This NeMLA panel will examine the roles and forms of Langston Hughes's politically engaged poetry from the 'red decade' of the 1930s. It invites papers that add to current understandings of how Hughes approached the writing of political poetry, especially from his position as an African-American activist affiliated with the Communist and Popular Front Left. How did Hughes fashion himself as a 'poet of the people'? What was the relationship between his formal choices and his political commitments? Send 250-word abstracts to Sarah Ehlers at seehlers@umich.edu by September 30, 2011.

The Polytechnic Institute of Guarda (IPG), Guarda is preparing issue number 8 of Egitania Sciencia.
This scientific Journal is open to publish different papers in the areas that are the main objectives of the schools of Polytechnic Institute of Guarda (Education, Technology, Economics and Management, Tourism and Health).

The Review Board as decided to invite the authors to submit their research by contributing to
Egitania Sciencia. Papers, theoretical or applied, in any field involved the above areas will be considered. Authors may submit more than one paper, but only can be accepted as first author

While many scholars in literary and cultural studies focus on feminist issues, the field of Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies (WGS) has coalesced into its own discipline, frequently oriented toward the social sciences and not the humanities. This roundtable will explore what the study of literature has to offer students in various classrooms (literary studies, WGS, and cross-listed courses) and to WGS more broadly. Please send abstracts to Deborah Uman, duman@sjfc.edu and Heather Hewett, hewetth@newpaltz.edu.

CFP: Encyclopedic Fictions of 21st-Century American Literature
Northeast Modern Language Association Convention
Rochester, New York, March 15-18, 2012

Writing an encyclopedic fiction has constituted a bid for literary greatness at least since the publication of Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow in 1973. In light of the fact that the year 2010 saw the publication of no fewer than three such encyclopedic fictions (Joshua Cohen's Witz, Adam Levin's The Instructions, and Karen Tei Yamashita's I Hotel), this panel will examine the continued relevance of the encyclopedic form as a means by which authors stake their claims to places in the canon of American literature.

Call for Papers

Das Neuschreiben der Vergangenheit: Counterfactual History in German Literature

43nd Annual Convention, Northeast Modern Language Association (NeMLA)
March 15-18, 2012
Rochester, New York – Hyatt Rochester
Host Institution: St. John Fisher College
Keynote speaker: Jennifer Egan, 2011 Pulitzer Prize winner, A Visit from the Goon Squad

Margins, Borders and Peripheries in Modern European-Jewish Literature

The Journal of Pan African Studies (www.jpanafrican.com) invites papers for a March 2012 edition on African-centered theory, methodology and pedagogy in Africana Studies. African-centered theorists argue that an African-centered perspective in spoken and written form in the American context emerges during the second-order 19th and 20th century speeches and writings of David Walker, Maria Stewart, Henry Garnet and the like, who were calling for cultural nationalism.