The Many Hands of Book History
Conference of the Bibliographical Society of Canada / Société bibliographique du Canada
8-9 June 2026, University of Toronto

This collection gathers essays centered on how the performance of early modern drama has provided a method both for engaging with the problem of tyranny and for acts of resistance across different periods and in global contexts. How can the staging of early modern drama help us better understand ideas about, and responses to, repression, persecution, totalitarianism, and opposition? In what ways do early modern plays, when performed at particular historical moments and in particular cultural contexts, provide a means both for reflecting political attitudes and anxieties and for shaping political change? What role does early modern drama in performance have to play—if any—in helping diagnose, confront, and challenge tyranny? 

This special issue of Frontiers investigates how feminism, even as a discourse of resistance, participates in hegemonic projects. We invite papers that examine the connections between feminism, conservatism, and conservative ideologies during the long twentieth century within the context of the Americas (including North, Central, and South America, the Caribbean, as well as indigenous lands and communities). We welcome crosstemporal and transgeographic approaches, since we aim to put together a comparative, humanistic interdisciplinary analysis that explores how culture articulates and mobilizes notions of femininity, conservative politics, and complex ideological affiliations in transnational, local, border, and/or oceanic frameworks.

Creativitas: Critical Explorations in Literary Studies invites scholarly contributions for its annual issue exploring the profound significance of plants to human culture, literature, history, and thought. We seek essays that examine the complex relationships between humans and botanical life from arts, humanities, and social science perspectives.

            Plant blindness remains a significant challenge in cultural representation and environmental awareness. This perceptual tendency causes us to overlook plants in favour of animal life. Yet botanical life constitutes the foundation of all terrestrial ecosystems. Plants remain central to human survival, economy, and imagination.

This conference seeks to critically investigate the potentials and pitfalls of the "material

turn" through the medium of sound. We invite submissions that test, challenge, or refine

materialist theories by examining the "acoustic state": from the state of matter in

vibration, the political State's governance of the sonic realm to the affect of the social.

The recent "material turn" challenges us to reconsider the foundations of the

humanities, the production of the voice, [anti/]biography of bodies (human or

non-human; musical or otherwise), embodiment and the social and politicized

The Charles Olson Society will sponsor a session at the upcoming ALA Conference, to be held in Chicago, May 20th – 23rd.

As technological, ecological, and sociopolitical transformations challenge traditional notions of human identity, the posthuman paradigm offers a framework for exploring how literature and culture imagine, negotiate, and problematise the boundaries between humans, nonhumans, and their surroundings. This conference seeks to critically examine established notions of a posthuman future/present and its representations in contemporary narratives across literature, cinema, advertising, video games, and other media forms. The seminar examines the concepts of authority, marginality, and ambiguity within dystopian and utopian literary visions of posthumanism.

As part of the 10th International Conference on the State of Mark Twain Studies, the American Humor Studies Association (AHSA) invites proposals for either a panel or a roundtable discussion. The Elmira conference will expand its traditional focus on Mark Twain by including sister organizations such as AHSA. The conference theme is “Irreverence, Rebellion, and Resilience.”

In Traditional African Festival Drama in Performance, Austine Anigala(2006)draws on the Ukpalabor festival of the Ebedei people in Southern Nigeria to argue for the performance and dramatic potential of the indigenous African festival. This provocative work is against the backdrop of polemics initiated by scholars such as Ruth Finnegan (2012) and Michael J. C. Echeruo (1973) about the dramatic limits of indigenous African festivals. Recall that Echeruo (1973) called for a re-examination of how indigenous festivals are referred to as drama.

Proposals are invited to a Special Issue of Feminist German Studies on “Intersections of Gender and Disability in German Studies”

Guest Editors: Judith Bierwolf, Hanna Bingel-Jones, Rachel MagShamhráin, Michaela Schrage-Früh

Across the African continent and its global diasporas, trauma reverberates through histories of slavery, colonialism, racial capitalism, gendered violence, war, migration, and displacement. However, African and Afrodiasporic writers and artists have not only transformed experiences of pain into sites of creativity, survival, and healing but also reflected in their works the use of African approaches to restoration. This edited volume seeks to explore the ways in which trauma is reconstituted, managed, borne, and cured in African and Afrodiasporic literature and cultural expressions.

