The past six years have seen a resurgence of the radical right. In this resurgence, art and literature have played a prominent role. Senior advisors to the Trump administration cited novels as specific influences on federal policy; Jordan Peterson has disguised right-wing manifestos as self-help volumes, hoodwinking young men to the tune of millions; the internet has seen an overwhelming explosion of white supremacist digital art. Walter Benjamin’s dictum that fascism seeks to “aestheticize politics” endures. 

The Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association permanent section invites proposals for in-person presentations at the 2023 meeting of the Western Literature Association taking place at the Shoshone-Bannock Hotel & Casino on the Fort Hall Reservation, home of the Shoshone and Bannock Tribes, near Pocatello, Idaho, from October 11-14. The conference’s theme this year is “Home on the Rez: Sovereignty and Sustainability.”

We have a contract with Bloomsbury Publishing for a handbook on the intersection of video games and sexual content and sexuality. Traditionally, handbooks are envisioned as comprehensive surveys of the discipline aimed at the library market. Volumes typically consist of about 25-35 contributions written by experts in their respective areas of the field. Much work has been done by our contributors already and we are working with them on final edits and revisions. However, to be blunt, attrition due to many factors has taken a toll on us and we are now a few chapters short of our target. Our publisher has given us permission to do a second call for contributors.  

The Science and Technology area of NEPCA encourages proposals for presentations that explore the relation of science and technology (broadly defined) to popular culture and to American culture. We are particularly interested in putting science, technology, culture, and the humanities in conversation with one another. How are science and technology represented in popular culture? How do we use popular culture to understand science and technology? And how do we use science and technology to understand narratives, art, and culture? What do we gain, what do we risk by approaching science and technology from the lens of the humanities, the humanities from the lens of science, by putting these disciplines in conversation with each other? 

Discourse surrounding issues related to the transgender and feminist communities currently dominates contemporary cultural conversation globally. Against this backdrop, Femspec calls for submissions exploring speculative approaches to gender, and particularly to transgender identity and embodiment; the rise and use of what some liken to Orwellian doublespeak; and projections extrapolated from our present into the future. 

Femspec is an interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed feminist journal dedicated to science fiction, fantasy, magical realism, surrealism, myth, folklore, and other supernatural genres.  

Call for Participation

Fan Studies Network North America Conference 2023 (virtual)

October 11-15, 2023

RE: FANDOM

Fan Studies Network North America 2023

The 2023 Conference

This special edition of Interdisciplinary Humanities will investigate how performance shapes our experience of the humanities. In the four decades since NYU offered the first degree in “Performance Studies,” the advent of the internet and social media has changed the way we study, create, teach, learn, and identify ourselves. Performance forms and platforms have multiplied and facilitated one of the most contentious political cycles in American history, public upheavals demanding social justice, and new thresholds of mis and disinformation. How are these performance platforms shaping our experience and understanding of the world?

Infobase, a publisher of databases for schools, universities, and public libraries, is seeking to hire a scholar for a project on contemporary African-American literature. Responsibilities will include writing an overview of the state of African-American literature in the 21st century; writing brief critical biographies of a selection of the most important African-American writers working today; and updating existing biographies of great living African-American writers. The work be prominently featured in a new topic center within Bloom’s Literature, Infobase’s premier literary database. This is a paid assignment. Interested scholars should contact executive editor Jeff Soloway at jsoloway@infobase.com.

GERMAN WOMEN WRITERS

2023 Midwest Modern Language Association Annual Conference
Cincinnati, Ohio
November 2-5, 2023

Convention Theme Description: https://www.luc.edu/mmla/convention/callforpapers/

Topic: OPEN

We encourage submissions addressing the literary texts and lives of German-language women writers from any period and in any genre. Papers that engage with the Convention theme of “Going Public: What the MMLA Owes Democracy” are especially welcome.

What does "too much" feel like? 

The slimy or gelatinous texture elicits a sense of disgust in some, while others experience pleasure and luxuriousness. Excess can also manifest as waste and pollution: the plastic gyre in the ocean's center; the sticky, musky sensation on one's skin amidst smog. The materiality of excess can also be defined by the marginalized, commodified bodies that become sites of extraction as their labor, organs, and corporeal bodies enter global capital circulation. This session invites papers exploring the materiality of excess – its affect, texture, aesthetics, and politics – to engage with the realm of otherness. 

Possible areas of investigation may include, but are not limited to:

Thicker than blood? Masculinities and Male Friendships in South Asia

Abstract: For the occident a surprising cultural norm in India is that of men holding hands. Seen as unconventional and in sharp contrast to the West, the phenomenon symbolic of India (in particular) and South Asia at large became a project in 2018 whereby photographer Vincent Dolman created a series depicting an organic and intimate aspect of male friendship. Appreciating such uninhibitedness in a country given to rampant homophobia and toxic masculinity Dolman in one of his interviews observes, how such practices hold a mirror to society and societal conventions of masculine constructions and performances.

If you would like to serve as a reviewer for the handbook please email me. Having reviewed three papers and provided detailed feedback, your name will be listed as a member of the Editorial Board at the front of the book on a conspicuous page.

The handbook has 52 prospective chapters now but there will be withdrawals and rejections before final completion. If you have a full paper to contribute between now and December 2023 please feel free to approach me at c-c.shei@swansea.ac.uk. We may still be able to use your paper.

Current table of contents:

The Routledge Handbook of Endangered and Minority Languages

HyperCultura, No. 12/ 2023

Dear Colleagues,

We have the pleasure to invite you to submit articles for our next issue, due March-April 2024. We receive papers on Literature (not that of ancient Greece or Rome), Media Studies, Film Studies, Visual and Performative Arts, and Teaching (Language and Literature). Papers in said areas need to focus on the following themes: Nationalism/ Post-nationalism, Colonialism/Postcolonialism/Decolonization, Race, Gender Studies, Ethnicity, and Identity.

We are CEEOL, Ulrichsweb, MLA Directory of Peridiodicals, DOAJ, EBSCO, ERIH PLUS and SCOPUS, and also visible through WorldCat.

Children’s Literature and Young Adult Literature Permanent Sections

Session Coordinator: Dr. Amberyl Malkovich 

Dept. of English, Concord University

amalkovich@concord.edu

“Going Public” in Children’s and Young Adult Literature and Cultures