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EUROPEAN SHAKESPEARE RESEARCH ASSOCIATION Annual Congress,
Shakespeare and Form: ‘To set a form upon desired change’
Bangor University, Wales, 27-30 July 2027
CALL FOR PAPERS : Seminar 9, Forms of Shakespeare’s Diplomacy
Convenors: Nathalie Rivère de Carles (Université Toulouse Jean Jaurès), France & Helen A. Hopkins (Birmingham City University, UK)
In January 2026, murals of faceless female silhouettes in yoga poses were scratched around the genital area in the Indian city of Gwalior. The figures depicted no identifiable women; they were attacked anyway. In 2024, sexually explicit AI-generated deepfakes of Taylor Swift circulated widely online, demonstrating a very different but related form of image violation. Across a scratched public wall and a fabricated digital image, the same question emerges: what happens when an image of a woman becomes the surface upon which sexualisation, humiliation or punishment is performed? This special issue asks where, if anywhere, a woman’s image can be assumed to be safe.
2027 SALA Annual Conference: Water as Matter, Matters of Water: South Asian Political, Historical, and Literary Flows
Venue: Online on Zoom
Dates: Mar. 13-14, 2027
Deadline for proposals: Dec. 10, 2026
We are inviting contributors to our project on World Philosophy and Humor. This work aims to explore the philosophical dimensions of humor, examining its nature, function, ethical implications, and cultural significance. We are now especially interested in adding contributors for book chapters on Islamic and ancient philsoophies.
Contributions could engage with any of the following themes:
1. The Nature of Humor: What is humor, and how can it be defined? Philosophical inquiries into the essence of humor, including its relationship to comedy, wit, irony, and satire.
FAULKNER'S VEGETAL FUTURES
William Faulkner Society-Sponsored Panel
University of Tennessee, Knoxville “Speculative Souths” Symposium (https://marktwainstudies.com/call-for-papers/cfp-speculative-souths-symp...)
Knoxville, TN
June 10-12, 2027
CFP: Red Reading the Modern Novel
Society for Novel Studies (Vancouver, BC; 13-16 May 2027)
The organizer seeks papers that apply Red Reading to twentieth- and twenty-first century novels. The literary canon has been expanded brilliantly in the last few decades, and literary critical approaches have shifted away from modes of corrosive critique. There remains however, a dearth of work grounded in Indigenous epistemologies and critical approaches. As an initial response to this gap, this panel seeks to test Red Reading’s utility for studies of the novel.
This seminar explores representations of female desire in music, literature and the visual arts. How have the complex poetics of female desire—the desire to have something, or escape something, or punish, or know—been represented over time? What strategies have been employed to subvert literary conventions defined predominantly by male perspectives on home, love, war, victory and loss? How have female characters navigated the interplay between things done overtly and thought covertly to reveal the inner web of desires, fears and conflicts that constitute a female poetics of love and longing?
submit propposals to: https://cfplist.com/nemla/Home/CFP
This seminar invites papers that explore the concepts of ekphrasis, the mise en abyme, and metaphorical mirrors in literature, music, and the visual arts. How are mirrors used by artists as deliberate tools to represent something else? How are metaphorical mirrors used to compare different types of reflections across mediums? How are mirrors used to suggest that the aesthetic “surface” is a distraction, and true clarity lies in understanding what the observer or listener wants to see or hear? Papers focused on one medium or interdisciplinaryapproaches from the Ancient, Medieval, Modern, and Postmodern periods are welcome.
Thresholds: Liminality, Performance, and Cultural Reconfiguration
Cultural Studies Association (CSA) 2027 Annual Conference
June 3-5, 2027
Fully Online
Deadline for Submissions: Friday, November 20, 2026
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.
