The Incredible Nineteenth Century: Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Fairy Tale is now taking submissions of articles between 5,000 and 10,000 words on fantastic and speculative literature from about the time of the French Revolution to about the time of World War I. We are interested in works from all parts of the globe.

Articles on early film (until about 1920) are also encouraged.

Studies on neo-victorian works, such as Steam Punk reimaginings of the Victorian era or newer fantastic works set in the nineteenth century are welcome as well. We are interested in not only written literature, but also films, television, video games, and other media. 

Ever since Steven Russell, Wayne Wittanen, and J. M. Graetz, three MIT employees who fantasized about bringing Edward E. Smith’s (1890-1965) Skylark novels (1915-1966) to the big screen, developed Spacewar! (1961), one of the first digital games created and a clear inspiration for games that would be designed in the following decades, the game industry has grown exponentially. As Egenfeldt-Nielson et al. have stated (2024), “[i]n the historical blink of an eye, video games have colonized our minds and invaded our screens” (2).

The C19 Podcast invites proposals from individuals and collaborators of all ranks for single podcast episodes that offer creative, story-driven analysis of topical events that spark connections to nineteenth-century America. We are especially interested in episodes that help make both the nineteenth-century and the specific disciplinary knowledge of our scholarly community legible and exciting to a wide audience.  As our podcast grows, we seek to expand its potential to engage diverse publics in the civic and cultural life of the past.

To honor the work of Elizabeth J. Bryan on Lawman and the English prose Brut, this session focuses on the collaborative nature of Brut texts.  By examining both literal collaborations between scribes, illuminators, and compilers, and collaboration broadly conceived, as between readers of Brut texts or between texts and editors to derive meaning, for instance, papers in the session will offer insight into the intricacies of the production and reception of Brut manuscripts.  Papers will advance conversations that, in Professor Bryan’s words, “make room in our critical model for the multiple participants of a manuscript text” (Collaborative Meaningxiv).

The Signum Collaboratory and Signum Press Present A Call for Papers

Creative Philology: Studies in Speculative Fiction, A Tribute to J. R. R. Tolkien

The Second Plague Pandemic inflicted unimaginable hurt and triggered multiple crises (demographic, spiritual, political, socio-economic), whose impact informed new artistic and literary modes of expression such as the danse macabre or the carnivalesque. 

This panel examines how writers and artists processed pandemic experiences, both in terms of actual outbreaks and long-term repercussions (such as peasant revolts or multi-generational trauma). Where do we find traces of ‘long plague’ (analogous to ‘long Covid’), and what form do they take? How do pandemic experiences affect collective memory and shared narratives? And what theoretical frameworks might be helpful for studying (post)pandemic discourse in literature and art?