postcolonial

NeMLA2027 NORTHEAST MODERN LANGUAGE ASSOCIATION 58th Annual Convention SALVE REGINA UNIVERSITY, NEWPORT, RHODE ISLAND March 6-9, 2027   

This session invites submissions addressing films that represent the construction of identity through community within a colonial or postcolonial context. Possible topics might include postcolonial legacies in contemporary urban cinema (banlieue; borderlands); comparative analysis of films across colonial and postcolonial contexts; the role of space in structuring narratives of resistance; filmic representations of assertion of and resistance to state power; film as a means of intercultural and intertextual dialogue.

Transatlantic Connections and the ‘Special Relationship[s]’: BAAS Postgraduate Symposium, 2026

V&A East Storehouse, London

9th November

In 1946, Winston Churchill declared the need for a “special relationship between the British Commonwealth and Empire and the United States” in order to maintain world diplomacy, citing our shared language and cultural values as connecting the two countries. Although this ‘special relationship’ has continually been called into question by scholars, there is undoubtedly a channel of cultural and political exchange between the US and the UK, as well as with other countries, which has become even more urgent for discussion in recent years.

The New Italians session explores contemporary Italian literature, culture, media, music, and film through the lens of migration, mobility, and evolving forms of Italian identity in a globalized world. In dialogue with PAMLA 2026’s theme, “Our Ruling Classes: Culture, Power, Conflict,” the session considers how cultural production engages structures of power shaping belonging, citizenship, linguistic authority, and cultural legitimacy in Italy and its diasporic contexts.

Call for Chapter Proposals for an Edited Book

Digital Precarity and Speculative Narratives in the South Asian Context

Ecocriticism and Representations of the Sea in the Arts in Portugal

5 and 6 November 2026

Call for Papers

We are pleased to announce an open call for bids to host the 2027 Post45 Graduate Symposium. The Post45 Graduate Symposium is a two-day event, typically held in Spring, which brings together graduate students and faculty members working on post-1945 arts, literature, media, and culture. Around fifteen graduate students each submit a work-in-progress and convene in a workshop-style setting along with faculty respondents to discuss each participant's work. 

Philip Kan Gotanda’s play Yankee Dawg You Die centers a conflict between two Asian American actors. The aging Vincent Chang built his career playing bumbling Japanese soldiers and one-dimensional Asian stereotypes in classic Hollywood. He’s confronted by the up-and-coming Bradley Yamashita, who insists that Asian (American) characters should be played with dignity and accuracy. The heart of the play is an ambivalence about Asian (American) representation and whether viewers should sympathize with Chang for taking the only acting jobs available or with Yamashita in his condemnation of the racist roles—or with both.

CFP Reminder:

Special Session: Cultural Patrimony in Wartime: Destruction, Protection, and the Question of Ruling Classes

123rd Annual Conference, Seattle, Washington / Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association (PAMLA)

Submission process:
Please send a 300-word abstract and a short bio (100 words) to amazuet@stanford.edu.

Final extended submission deadline: July 15, 2026.

Call for Papers

Encountering the Human(ities): Anxiety, Storytelling, Futurity

Department of English and Modern Languages

North South University

Dhaka, Bangladesh

30-31 October, 2026 (Friday-Saturday)

Hybrid Event

Call for Papers: Alizés 47 (2027)

Special issue edited by Talal Hochard (University of Reunion Island) and Zuzana Fonioková (Masaryk University)

Discursive Resistance in Contemporary Anglophone Literature and Public Discourse

Abstract submission deadline (400 words) and short biographical notes (150 words): September 1, 2026

Notification of acceptance: October 1, 2026

Full draft papers submission: February 15, 2027

Final papers submission: June 30, 2027

Women and/of the Empire(s): On the 150th Anniversary of Queen Victoria’s Proclamation as Empress of India (1876-2026)

29-30 October 2026

An international conference hosted by the Faculty of Arts and Humanities (Faculdade de Letras), University of Porto, Portugal

Confirmed keynote speakers:
Ana Cristina Mendes (Professor of English Studies, University of Lisbon, President of the Association for Cultural Studies)
Martin Hewitt (President of the British Association for Victorian Studies, Visiting Professor of English, University of Leeds, Editor of the Curran Index)

Panel Proposal for the NeMLA Convention, Newport, RI, March 6–9, 2027

Planetary crises—climate change, toxic pollution, biodiversity loss, and energy transition—are profoundly uneven in their distribution. Their material consequences are shaped by infrastructures of class, race, colonial histories, state power, and global capitalism. Increasingly, literary, artistic, and cultural texts across the world foreground these asymmetries, framing ecological crisis not only as environmental catastrophe but as a question of justice: Who breathes polluted air? Who profits from green transformation? Who consumes melting ice? Who bears the social and environmental costs of planetary change?

Beyond the Ocean: Maritime Infrastructure and Hydro-Narratives of Indians under the Raj (Tentative Title)

Concept Note

The imperial ships of the British Raj bore millions of Indian migrants across waterways just the way Charon ferried souls across the river Styx to an irreversible fate. Nonetheless, the Indians transformed the vicious vessels into spaces of radical rebirth and enduring kinship.

American Conference for Irish Studies Mid-Atlantic and New England Regional Conference 

November 6th and 7th 2026

Seton Hall University, South Orange, NJ 

Please send abstracts of 250 words to Elizabeth.Redwine@shu.edu by August 28th, 2026. 

“Not a Monoculture”: Ideas of Irishness