Starting from the assumption that identity (seen as a relationship with one's self) and individuality (seen as a relationship of the self with the group) are both discursive constructs, we presume that it is the uniqueness of these constructs that confers authenticity and validation to a particular person/community/society. This issue is a subject already widely researched and problematized in theories of otherness from the perspective of dealing with diversity or even with social distancing and alienation.

Robert Bird’s study of Andrei Tarkovsky’s cinema, published in 2008, was given a significant yet ambiguous subtitle: Elements of Cinema. Looking for the key to understanding the famous director’s films, the author took as guides “four traditional elements of matter, each captured through the distinct elements of cinema that conditioned Tarkovsky's work, from 'system' and 'imagination' to 'screen', 'image', 'story' and 'shot'”. Images of the elements, with their culturally defined symbolism – Earth as a vessel for nostalgia, water as the universal element of art and a medium of representation – became the building blocks of the unique atmosphere of Tarkovsky's films.

Our conference theme:  Solidarity With/In the Community

We are currently in a period of greater divides and contestation within our society, especially when it comes to those who exist in queer, marginal or dissident relations to normativity in its various guises.

This feeling of division and the fight for solidarity both inside and outside our communities is a common experience for queer, trans or LGBTQIA+ people, as well as BIPOC communities, disabled and neurodiverse people, working class and colonised populations, and others still.

FUTURE/FUTURES 

For centuries thinking about the future was basically an optimist and progress driven endeavor, aimed at advancing towards the best of possible worlds through the improvement of science and technology.  

The complexities of the American impact on global culture, economy and technological development offer a relevant context for exploring various aspects of the video-game medium, its history, markets and communities. At the same time, thanks to its ongoing development in the realm of academic reflections on culture, media and society, Game Studies generates growingly productive lenses for America-focused research. That is why this thematic issue of Anglica Wratislaviensia invites papers investigating broadly understood overlaps or exchanges between video games and North America as objects of scholarly reflection. Possible themes include, though are not limited to:

Call for Papers for a Special Issue of the journal Shakespeare (the organ of the British Shakespeare Association, published by Routledge) on the Topic of "The Shakespeare First Folio: 1623 to 2023"

The guest editors of the journal Shakespeare, Miranda Fay Thomas (Trinity College Dublin) and Gabriel Egan (De Montfort University), invite papers for a special issue on the topic of the 1623 Shakespeare First Folio. The special issue will appear in late 2023 to coincide with the book's 400 anniversary. The special issue is open to any study that focusses on the significance, understanding, and reception of this important book in its own time and/or at any time between 1623 and now.

Call for Papers

“Ecocritical Approaches to Shirley Jackson” and “Shirley Jackson: Witchcraft and Magic”

Sponsored by the Shirley Jackson Society

American Literature Association Annual Conference

Boston, Massachusetts

May 25-28, 2023

The Shirley Jackson Society invites scholars at all stages of their careers to submit to our panels for the American Literature Association’s Annual Conference in Boston, May 25-28, 2023. We are planning for two panels this year: 1. Ecocritical Approaches to Shirley Jackson, and 2. Shirley Jackson: Witchcraft and Magic.

CALL FOR PROPOSALS

Great Writing International Creative Writing Conference

Saturday July 15 – Sunday July 16, 2023

University College London*

(*note the exciting new location)

Proposals are invited for presentations at the 26th Annual Great Writing International Creative Writing Conference, to be held Saturday July 15 – Sunday July 16, 2023 at UCL.

Proposals for presentation of critical work about creative writing or for creative presentations (e.g. readings) are equally welcome.

*CFP: ‘Personified Body Parts and Organs with a Mind of Their Own in Cinema, Literature and Visual Culture’
edited volume*

*Editors*: Gilad Padva and Yair Koren Maimon

This collection initially examines cinematic, televisual, literary, visual and poetic representations of body parts who are vitalized, autonomized, individuated and animated. They become independent entities with a mind of their own. Instead of being parts of intricate mechanisms, these organs turn into independent, humanized and personified "bodies."

Film and Visual Studies Graduate Student Conference Harvard University

May 3–5, 2023

Keynote Speakers: Yuriko Furuhata (William Dawson Scholar of Cinema and Media History, McGill University), Pooja Rangan (Associate Professor of English in Film and Media Studies, Amherst College), and Colectivo Los Ingrávidos

According to Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “To imagine is to represent without
aiming at things as they actually, presently and subjectively are.” Imagination is
associated with creativity and the ability to conceive and envision ideas, images,
visions, societies and sensations in ways that transcend reason, and reach beyond
reality. It is a force that ongoingly wrestles with the constitution of reality, and is
credited for having shaped the world as we know it through the cumulative work of
writers, artists, scientists and philosophers. Imagination, hence, produces, creates a
higher reality that becomes the new reality. It is a synthesizing force that oscillates

BOOK SERIES: South Asian Literature in Focus (Routledge, Global Edition) 

Series Editors: Goutam Karmakar, Puspa Damai, Payel Pal, Deimantas Valančiūnas

CFP: The 25th Annual University of Florida Critical Theory Reading Group/MRG Conference

“Marxism and Cartography”

The Critical Theory Reading Group/MRG, University of Florida

March 23-26, Gainesville, FL

Keynotes: Regina Martin (Denison University), Jason Read (University of Southern Maine), and Robert Tally (Texas State University)

NOTE: This is an updated call for an earlier CFP; I am still looking for a few more abstracts to round out the proposed collection. All relevant topics will be considered, but I am especially eager to read abstracts exploring youth TV in relation to economic precarity, reproductive rights, disability, Indigeneity, mental health, and/or environmentalism.