The Dark Lord Sauron, the titular Lord of the Rings in Tolkien’s magnum opus, plays many roles and takes many forms throughout The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion, and the rest of Tolkien’s Legendarium, and even more in the various adaptations and reimaginings that have since emerged. Over years of varying interpretations, Sauron has evolved into a figure of vast significance. From his early depictions as a looming, disembodied threat to his more recent portrayals as a visually captivating "sexy" villain in contemporary pop culture, Sauron’s image has undergone a transformation, revealing much about changing attitudes toward power, corruption, and desire.
Femspec seeks both scholarly and creative submissions for its upcoming Issue 27.1. Femspec is an interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed feminist academic journal dedicated to science fiction, fantasy, magical realism, surrealism, myth, folklore, and other supernatural genres. Femspec publishes both academic scholarship and creative writing. Creative writing submissions could include short fiction, poetry, or experimental forms.
To submit work for consideration, please review Femspec’s submission guidelines at the following link: SUBMISSION GUIDELINES | Femspec
Dislocated Bodies: Noises, Opacities, and Irreverences
Guest editors: Alicia Fernández Gallego-Casilda, Julio Ferrandis Buzón and Constanza Ternicier Espinosa (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona)
Call for Papers (CFP)
Literatūra – Scientific Journal of Vilnius University
New Horizons in Spanish-Language Literatures
Literatūra, the scientific journal of Vilnius University, is preparing a special issue dedicated to innovative research on literatures written in Spanish. The issue aims to bring together contributions that, drawing on contemporary critical perspectives and interdisciplinary approaches, propose new ways of reading, interpreting, and contextualising texts, authors, and literary phenomena from the Spanish-speaking world.
Call for Book Chapters: The Handbook of Witchcraft and Sorcery
Volume Editors:
Assoc. Prof. Cenk Tan (Pamukkale University, Türkiye)
Assoc. Prof. Milena Škobo (Sinergija University, Serbia)
Assoc. Prof. Nazan Yıldız Çiçekçi (Karadeniz Technical University, Türkiye)
Assoc. Prof. Oya Bayıltmış Öğütcü (Adıyaman University, Türkiye)
Submission Deadline for Abstracts: February 1, 2027
Volcanic Materiality in Literature and Art of the Anthropocene
Editor: Dewey W. Hall
Call for Contributions
International Conference, 16-18 August, 2027, Vaxjö, Sweden
Nostalgia has become one of the defining cultural affects of the twenty-first century. It permeates politics, popular culture, social media, environmental discourse, memory practices, heritage industries, and everyday life. While nostalgia is often discussed as a feeling directed towards a lost past, it is always encountered through acts of mediation. Memories, desires, identities, and imagined pasts are shaped, transformed, communicated, circulated, and shared through media technologies, aesthetic forms, communicative practices, and intermedial relations.
Interpretation And Its Discontents
Texts, Complexity, and Cultural Discourses in Shakespeare Studies Today
18-19 May 2027
April 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 Latinx Literature for our 57th annual conference. Submit your proposal at www.cea-web.org
The Big Ten Trans Studies Initiative invites trans studies scholars and students affiliated with Big Ten institutions to submit proposals for a three-day forum on pedagogy and curriculum, to be held April 20-May 1 at Penn State University. This forum will be held in person.
Call for Seminar Participants
Performance Forms in Shakespeare and his Contemporaries: Commercial Drama, Performance Practices and Theatrical Spaces in Early Modern England
(ESRA 2027, Bangor University, 27-30 July 2027)
Convenors:
Aurélie Griffin, Université Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris, France
Simon Smith, Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham, UK
IRISH POPULAR CULTURE FROM THE 1990s TO TODAY: A NEW GREEN WAVE TAKING THE WORLD BY STORM?
International Conference (France)
Thursday 4th and Friday 5th February 2027
Co-organised by Université de Reims Champagne-Ardenne (CIRLEP), Université Sorbonne Nouvelle (CREW) and Université de Tours (ICD)
Confirmed key-note speakers: Dr. Maria Parsons (IADT, Dun Laoghaire, Ireland), and Dr. Timothy Heron (U. Strasbourg, France)
Deadline: October 31, 2026
At this stage, while proposals across all areas remain welcome, we are particularly interested in submissions that broaden the range of topics covered so far. Especially encouraged are proposals focusing on religious pluralism and faith traditions beyond Catholicism; Islam and the post-9/11 context; religion and the culture wars; members of the White House staff and other political actors; the later seasons; and the cultural legacy of The West Wing and its place in changing representations of American political leadership.
