James Baldwin ends his “Open Letter to My Sister, Angela Y. Davis” about her imprisonment, the health of the country, and the responsibility of intellectuals, with the assertion that: 

If we know, and do nothing, we are worse than the murderers hired in our name. If we know, then we must fight for your life as though it were our own—which it is—and render impassable with our bodies the corridor to the gas chamber. For, if they take you in the morning, they will be coming for us that night.

How might scholarship today render such corridors impassable? What is our responsibility, and what are we willing to risk? 

For the American Studies Association convention in Chicago in 2026, James Baldwin Review invites proposals for 15 minutes papers within a panel on abolition—broadly conceived—that work their way toward what abolition means in our current political climate, what it will take, and what it might enable. 

Please send abstracts of 250 words to jbr@wustl.edu by February 20, 2026.