Call for Papers: 

Listening to Possible Worlds 

Sound and Music in Speculative Literature and Culture 

22-23 October 2026, Leiden University, the Netherlands (in-person) 

Confirmed keynote speakers are Anna Snaith (King’s College London) and Chris Tonelli (University of Groningen) 

We invite papers on automobility and/or transportation infrastructure in any aspect of literary and cultural studies. We are particularly interested in exploring how representations of vehicles address questions of social and environmental justice.

This is a proposed special session for the 2027 MLA convention in Los Angeles, 7-10 January. We plan to hold the session in person.

Please email abstract (250 words) and author bio (100 words) by March 3 to both organizers:

Govind Narayan Ponnuchamy, Northwestern University (gnarayan@u.northwestern.edu )Ben Jamieson Stanley, University of Delaware (bstanley@udel.edu )

Call for Papers — MLA 2027 (Los Angeles)

Black Motherhood in the African Diaspora: Narrating Care, Resilience, and Futures

Across African diasporic literary traditions, Black motherhood emerges as a crucial site through which histories of slavery, empire, migration, and racial capitalism are negotiated and reimagined. Literary representations of motherhood register both the intimate labor of care and the broader structural pressures shaping diasporic life, often producing alternative temporalities, ethical frameworks, and speculative futures.

CALL FOR PAPERS

vol. 7/2026

Forum for Contemporary Issues in Language and Literature (e-ISSN: 2719-8111)  is an international multidisciplinary periodical that welcomes for review any innovative and challenging research article encroaching upon the fields of literature, linguistics, philosophy and cultural studies.

The editorial board encourages researchers and young scholars to submit their article proposals that  comprise with the profile of the journal. The proposals can be sent in English, German, French, Spanish, Catalan and Polish. The manuscript submitted for publication is to be original and unpublished. It should not have been simultaneously submitted for review in any other journal.

Call for Participants: Medieval Studies, Leadership, and Public Humanities Advocacy
MLA 2027 (Los Angeles)
Forum: French Medieval Language and Literature
Roundtable Session

Call for Book Proposals

VoyGull Press | Emerging Voices Series, Edited Volumes, Handbook Series

VoyGull Publishing Centre Ltd UK

Diamond Open Access Publisher in Social Sciences & Humanities

About VoyGull Press

VoyGull Press is the publishing imprint of VoyGull Publishing Centre Ltd, a UK-based academic publisher committed to democratizing scholarly knowledge. As a young and ambitious publisher, we are building a new model for academic publishing that is grounded in equity, accessibility, and intellectual rigour.

We are looking for contributions to a working group at the 2027 MLA Annual Convention in Los Angeles. The panel will discuss the evolution of magical realism in the 21st century, formally, medially, and geographically. Besides the fundamental elements of magical realism scholarship covering literature and film in South-American and European contexts, the scope of the presentations will extend to geocultural locations such as Africa, the Middle East, East- and South-East Asia, Australia, and New Zealand, and to theoretical approaches including literary trauma theory, postcolonial studies, ecocriticism, and virtual reality theory.

More Terrors than her Reason Could JustifyA 200th Anniversary Celebration of Ann Radcliffe’s Posthumous Publications

22nd/23rd August 2026 (Online)

Under capitalism, we live separated from life. Capital’s extractive colonizing domination keeps us separated from nature, from each other, and from our own bodies, denying us a symbiotic and regenerative relationship with the natural world and with each other. Yet, certain types of bindings are integral to capitalism: capitalism depends on the combination of labour and nature for the production of value; the “emergence of capitalist accumulation and the reproduction of capitalist production” depends on “acts of violent dispossession”, on “tearing Indigenous societies, peasants, and other small-scale, self-sufficient agricultural producers from the source of their livelihood––the land” (Coulthard 2014).

Wilde West Coast

The Oscar Wilde Society invites abstracts for a special session at the 2027 MLA (Modern Language Association) Convention in Los Angeles, January 7–10 2027.

The song lyric occupies little space in academia, where it is less studied, less appreciated, and perceived as less-than other kinds of writing. Despite music’s ubiquitous cultural presence, the song lyric—as creative work—suffers from what renown songwriter Jimmy Webb calls a “status problem”: songwriters do not enjoy the same standing as writers of other kinds of traditionally studied literature. The most common way that song lyrics have earned scholarly attention is by conflating the form with the poem. Goldstein’s (1969) The Poetry of Rock is one of the first books to attend to lyrics as poetry.

