Soapbox 8.0: call for papers

Ways of Structuring

peer reviewed; open to critical and artistic work. 

If structures are determinate and determining, as they have come to seem through the interventions of poststructuralist theory, then ‘ways of structuring’ names a contradiction.  The plurality of ‘ways’ sits in tension with the fixity of ‘structure,’ evoking the very qualities of contingency and flexibility that the concept seems to negate.  For this upcoming issue, we welcome academic and artistic contributions that explore this tension.

The Southeastern Renaissance Conference (SRC) invites submissions for presentation at our 83rd Annual Meeting, which will be hosted by the University of Tennessee Knoxville and its Marco Institute, to be held from Friday, October 23 to Saturday, October 24, 2026.
The organizers will consider papers on any topic related to the Early Modern / Renaissance period.

In keeping with the presidential theme of the 2026 MMLA Conference, “After the Archives,” to be held in Chicago from November 12-14, 2026, papers that incorporate and/or interrogate the archives are welcomed for this year’s panel on American Literature before 1870.

Futures and Frontiers of US American Culture(s) International Conference

30 September – 2 October 2026

John-F.-Kennedy-Institut für Nordamerikastudien, Freie Universität Berlin

Keynotes: Jenny Stümer (Universität Heidelberg) | Dan Hassler-Forest (Utrecht University)

Acceptance/rejection will be communicated shortly after the extended deadline has passed.

Throughout the history of political thought and cultural production, multitudes and mobs that stir up disturbance across the nation, whether revolutionary or reactionary, have frequently been portrayed by the images and metaphors of monstrosity. From the many-headed hydra which was adapted into a political discourse in the early modern age and later revisited by historians such as Peter Linebaugh and Marcus Rediker, to contemptuous terms toward the insurrectionists such as swarms or locusts described in Samuel Dolbee’s Locusts of Power, monstrosity and various of dehumanizing terms have long been employed as a signifier through which fears of insurrections are expressed.

Mediapolis – A Journal of Cities and Culture is an interdisciplinary open access online journal, drawing a connection between culture and the built environment – understood in the broadest sense. We publish research in different forms, from research articles to Q&A interviews and readings list, and across different academic fields, including but not limited to media studies, urban studies, geography, architecture and art history as well as digital humanities. 

Keynote speaker: Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock (Central Michigan University)

May 20-21st 2027, University of Zadar (Zadar, Croatia)

CONFERENCE

2026 PAMLA Conference, taking place November 12–15 at the Hyatt Regency Seattle

SESSION/PANEL ABSTRACT

The British Women Writers Association (BWWA) seeks organizers for our
2028 conference and beyond, both in the United States and abroad. The
BWWA’s mission is to bring women from the margins to the center of
literary history by promoting scholarship on and the teaching of long
18th-and 19th-century British women writers in diverse global and
cultural contexts. In practice, the conference invites papers
addressing women’s writing as early as 1660 and as late as 1920,
inclusive of the work of transatlantic and Anglophone authors.

5th Annual UC Irvine Global Asias International Conference

February 18–19, 2027
UC Irvine

Keynote Speaker:
Paul Nadal, Princeton University

Early Career Publishing Workshop:
Tina Chen, Penn State

CFP: https://sites.uci.edu/globalasias/ga27/
Proposal Form: https://bit.ly/ga27cfp/

CALL FOR PAPERS

‘The pluralism of a postcolonial or decolonial philosophy of religion should be “on both ends” of the discipline; that is, both the phenomena and subjects considered and contemplated by the discipline should be diverse, but also the people, perspectives, and methods engaged in this project should come from diverse backgrounds—not only in terms of race, class, gender, geography, etc. but also in terms of ritual practice, training (both academic and otherwise), initiation or membership in tribes, societies, or “religious” traditions.’

—Oludamini Ogunnaike, “Expanding the Menu or Seats at the Table? Grotesque Pluralism in the (Post)Colonial Philosophy of Religion.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 89, no. 2 (2021): 734.