This panel presents a historical account of the aesthetic and political resistance movements that proliferated across Asia in the 1970s, a decade marked by the legacies of post–World War II decolonization in South and Southeast Asia, as well as by pan-Asian militancy inspired by the 1949 Chinese Revolution. During this period, Asia emerged as a global center of radical politics, with revolutionary energies circulating transnationally and influencing militant movements in the United States, Europe, and beyond.

ALA 2026: The Novel of Ideas in American Fiction

ALA Annual Conference (May 20-23, Chicago, IL)

Stories of Belonging and Nostalgia: South Asian Migrants’ Narratives  

Introductory Note

The 2026 International Conference on Human Rights: Youth in Asia is the 4th ICHR series. ICHR has been co-organized by East Asia Young Scholars Association (EAYSA), Young Professionals in Foreign Policy (YPFP) Tokyo, and the Graduate Program on Human Security (HSP) and Research Center for Sustainable Peace (RCSP), the University of Tokyo.

Call for Papers | Society of Early Americanists
American Literature Association | 37th Annual Conference | May 20–23, 2026 | Chicago, IL

Placing Chicago in Early American Studies

Acknowledging our conference setting and anticipating the 2027 SEA Biennial, this panel invites papers and presentations that explore the literature, culture, and history of Chicago prior to its March 1837 incorporation. What is (or should be) Chicago’s place within the field of early American studies? Topics might include (but are not limited to):

Call for Papers | Society of Early Americanists
American Literature Association | 37th Annual Conference | May 20–23, 2026 | Chicago, IL

Errand into the Wilderness at 70

Upon the 70th anniversary of his Errand into the Wilderness, this panel invites papers and presentations that offer critical examinations and new interpretations of work by the intellectual historian (and Chicago native) Perry Miller. Topics might include (but are not limited to):

Paper proposals are welcome on any aspect of Hardy’s life, work, and legacy for the Twenty-Seventh International Hardy Conference and Festival (Dorchester, Dorset, UK; July 25th—August 1st 2026). Significant Hardy anniversaries in 2026 include the 150th anniversary of The Hand of Ethelberta, the 140th anniversary of The Mayor of Casterbridge, the 120th anniversary of The Dynasts (Part 2), and the 110th anniversary of Selected Poems. Proposals for papers on any of these anniversary texts are especially welcome.

Papers should be planned for delivery times of a maximum of 20 minutes (approximately 2000 words).

American Literature Association: 37th Annual Conference
May 20-23, 2026
Chicago, IL

The San Francisco State University CINE Colloquium is proud to announce the call for papers for Chronically Online, the 27th Annual Graduate Research Conference, hosted by the San Francisco State University CINE Colloquium. Submit your work and join us April 24th and 25th, 2026 in person and online for a multidisciplinary deep-dive into all things nerd. See below for conference description and instructions to submit proposals.

DEADLINE EXTENDED: Proposals must be submitted by January 9th, 2026 to be considered.

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Midnapore College (Autonomous)
International Seminar
on
“Aestheticism in Art and Literature” (সাহিত্য ও শিল্পে নন্দনতত্ত্ব)
To be organized by
Department of Bengali & Cultural Section
in collaboration with IQAC
on 13 January 2026
Mode: Hybrid(Online & Offline)
“The purpose of art is the realization of aesthetic bliss (Ānanda)” - Abhinavagupta.

Edited Collection – Critical Perspectives on the “Flanaverse” of Mike Flanagan 

In recent decades, research on authority and trust in the US has seen a considerable increase across various disciplines (cf. Leypoldt and Berg 2021). However, in comparison, there has been much less scholarship on aspects of gender since Anette Baier dedicated her influential 1994 collection of essays Moral Prejudices on trust (and related issues)to her “women students, past, present, and future.” Our workshop addresses this lacuna, both from a theoretical perspective, and in the light of current cultural, social, and political developments in the US, and of (once again) contested definitions of gender(ed) identities, practices, performances, and ethics.

The University of Florida Critical Theory Reading Group Conference presents:

The 28th Annual University of Florida Critical Theory Reading Group Conference

The State of the Unions

April 23rd-25th, Gainesville (FL)

Keynote speakers: Sianne Ngai, Anna Kornbluh

Nicole LaRose Alumni Keynote Speaker: Ryan Kerr