The original call for papers appears below.
Animal Studies Across Disciplines Symposium
April 7th-April 9th 2027
Arizona State University
Many scholars argue that we are now living in a new geological epoch—the Anthropocene—a name chosen to encapsulate an irreversibly transformed planet due to the rapid expansion of human populations, increasing exploitation of animals and natural resources, and pervasive pollution. The effects of the Anthropocene have been caused by only a small percentage of the world’s population, yet those living in the Global South disproportionately suffer the consequences. The Anthropocene, then, is just as much a social problem as it is an environmental issue.
In 1892, when authorities arrested Lizzie Borden for the brutal axe-murders of her father and stepmother, America, and specifically Massachusetts, stood at the forefront of the Women's Suffrage Movement. Several of the first conventions, halls, and clubs in support of the movement took place in Lizzie’s home state of Massachusetts. In this paper I will examine how the gender roles and socioeconomic factors of Victorian Massachusetts contributed to Lizzie Borden’s acquittal despite the abundance of circumstantial evidence. I will not argue for Lizzie’s innocence, as I believe she committed the crime, but instead I will present how the gender norms and socioeconomic factors of this era shaped perceptions of criminality and public opinion.
The IMS Standing Committee welcomes
papers in all areas of Milton Studies.
Submission deadline November 15, 2026
For possible topic and more information see https://ims14.org/call-for-papers
CALL FOR CHAPTER PROPOSAL
The Ghost in the Machine Learns to Speak for the Dead:
AI, Rhetorical Resurrection, the Injustice of Synthetic Voice
An edited Collection, edited by Shiva Hari Mainaly, PhD, University of Memphis
Abstracts due December 15, 2026
The Dead are Speaking. Who Gave Them Their Words?
CFP: ARIEL Special Issue, “Displacing Diasporas: How Diasporas Make and Unmake Empires and Nations”
Guest Editors:
Amrita Mishra, Berea College; Chienyn Chi, Bethany College; Nicholas Bloom, Harvard University
The Department of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University is thrilled to host the 12th annual Post45 Graduate Symposium on March 4-6, 2027.
The Post45 Graduate Symposium seeks graduate-level works-in-progress related to post-1945 media, arts, literature, textual or visual objects, digital platforms, politics, and culture. We welcome submissions that expand our conception of objects and meaning-making post-1945 or place them in comparative, transnational, or hemispheric frames. We especially welcome contributions that foreground the importance of race, gender, class, and sexuality to post-45 studies.
Call for Proposals
Call for Proposals - Acting Out: Theatre Training Outside the Theatre Classroom
Learning Stages is seeking contributions to a new anthology promoting the use of theatre training and educational strategies for application across post-secondary disciplines outside of the theatre classroom.
Haunted Landscapes 3
Conference: Falmouth University, June 30 to 2nd July 2027
In 2014 and 2023, Falmouth University hosted two of its most successful conferences: Haunted Landscapes. This conference is round three of that event, which will again be held in beautiful Cornwall on the Falmouth Campus, set in lush tropical gardens and only a few minutes’ walk away from its picturesque town and beaches.
Staging Myth: Performance, Adaptation, and Cultural Memory
Deadline for Abstract Submissions: 30th October 2026
“The true purpose of the theater is to create Myths, to express life in its immense, universal aspect.” (Artaud, 1958, p. 116)
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.
The Center for Refugee, Migrant, and Displacement Studies is excited to share a call for submissions for the 6th volume of Roots & Resettlement, a mixed-media digital collection. For this volume, we invite creative submissions by Latine voices from across the world for a collection exploring migration, place, and belonging.
