american

The Ralph Waldo Emerson Society invites proposals for a panel on “Emerson and Poetry” at the American Literature Association’s 38th Annual Conference, to be held May 26–29, 2027, in Boston at the Westin Copley Place, 10 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA 02116.In “Circles” (1841), Emerson describes “the poet” as a representative seer who breaks the reader’s “whole chain of habits” while opening up new possibilities.

As human rights institutions and legal frameworks are discredited, defunded, dismantled, and openly ignored across multiple national contexts, the question of what literature has to do with rights returns with new urgency. This moment demands new ways of thinking about these problems. This seminar responds by turning to the many literary traditions from the Global South and postcolonial contexts in which writers have narrated human rights and personhood on their own cultural terms and grounds.

In the introduction to the Fourth Edition of The Norton Anthology of African American Literature, Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Valerie Smith emphasize the imitativeness of literature—Black literature, specifically. To them, literature begets newer literature. At the same time, readers have traced formal patterns of repetition and imitation in Black literature across centuries, dating back to the antebellum.

As part of the 54th annual Louisville Conference on Literature and Culture, the Charles Olson Society invites papers on the theme of “Black Mountain Poetry and the Arts.” Working amidst the rich, interdisciplinary atmosphere of Black Mountain College and The Black Mountain Review, Charles Olson, Robert Creeley, Robert Duncan, Denise Levertov, and many others developed their conceptions of projectivist poetics in tandem with colleagues in painting, music, and dance. As multimedia events like the first “Happening,” which featured poetry by Olson, readings by M.C.

Seminar Title:
Based on a True Story: The Ethics and Aesthetics of Retelling What Really Happened

Organizers:
Dr. Priscilla Charrat Nelson, Providence College
Dr. Claire Rodan, University of Maryland

Paper submissions are currently open.

GENERAL CALL FOR ABSTRACTS CFP:

Submit here: https://samla.ballastacademic.com/Home/S/19572

Conference Dates: November 5-7, 2026

Conference Location: Wyndham Atlanta Buckhead Hotel and Conference Center in Atlanta, GA

Papers submitted to our general call for abstracts will be matched by SAMLA staff to appropriate spots on existing panels OR will be combined with similar general call papers to create new panels.

DEADLINE: September 1, 2026

This MLA just-in-time panel explores the evolving status of non-binariness in trans studies and beyond. Following Marquis Bey’s Nonbinary Life, we ask: Is non-binariness an emancipatory narrative? What are its critical potentialities and limitations? Send 150-200 word abstracts + bio to m.stekl@colostate.edu by 8/21. (The MLA will take place in Los Angeles from 7 to 10 January 2027.)

How was the concept of “hospitality” and “leisure” conceived by early American writers? Travelogues, whether from William Bartram, Sara Kemble Knight, or others, served as a major genre type during the period. Topics may include stays at early American hotels, the way that leisure was/is linked to social class, and the Caribbean and European vacation in the early American imagination. What regional places of leisure figured heavily in the early American cultural imaginary? How did Black writers and Native American writers conceive of entertainment and visitation? This panel seeks contributors who can speak to leisure and travel from writings that span the early part of American culture and history into the nineteenth century.

CALL FOR PAPERS / Mid-twentieth-century American Women’s Crime Writing
(theme issue of Clues: A Journal of Detection)
Guest editors: Erin A. Smith (University of Texas at Dallas) and Clare Rolens (Palomar College)

PAEDEIA: NSU Journal of Humanities, Social Sciences, and LawCall for Papers

Vol. 2, 2026

*"Online First" publication upon acceptance

*Expected print publication in December 2026

 PLEASE CLICK THE FOLLOWING LINK Submit

RSAJournal, no. 38 (2027) - Call For Papers: Contested Meanings of Freedom in the United States

Guest editors: Dr. Janine Giordano Drake (Indiana University Bloomington) and Dr. Matthew E. Stanley (University of Arkansas)

The Journal of Humanities publishes original research articles, scholarly opinions, and reviews in classics, fine and performing arts, communication, literature, linguistics, theology, and philosophy.  While maintaining a pluralistic and non-partisan approach, the journal prioritises studies focused on Southern, Central, and Eastern Africa, aiming to foster critical and theoretical debates within the humanities across the region. (part of the African Journals Initiative AJI by Pluto Journals and the African Books Collective)

ISSN: 1016-0728 (print)  |  ISSN: 2948-0094 (online)

 PLEASE CLICK THE FOLLOWING LINK SubmitAbout

Panel on the rewards, risks, and ethics of public humanities approaches in the undergraduate classroom. Some possible topics: public project assignments, public writing, community-engaged learning, university/humanities in current political climate, faculty-student collaboration.

Deadline for submissions: Friday, August 15, 2026