twentieth century and beyond

Studia theodisca
An international journal devoted to the study
of German culture and literature
Published annually in the autumn
Hosted by Università degli Studi di Milano under OJS
ISSN 2385-2917
http://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/StudiaTheodisca/

Editor-in-chief: Fausto Cercignani

Co-Editor: Marco Castellari

In the very first year of the new millennium, the world witnessed the attacks on the World Trade Center, in New York City, on September 11. We all watched it numbly on television, as if it had been an action movie or an apocalyptic dystopia. This event has remained in the collective consciousness as the most tragic terrorist attack on American soil, with more than 3,000 deaths and a list of geopolitical consequences that have changed the world.

The year 2025 will mark the centennial of one of the most powerful voices in twentieth-century American Literature. Author of a reduced fictional production (two novels and three collections of short stories), Flannery O’Connor (1925–1964) remains among the most widely praised authors of the United States, to the extent that, shortly after her premature death, claims by, among others, Brainard Cheney, Robert Giroux, and Caroline Gordon were made about the country having lost their next Nobel Laureate for Literature. Alternative history aside, what is true is that the last century of American literature would have lost an enormous amount of its meaning without the existence of Flannery O’Connor’s writing.

Call for Papers (Issue 36): Family

The family as an ostensibly biological group has been naturalised as the fundamental unit of collective organisation. Yet, as feminist and queer theorists have endeavoured to show, the family is neither an innocent nor an immutable category. Protecting certain familial structures has long provided justification for the ongoing legal regulation of sex, marriage, and reproduction, making the family a contentious site for feminist, queer, and racially-marked subjects.

International Conference: 24th (evening)-26th September 2025

Location: University of Vienna

Language of presentations: English

Deadline for abstracts (500-750 words and a short list of references): 15th March 2025

Selection of abstracts and notification of speakers: mid-April 2025

Conference Warming: 24th September 2025

Conference Dinner: 25th September 2025

Conference Fees: full: 65 Euros; reduced (PhD students; postdocs without access to funds): 35 Euros

Call for Proposals (CFP): College Professors Who Homeschool: Expertise, Theory, and Practice

Deadline for Submission: DEADLINE EXTENDED: Feb. 21, 2025

As the homeschooling movement continues to grow, with close to 4 million documented homeschoolers in America (NHERI), college professors who choose to educate their own children at home bring a unique and valuable perspective to this educational approach. We invite college professors from various disciplines to contribute chapters to an upcoming collection on "College Professors and Homeschooling: Bridging Academic Scholarship and Home Education."

Accepting 300-word abstracts proposing 15-minute papers on paranoia in contemporary American literature and/or film. Topics may include but are not limited to: conspiracy fiction, paranoid reading, racial paranoias, queer paranoias, surveillance, paranoid genre, and ecoparanoias.

NJCEA 47th Annual Conference

 "TEACHING LITERATURE AND WRITING STUDIES IN A POLARIZED SOCIETY" 

March 22, 2025 Seton Hall University

The challenges of teaching humanities in today’s increasingly polarized political climate are profound. Educators find themselves at the intersection of diverse ideologies, cultural tensions, and barriers students may face in their access to education. How do we teach literature and writing in ways that foster civility, empathy, and meaningful dialogue amid stark political divides? For the 2025 NJCEA annual conference, we ask you to consider ideas and pedagogical strategies that help navigate these tensions without losing the richness and relevance of literature and writing.

Democracy has a strange quality, that it is systematically ambiguous. Recently, the ambiguity has led to contestations that has questioned the very foundations of democratic values and principles. The erosion of faith and conflicts around the globe is evidenced through collapse of democratic regimes or call to reform democratic practices to be replaced by more rigid or powerful structures. Many believe the rise in inequality, drastic climate changes, migration, religious fundamentalism and lack of basic facilities and growing social, political and economic insecurities has been some of the factors, that led many to question the legitimacy of democratic institutions and practices.

The Langston Hughes Society is pleased to invite proposals for the following panel to be held at the 36th Annual American Literature Association (ALA) Conference in Boston, MA:

New Writing: the International Journal for the Practice and Theory of Creative Writing (Routledge) seeks high quality articles, as well as creative work 

Articles submitted might focus on any aspect of Creative Writing Studies.

Submission length is open. 

Celebrating the journal's fabulous 20th Anniversary in 2024, there are increased opportunites for publication, for guest reviewing and for involvement in regular New Writing events (held online, globally).

Dis/Trusting the Institution(s) of Literature

University College Dublin, Ireland

17-20 June 2025

Keynote Speakers –    Sarah Brouillette (Carleton University)

                                Christopher Newfield (Independent Social Research Foundation)

                                Simone Murray (Monash University)

CFP: The 27th Annual University of Florida Critical Theory Reading Group/MRG Conference

 DEADLINE EXTENDED TO JANUARY 17, 2025

“Rethinking Institutions”

The Critical Theory Reading Group/MRG, University of Florida

March 27-29, Gainesville, FL 

Keynote speakers: Michael Hardt and Kathi Weeks

Nicole LaRose Alumni keynote speaker: Wesley Beal  

The 2025 Marxist Reading Group Conference invites submissions for “Rethinking Institutions” to explore the manifold issues endured by global institutions and reimagine the former for the present and future. 

Special Issue of Mississippi Quarterly,

“Emerging Scholars, Emerging Scholarship”