International Conference on Ecocriticism and Environmental Studies10-11 October 2026 – London/Onlineorganised byLondon Centre for Interdisciplinary Research 

International Conference on Poetry Studies:“Poetry Between Creation and Interpretation”19-20 September 2026 – London / Onlineorganised by London Centre for Interdisciplinary Research

Fifth Annual Beverly Lyon Clark Children’s Literature Symposium

Trees: In Relation

Saturday, 11 April 2026 at Wheaton College (Norton, MA)

LORETO COLLEGE, KOLKATA
Call for Book Chapters

Theme: Marginalized Identities: Dimensions, Perspectives and Problems

The Research and Development Cell of Loreto College is pleased to announce a call for chapter contributions for an upcoming book publication. The theme of the proposed volume is:

‘Marginalized Identities: Dimensions, Perspectives and Problems’

This publication aims to present interdisciplinary insights into the lived realities, challenges, and representations of marginalized identities across various contexts.

Questions in Black sound and sonic geographies

American Association of Geography

Panel Presentation

What are the spatial contours of black sound? What are some iterations, notes, scripts, or possibilities within the emerging field of black sonic ecologies and black sonic geographies? How can one detect or follow a “black sense of place” (McKittrick 2011)? What is being listened to and what is being heard? What have you been taught or teaching yourself to hear? 

What do you consider noise? Who and what hears black sound as a nuisance? What does noise, nuisance generate? 

“We are here to begin to achieve the American Revolution.” 

– James Baldwin, Foley Square, 1963

Did Baldwin mean it? Do we, who take him down from the shelf, mean it? What would it mean to pick up the idea again, with or against Baldwin? Is it too late, for America, for revolution, for both? Or is the time now finally ripe? 

For the American Studies Association convention in Chicago in 2026, James Baldwin Review invites proposals for a roundtable that takes this starting point as an occasion to leap into the unknown.  

Please send abstracts of 250 words to jbr@wustl.edu by February 20, 2026. 

The Gaskell Journal invites applications for the position of co-Editor.

The Gaskell Journal is a peer-reviewed scholarly journal published annually, dedicated to disseminating the most authoritative, dynamic and agenda-setting research in Gaskell Studies. It is owned by the Gaskell Society and is distributed to its members, as well as being indexed in various academic databases (for more details, see The Gaskell Journal – The annual Journal of the Gaskell Society). In a typical issue, the journal publishes 3-4 original articles, 3-4 book reviews, and reports from the Society’s branches across the UK and the world.

Apologies for crossposting.

Call for Papers: Journal of Contemporary Painting Special Issue & Symposium

Special Issue: ‘Conversations between Painting, Fashion and Textiles’

One-day symposium: ‘Painted Garments’

Friday 22 May 2026

The Hub, Camberwell College of Arts, Bonar Road, London SE15 5FB

Keynote: Delaine Le Bas

View the full call here>>

https://www.intellectbooks.com/journal-of-contemporary-painting#call-for-papers

Deadlines

The Cambridge Handbook of Postcolonial Law and Literature is a collection of essays analyzing the relationship between English Common Law and Anglophone literature in the colonial and postcolonial world. The collection is largely complete, but can accommodate a few more essays.   The editors particularly welcome submissions on Disability Studies, Ecological Studies, and/or essays that focus on the Caribbean.  

This year’s ICSAH meeting approaches the Art of Mediation as a framework for understanding cross-cultural interaction in history. Throughout time, individuals, institutions, communities, and cultural forms—ranging from language and performance to visual and material culture—have acted as mediators between societies. In negotiating religious difference, political conflict, economic rivalry, and artistic exchange, they shaped the shared spaces where civilisations met, interacted, and coexisted.

CFP for Special Issue in IMAGO MUNDI: The International Journal for the History of Cartography

“Maps and the Imagination”

In light of the ongoing “cartographic turn” in literary studies and recent critical attempts to

“remap” the field of cartographic history, we are seeking contributions for a special issue that

examines the relationship between maps (from historical prints to digital creations) and the

imagination (from the impact of maps on literary and visual arts to earthworks and new media).

Following the growing interest in cartographic imaginaries, documented, for example, in studies

The Cultural Studies Cell

Department of English and Cultural Studies, Central Campus

In collaboration with

Department of Media Studies, Central Campus

CHRIST (Deemed to be University), Bangalore

Organizes

An International Conference (Hybrid)on

Urban/Media Infrastructures

March 5-7, 2026

Call for Expressions of Interest: Book Reviews Editor for The London Journal

The London Journal is seeking expressions of interest for the role of Joint Book Reviews Editor.

This role will cover the period from roughly 1800 to the present, joining Kirstin Barnard, who covers the medieval and early modern periods. The Book Reviews Editors are full members of the Editorial Board.