modernist studies

December 2022 marked William Gaddis’s (1922-1998) centenary. Reputed during his lifetime for being—in his characters’ words—“difficult as I can make it,” or writing “for a very small audience,” the years since his death have nonetheless seen his work republished in increasingly wide-reaching editions and discussed in numerous online reading groups, with his unpublished archive increasingly studied and brought to public attention.

The present edited collection of academic essays seeks contributions that will challenge, update, expand, or surpass the extant understandings of Gaddis’s work, clarifying what it can offer readers more than a century after his birth.

The T. S. Eliot Studies Annual is the leading venue for the critical reassessment of Eliot’s life and work in light of the ongoing publication of his letters, critical volumes of his complete prose, the 2015 edition of his complete poems, and the forthcoming critical edition of his plays.

All critical approaches are welcome, as are essays pertaining to any aspect of Eliot’s work as a poet, critic, playwright, editor, foremost exemplar of modernism, or his influence on twentieth-century and contemporary literature and culture.

Prospero, Rivista di Letterature e culture straniere (A Journal of Foreign Literatures and
cultures) University of Trieste, Italy, invites contributions for the forthcoming general issue,
volume XXIX (2024). Prospero is a double-blind peer reviewed, printed and entirely openaccess
journal, published annually by EUT, Trieste University Press. It is indexed by MLA,
Erih+, DoAJ, ProQuest. It publishes articles and essays in the field of literary studies which
consider texts and textual analysis from a wide hermeneutic, philological and historical
perspective. It specifically focuses on literary studies considered in their interdisciplinary and

The Henry James Society is organizing a panel for the Modern Language Assocation Convention in New Orleans in January 2025! 

The topic is "Seeing Things: Perception and Palpability in Henry James." How is sight in James tied to the physical body, material world, and felt relations? How do language and style play with sensation, cognition, and embodiment? Proposals on Alice and William are welcome. 

Please submit 300-word abstract + short bio to tkill@unc.edu and sarah.wadsworth@marquette.edu by 3/14/2024. 

December 2022 marked William Gaddis’s (1922-1998) centenary. Reputed during his lifetime for—in his characters’ words—being “difficult as I can make it,” or writing “for a very small audience,” the years since his death have nonetheless seen his work republished in increasingly wide-reaching editions and discussed in numerous online reading groups, with his unpublished archive increasingly studied and brought to public attention.

The present edited collection of academic essays seeks contributions that will challenge, update, expand, or surpass the extant understandings of Gaddis’s work, clarifying what it can offer readers more than a century after his birth.

Joseph Conrad: Tyranny and Revolution

Joseph Conrad Society of America (MLA Allied Organization) MLA 2025 New Orleans

Prospero, Rivista di Letterature e culture straniere (A Journal of Foreign Literatures and cultures) University of Trieste, Italy, invites contributions for the forthcoming general issue, volume XXIX (2024). Prospero is a double-blind peer-reviewed, printed and entirely open-access journal, published annually by EUT, Trieste University Press. It is indexed by MLA, Erih+, DoAJ, ProQuest. It publishes articles and essays in the field of literary studies which consider texts and textual analysis from a wide hermeneutic, philological and historical perspective.

CFP:

Women Wandering Purposefully:

The Flâneuse in Literature and Popular Culture

(Edited Collection)

“I love walking in London. Really, it’s better than walking in the country.”

—Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway

The Cultural History panel seeks to revivify the political or social intersections that exist between text and context, including interdisciplinary aspects of culture. While papers that explore the continuities between history and film, history and literature, or history as it interweaves with marginalized aesthetic traditions would receive preference, excerpts of longer, ongoing projects that examine how cultural formations are “translated” or subsumed into historical trajectories would be particularly welcome. Submissions that not only practice cultural history by invoking the liminality of borderlands, but also critically reflect upon that practice are also encouraged.

Breaking New Grounds.
Democratising Gardens and Gardening in Great Britain, 19th-20th centuries.

Date: 27 September 2024.
Venue: Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier 3.
A one-day conference organised by Clémence Laburthe-Tolra (Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier 3, EMMA) and Aurélien Wasilewski (Law & Humanities, CERSA, UMR 7106, Université Paris-Panthéon-Assas).

     “Paper or plastic?” Sustainably sourced or affordably manufactured? Organic or GMO? Every day, consumers are faced with small decisions marketed to make a big impact. ​​Choosing either paper or plastic puts the onus onto the shoulders of the customer rather than acknowledging that regardless of whether or not you leave the store with a paper bag, it’s the planned obsolescence of what’s inside the bag that’s left unaddressed. Opting out of paper billing feels great, until you realize that the WiFi bill’s gone up and an electric bill leaves you contemplating if your LED bulbs are a sustainability placebo. 

Modernist Chicago: Richard Wright and Beyond (Modernist Studies Association Conference, Nov 7-10)

Deadline for Submissions: 12 PM PST, Friday, March 29, 2024

In the spirit of MSA 2024’s location in Chicago, this panel—centered around but not limited to Richard Wright—seeks work that engages the city’s modernist scene, broadly construed, through WWII: in literature (for example, Lawd Today!, Wright’s posthumously published experimental novel about Chicago, tensions and pollinations between realist and modernist aesthetics), sociology (the Chicago School, including Robert Park), blues music, journal culture and other radical politics, etc.

This roundtable asks for new thinking about modernist collectivity: collectivity in relation to material resources, intellectual support, and aesthetic productivity in the modernist period; and collectivity as principle for sustained scholarly collaboration and resource-sharing now. 

21st-Century Eliot. Panel for MLA 2025 (New Orleans). Recent developments in Eliot studies, including the release of the Eliot/Hale letters and the publication of Eliot’s complete prose in digital format, as well as the new editions of his poetry and new scholarly biographies and collections, promise to transform Eliot studies for the foreseeable future. 21-st Century Eliot brings together Eliot scholars with a focus on digital methodologies and/ or approaches drawing on the new materials available for research.

Send abstracts of 200 words and a brief CV to Dr. John McIntyre at jmcintyre@upei.ca by 10 March.