-garde writing called Avant Canada: Poets, Prophets, Revolutionaries (co-edited with Christian Bök, published by Wilfrid Laurier University Press). He is the former Director of Canadian Studies at Brock University, where he is a Professor of Canadian Literature.