twentieth century and beyond

  Jim Thompson, a writer of hard-boiled crime fiction, was born in Anadarko, Indian Territory (Oklahoma), in 1906.  Thompson’s literary achievements were little-recognized during his lifetime; however, many of his works were re-discovered and re-published in the 1980s. His work is often lauded, noting his ability to understand the criminal mind.  His work is largely critiqued and categorized as only hard-boiled fiction, but his work defies such a simple genre classification.  Thompson combines the genres of crime fiction and Westerns and in doing so, his works read as critiques of American history and culture. Certainly much of Thompson’s work can be read as a critique of post-WWII America.  As David Cochrane points out Thompson’s works serve as “portrait

Call for Panels

The Society for Contemporary Literature is sponsoring two panels at the annual meeting of the American Literature Association in Boston, May 23-26, 2019. We are looking for panel proposals that address themselves to topics in contemporary American literature (or about the last twenty-five years), and especially welcome submissions that address its full range and diversity. ALA welcomes both traditional and non-standard panel formats as well as roundtables, and so does SCL.

We would like to invite researchers to submit their abstracts to the Political Performances Working Group at the 2019 IFTR conference, which will take place on 8-12 July in Shanghai, China. The theme for the 2019 conference is Theatre, Performance, and Urbanism. We have identified three loose strands that reflect the recent work of many researchers in the wider field of political performances, but that also align with the 2019 conference theme. The Political Performances Working Group therefore invites proposals for papers on the following topics:

(A)     Citizenship

Interventions: New Perspectives on Politics, Freedom, and Democracy 

The 2nd Annual Conference of the Journal of Languages, Texts, and Society. 

A collaboration between the Universities of Nottingham, Leicester and Nottingham Trent. 

 Friday 10th May 2019 - Leicester, UK. 

Keynote Address: Professor Robert Eaglestone (Royal Holloway London) 

Paper submissions are invited for the Jack London Society (http://jacklondonsociety.org/) panels at the American Literature Association 30th Annual Conference, May 23-26, 2019, Westin Copley Place, 10 Huntington Avenue Boston, MA 02116. Papers may address any aspect of Jack London studies. Innovative formats such as roundtables or teaching presentations are encouraged, especially those that connect London with other writers and artists. Send a 250-word abstract for a twenty-minute presentation to Kenneth K. Brandt at kbrandt@scad.edu by January 21, 2019. Include a brief biographical sketch and any AV equipment needs.