Call for Papers
PAMLA 2026 Special Session: Seattle
Spanish and Portuguese (Peninsular)

This special session invites papers that explore the rich and multifaceted landscape of Spanish and Portuguese literature, film, and cultural studies within the Iberian Peninsula. We welcome presentations that engage with a broad spectrum of topics, particularly those that foreground the experiences of historically marginalized communities, including (but not limited to) Romani/Gypsy and Afro-Hispanic populations.

While the session aligns with the PAMLA 2026 conference theme, “Our Ruling Classes: Culture, Power, Conflict,” proposals are not limited to this framework. We encourage contributions that examine broader cultural, historical, and theoretical questions shaping Iberian narratives across time and media.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

• Representations of Identity: How do literary, filmic, and cultural productions construct, negotiate, and challenge notions of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and class in the Iberian Peninsula?
• Historical and Contemporary Narratives: In what ways do cultural forms engage with historical events and contribute to shaping contemporary perspectives in Spain and Portugal?
• Marginalized Voices: How have marginalized communities participated in and transformed dominant cultural narratives?
• Migration, Exile, and Diaspora: How do displacement and transnational experiences reshape Iberian identities and cultural production?
• Gender, Sexuality, and the Body: Explorations of motherhood, masculinity, femininity, and queer identities in Iberian contexts.
• Violence, Memory, and Trauma: Representations of conflict, poverty, and the dynamics of remembrance and forgetting.
• The Power of Translation: How does translation mediate cultural transmission across linguistic, national, and geopolitical borders?
• Truth and Representation: Intersections of narrative, truth, misinformation, and disinformation in literature, film, and media.

In dialogue with the conference theme, we also welcome papers that address:

• Structures of power, hierarchy, and leadership in Iberian cultural texts
• Aristocracy, meritocracy, and class conflict in historical and contemporary contexts
• Colonial legacies, imperial power, and anti-colonial resistance
• Gendered and racialized hierarchies of power
• Cultural narratives that challenge or reinforce systems of authority and domination