pedagogy

Throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, popular culture increasingly served as an intermediary to present and, in some cases, reimagine academia and the academy for mass audiences. This mediation results from an assembly of narratives from various media forms and contexts, both by those inside and outside the academy. The result is a vision of the academy in Western popular culture that is exciting and inviting at turns, but is more frequently shark-like, insular, and intimidating. 

This panel seeks proposals for papers that reflect on uselessness as a motif in post-1960 Anglophone literature. What sorts of aesthetic, political, and/or ethical stances do contemporary texts frame as useless, and why? Is uselessness conceivable as a literary or political end in itself? Topics that might be specifically addressed include, but are not limited to: modernist vs. postmodernist approaches to uselessness (how do they differ? Where do they overlap?); the affect(s) of contemporary uselessness; uselessness as a product of (or response to) AI technologies; and the pedagogical value of uselessness. Submissions that contest the viability of "uselessness" as a ground for literary and political critique are also very welcome.   

SAMLA 97: CFP for “The ‘Unfamiliar and Unnecessary’ in College Writing Instruction”

November, 6–8, 2025

Wyndham Atlanta Buckhead Hotel & Conference Center, Atlanta, GA

The South Atlantic Modern Language Association invites proposals dealing with any aspect of the general theme for the 2025 conference: “Knowledge.” Please find a general description of this theme here: https://southatlanticmla.org/conference-theme-and-cfp/.

Editors: 

Dr. Manzur Alam and Dr. Tanja Stampfl 

Contact Emails: malam@uiwtx.edu; stampfl@uiwtx.edu

Important Dates:

• Deadline for Abstract Submission: May 31st, 2025
• Notification of Acceptance: June 15th, 2025
• Submission deadline for the full articles and case studies: January 10th, 2026

Overview:

Which texts should be taught more often? Make the case for bringing a lost classic, under-studied gem, or important new work into the classroom. 250 word abstract, brief bio.

We seek submissions for chapters for inclusion in an interdisciplinary book that seeks to examine the

Transatlantic Slave Trade and its re-telling through cinematic representation and pedagogical instruction.

Chattel slavery (enslavement through conquest, birth, gender, race, ethnicity, kinship, and exploitation of

indebtedness) has long been endemic to varied societies. Its Transatlantic iteration saw at least 10 million

Africans brought to the Americas. Now, two centuries after its legal abolition, how do we conceptualize,

represent, and teach about that period, its legacy, and its relationship to both media and education without

Call for Papers: Engaging the Local Public Humanities in St. Louis Colloquium & Workshop
Colloquium Date: April 18, 2025
Location: Washington University in St. Louis
Deadline for Submissions: March 18, 2025

The Stanford Initiative for Financial Decision-Making (IFDM) and the National Endowment for Financial Education are happy to announce the 2025 edition of the Stanford Financial Education Symposium (formerly Cherry Blossom Financial Education Institute). It will be held on April 10-11, 2025, during Financial Literacy Month in the U.

CFP: MLA 2026 Convention – Roundtable on "Bad Adaptations"

The Adaptation Studies Forum invites submissions for a roundtable discussion at the 2026 MLA Convention in Toronto (January 8-11, 2026). In collaboration with the Screen Arts and Culture Group, this roundtable will engage in a critical exploration of what constitutes a “bad” adaptation and how these works can be understood and assessed both aesthetically and pedagogically.

Title: Bad Adaptations

The Journal of the Wooden O (JWO) is a peer-reviewed academic publication focusing on Shakespeare studies. The editors invite papers on topics related to Shakespeare, including Shakespearean texts, Shakespeare in performance, the adaptation of Shakespeare works (film, fiction, and visual and performing arts), Elizabethan and Jacobean culture and history, and Shakespeare’s contemporaries.

In partnership with UK’s Writing, Rhetoric, and Digital Studies Department, “Leveling Up the Classroom” is continuing with a central focus on the integration of digital technologies and media into classroom settings. The last few years has given education a great insight into its own practices. Between online classrooms during the pandemic and the rapid emergence of more powerful technologies, we educators have seen a growing need to reevaluate our classrooms, as well as work with new tech to enhance these learning environments. 

The 2025 ELLAK International Conference
“Rethinking English Studies in the Age of New Media”

Organized by The English Language and Literature Association of Korea (ELLAK)

Kyungpook National University, Daegu, South Korea

December 18-20, 2025

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

Taek-Gwang Lee, Kyung Hee University, Korea

Ted Underwood, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, USA

Slavoj Žižek, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia

“Rethinking the Humanities II: Past, Present, and Future” 

***Non-Guaranteed Session***

Writing Human: Post-Chatbot Approaches to College Writing

We are seeking short, first-person narratives (2,000-3,000 words) from college instructors in any discipline who use writing activities and assignments in ways that foster engagement, enhance learning, and stimulate creativity.  We are compiling a book of stories that affirm the educational value of human writing at a time when more of our writing is being done for us by generative AI.