Fantasy has long explored lifeworlds and paradigms outside of societal norms. Orlando, Virginia Woolf’s gender-fluid protagonist, declares, ‘I'm sick to death of this particular self. I want another.’ World myths, legends, folk tales, and fairy tales are early promoters of gender-fluidity, populated by the likes of Inanna/Ishtar; Hermaphroditus, the offspring of Hermes and Aphrodite; androgynous Dionysus; Ardhanarishvara; Ometeotl; Guanyin; cross-dressing thunder and trickster gods; heartsick seafaring maidens disguised as sailors; and the mercurial ontologies of the Fae. In this issue we will explore how gender is portrayed and explored in Fantasy.

An interdisciplinary space for critical reflectionThe Social Contract in Dispute: Discourse, Legitimacy and Transformation  

Living in a context of intense political tensions and polarisations that threaten how society is organised and the fundamentals of democratic legitimacy, the 28th International Meeting of Research and Investigation (EIRI) is dedicated to reflecting on the social contract and its contemporary transformations.

Call for abstracts - Forward Thinking: New Voices for the Future

In an era marked by ecological breakdown, epistemic instability, and widening global precarity, the very notion of “the future” has become a site of intense conceptual struggle. We invite scholars carrying out visionary work across the humanities — philosophy, literary theory, political thought, cultural studies, and related fields — to articulate bold and innovative interventions on what it means to think futurity today. 

Agricultural and Rural Development in the Twentieth Century
Yearbook for the History of Global Development

Volume co-editors Leo Chu (University of New South Wales) and James Lin (University of Washington, Seattle)

The 123rd Annual Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association (PAMLA) Conference will take place this November in Seattle, Washington, from November 12-15.

Our panel will focus on American Literature from 1945 to the present. The category of “literature” includes imaginative works (fiction, poetry, drama) but also essays, memoirs, or creative nonfiction. This session investigates texts that are written by American-identifying authors, composed by writers in the US, or address American life.

University of Chicago | November 5–7, 2026 When we trace the genealogy of crisis, it can seem as if we’ve always been surrounded by catastrophe. Different factions of the ruling class tell us that we need to be prepared, but also that preparation may be fruitless. Crises shift and expand, strengthening their hold on us through their very instability. The state of emergency, after all, “is not the exception but the rule,” as Walter Benjamin theorized. It is not a single event but what Lauren Berlant called a norm “embedded” in the everyday.

[please note the updated conference date and timeline]

National Video Games: Cultures, Industries, Communities
international conference

4–6 December 2026
University of Warsaw, Poland

Just a quick update regarding the Society for Utopian Studies conference, November 12-14, 2026, in Portland, Oregon. Please see the following link for further information: https://utopian-studies.org/conference2026/.

 -The deadline has been extended to July 15, 2026. -We are thrilled to announce our two keynote speakers: 

2026 Meeting of the Society for Comparative Literature and the Arts

October 29-31, 2026
Embassy Suites Austin Central
Austin, TX

“Justice”

Keynote Speaker: TBA

2028 will mark the two hundredth anniversary of Thomas Lovell Beddoes’s completion of the first version of his masterpiece Death’s Jest-Book. This special issue of Studia Neophilologica, coinciding also with the centenary of a journal that has been the home of many significant essays on Beddoes’s writings, will offer new readings and accounts of Beddoes’s life, work, and reputation.

Contributions are invited for essays between 5 and 8,000 words on all aspects of Beddoes’s career. Topics might include:

Christian Writers Conference 2027 
“Restoring Creativity” 
 
April 9-10, 2027, Grove City College, PA 

The Eastern Regional Meeting of the Conference on Christianity and Literature 
and Third Annual meeting of the Holy Moot 

Featuring Daniel McInerny, philosopher of art, novelist, and dramatist 

Call for Papers 

Workshop at the Renaissaince Society of America's annual meeting (Philadelphia. March 11-13, 2027)

Call for Papers: International Journal of Education Through Art

Special Issue: ‘Routes & Roots: Transnational Genealogies of Art Education’

Guest Editors:

Dustin Garnet University of British Columbia

dustin.garnet@ubc.ca

Indira Bailey Claflin University

ibailey@claflin.edu

View the full call here>>

https://www.intellectbooks.com/international-journal-of-education-through-art#call-for-papers