Guest Editor: Nidhi Shrivastava, Sacred Heart University, shrivastavan@sacredheart.edu
The Centre in English-Language Travel Literature – 20, 21 and 22 May 2027
MSH Clermont-Ferrand
‘Green Religions, Divine Immanence, and Ecospirituality’
Call for Papers:
The Department of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University is thrilled to host the 12th annual Post45 Graduate Symposium on March 4-6, 2027.
The Post45 Graduate Symposium seeks graduate-level works-in-progress related to post-1945 media, arts, literature, textual or visual objects, digital platforms, politics, and culture. We welcome submissions that expand our conception of objects and meaning-making post-1945 or place them in comparative, transnational, or hemispheric frames. We especially welcome contributions that foreground the importance of race, gender, class, and sexuality to post-45 studies.
The Ernest Hemingway Society https://www.hemingwaysociety.org/ is sponsoringone panel andone roundtableat the 38th Annual Conference of the American Literature Association https://americanliteratureassociation.org/ to be held at The Westin Copley Place in Boston, MA, May 26-29, 2027.
Reminder: Teaching the Nineteenth Century in Today's University
NeMLA 2027 Annual Convention in Newport, RI, March 6-9, 2027
Abstracts due 9/30
In an environment of increasing digital distraction, courses exploring nineteenth-century literature and culture ask students to engage with some of literature’s lengthiest texts. How can we encourage meaningful engagement with nineteenth century “loose, baggy monsters” in today’s university? What resources can we call upon to better engage our students and support their learning in light of the rise of AI and the challenges of online distraction?
Sexualities Special Issue Call for Papers:
Transitions: Examining Changing Regimes of Sexuality in Post-Soviet Muslim Republics
Concept note
Participants are sought for a virtual roundtable at the Law and Society Association Global Meeting (Hong Kong) on June 26, 2027 examining how law is interpreted, translated, and given practical effect within universities—and how institutional actors may extend, reshape, or selectively invoke legal mandates in governing academic knowledge.
Fafnir – Nordic Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy Research invites authors to submit papers for issue 1/2027. Research into any and all aspects of science fiction, fantasy, and other speculative genres is welcome from a range of disciplines.
Fafnir – Nordic Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy Research is a peer-reviewed academic journal published online twice a year. Fafnir is acompletely open-access, non-profit publication of the Finnish Society for Science Fiction and Fantasy Research (FINFAR). Fafnir publishes various texts ranging from peer-reviewed research articles to short overviews and book reviews in the field of science fiction and fantasy research.
How can practice-based approaches to research and teaching contribute to the creation of alternative democratic spaces within universities?
Working Title of Collection: Mukhar: Reading Gender across Page, Screen, and Society
Editor: Dr. Vasundhara Laspal (Head, Department of English, Government Degree College, Shitlakhet, Almora, Uttarakhand)
Publisher: L Ordine Nuovo Publication (CRRPS), Madurai, Tamil Nadu · www.nuovopublication.com · www.crrps.in
Special Issue website: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/literature/special_issues/B781Q58SAM
Dear Colleagues,
This Special Issue of Literature will collect essays addressing the reception, influence, adaptation, or incorporation of literature from the Greco–Roman world into later theatre, film, and television. The Greeks and Romans pioneered a wide range of performed literary styles like tragic and comic drama, or epic and lyric poetry, as well as developing extensive mythic story networks and what we now recognize as formal histories, etc. Some of these works remain among the most influential and beloved writings ever produced by humanity.
CFP: Feminist Digital Archiving
April 23-24, 2027
William & Mary, Williamsburg VA
Please send a 300-400 word abstract and 200 word bio to emlosh@wm.edu by December 1, 2026
Amy Earhart has warned that feminist and anti-racist digital humanities projects are often vulnerable to neglect and obsolescence, compounding a persistent “lack of diversity in the digital canon.” She also cited Matt Kirschenbaum’s dictum that “preservation is not a technical problem but a social problem.”