african-american

You are invited to submit a paper proposal to the session "(Almost) Fifty Tears Later: Reception of Octavia Butler's Kindred" at the 123rd Annual Pacific Ancient and Modern Languagae Association (PAMLA) conference in Seatlle, WA from Nov. 12-15, 2026.

Eric Glover (Yale University) and Michelle Cowin Gibbs (CSULB)  invite participants for a working group that takes stock of Zora Neale Hurston’s legacy and impact as a vital yet still underexamined repertoire in theatre, dance, and performance studies. 
In conversation with the conference theme’s attention to retrospection and futurity, the group considers how Hurston’s work and that of her successors has been adapted, staged, studied, and taught, while asking what remains unfinished, underdeveloped, and newly possible. 

Our Vision:  This anthology will be a celebration of shared African and African Diasporic Spirituality in all its vibrant, beautiful, and powerful iterations. We are inspired by the life-giving guidance of Harriet Tubman, Howard Thurman, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Octavia Butler, Cheikh Anta Diop, Lama Rod Owens, Malidoma Patrice Somé, Sobonfu Somé, Tricia Hersey, Kaira Jewel Lingo, Cole Arthur Riley, Alice Walker, bell hooks, Thomas Sankara, Rev. William J. Barber, Jawanza Eric Clark, Flora Wilson Bridges, Dwight N. Hopkins, Peter J. Paris, Audre Lorde, and many, many others.

Call for Proposals

Special Issue of Study the South: Performed Plantations

Editors: Teresa Simone and Zayne Vance, University of Mississippi 

Contact email: tesimone@olemiss.edu

Deadline for proposals: December 15, 2026.  

We seek proposals for interdisciplinary creative works and papers for a special issue of Study the South, a peer-reviewed, multimedia, online journal by the University of Mississippi’s Center for the Study of Southern Culture.

Creative responses might include: videos, art, image galleries, scripts, animation, etc.  

The Claude McKay Society (CMKS) plans to convene one or two panels at the American Literature Association 38th Annual Conference at the Westin Copley Place, Boston, May 26-29, 2027. CMKS seeks proposals on any aspect of McKay’s writing. The conference registration is $200, $125 for graduate students, independent scholars, and retired faculty (the ALA requires no membership fee). Contact Gary Holcomb, holcomb@ohio.edu by January 1st, 2027. Send a title, abstract, and brief biographical information.

This roundtable will engage with African American literary works (or other works of art) that create spaces for ancestors and other departed characters, frequently portraying such characters as active participants who shape the present of the living. We will consider in what ways such depictions offer and build communities for both the living and those whom they have lost. Special attention will be paid to how such works often serve as acts of historical preservation and memorialization outside official archives. All literary or artistic genres are welcome; interdisciplinary approaches welcome.

https://cfplist.com/nemla/Home/CFP

Call for Papers

Poetry and Poetics (Critical)

Southwest Popular / American Culture Association (SWPACA)

48th Annual Conference, February 17-20, 2027

Marriott Albuquerque

Albuquerque, New Mexico

https://swpaca.org

Submissions open: September 1, 2026

Proposal submission deadline: October 31, 2026

The Journal for the New Narratives in the History of Philosophy (JNNHP) invites submissions for its special on Derrick Bell and the History of Africana Philosophy, to be published in Fall 2028. Derrick Bell, the founder of Critical Race Theory, produced one of the most innovative, insightful, and transformative ideas in the 20th century. His philosophical insights continue to challenge how western liberal nations contend with questions of civil rights, human rights, immigration, policing, and education.

CALL FOR PAPERS

Zora Neale Hurston Society & The Zora Neale Hurston Forum
International Conference 2027

“Jump at de Sun: Zora Neale Hurston’s Global Legacy, Scholarship & Future”

January 7, 2027 | Virtual International Conference

In celebration of Zora Neale Hurston’s 136th birthday, the Zora Neale Hurston Society, in connection with its scholarly journal, The Zora Neale Hurston Forum, invites scholars, educators, graduate students, independent scholars, writers, artists, and interdisciplinary thinkers from around the world to participate in its 2027 International Conference.

Storyworlds is an interdisciplinary journal of narrative studies. We publish cutting-edge research on storytelling practices across times, cultures, and media. The journal foregrounds research questions that cut across established disciplines and seeks to promote the understanding of narrative and storytelling as worldmaking—and worldbreaking—practices. 

We currently have a number of books available or forthcoming for review. 

Call for Papers: BIPOC & Asian American Literature at CEA 2027 (4/1-4/3/27)

Apr. 1-3, 2027 | St. Louis, Missouri

The Westin St. Louis Hotel
https://cea-web.org/the-conference-hotel

The College English Association, a gathering of scholar-teachers in English studies, welcomes proposals for presentations on BIPOC & Asian American Literature for our 2027 conference. Submit your proposal at www.cea-web.org

REVISED – August 17, 2026 

International Federation for Theatre Research Conference 

28 June – 2 July 2027

Nafplion – Greece

University of the Peloponnese

Department of Performing and Digital Arts

Theme: 

Hybridity - Rethinking borders and boundaries in theatre/performance and beyond

Celebrating 70 years of IFTR (1957-2027) @Nafplio

IFTR African and Caribbean Theatre and Performance Working Group

Website

https://www.iftr-african-and-caribbean-theatre-and-performance.com/

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As mass movements and resistance struggles from Reconstruction and Indigenous sovereignty through women’s liberation and civil rights activism make clear, American history has been indelibly shaped by divergent, contradictory, and deeply contested understandings of a common political language centered on “freedom.”  Far from a static, settled, or predetermined concept, Eric Foner contends that “freedom” has proved “a terrain of conflict, open to very different and sometimes contradictory interpretations.” The story of the United States is, in no small part, a contest over what it means to be free.

         When Get Out was released in 2017, Jordan Peele’s landmark debut feature signified a major inflection point in the history of horror. Not only did the film garner a rare blend of blockbuster commercial success and critical reputability perhaps not seen since The Silence of the Lambs (1991) or The Sixth Sense (1999), but it also broke through the confines of genre to become a larger pop cultural phenomenon.