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Stories of Belonging and Nostalgia: South Asian Migrants’ Narratives
Introductory Note
The 2026 International Conference on Human Rights: Youth in Asia is the 4th ICHR series. ICHR has been co-organized by East Asia Young Scholars Association (EAYSA), Young Professionals in Foreign Policy (YPFP) Tokyo, and the Graduate Program on Human Security (HSP) and Research Center for Sustainable Peace (RCSP), the University of Tokyo.
THE BILLY JOEL SYMPOSIUM
A Two-Day Academic Conference Presented by the Long Island Music and Entertainment Hall of Fame
Stony Brook, NY | June 6–7, 2026
OVERVIEW
Paper proposals are welcome on any aspect of Hardy’s life, work, and legacy for the Twenty-Seventh International Hardy Conference and Festival (Dorchester, Dorset, UK; July 25th—August 1st 2026). Significant Hardy anniversaries in 2026 include the 150th anniversary of The Hand of Ethelberta, the 140th anniversary of The Mayor of Casterbridge, the 120th anniversary of The Dynasts (Part 2), and the 110th anniversary of Selected Poems. Proposals for papers on any of these anniversary texts are especially welcome.
Papers should be planned for delivery times of a maximum of 20 minutes (approximately 2000 words).
American Literature Association: 37th Annual Conference
May 20-23, 2026
Chicago, IL
Imagining the Impossible: International Journal for the Fantastic in Contemporary Media
CFP for Volume 5, Issue 1 (2026) Theme: Ciphers and Codes
The San Francisco State University CINE Colloquium is proud to announce the call for papers for Chronically Online, the 27th Annual Graduate Research Conference, hosted by the San Francisco State University CINE Colloquium. Submit your work and join us April 24th and 25th, 2026 in person and online for a multidisciplinary deep-dive into all things nerd. See below for conference description and instructions to submit proposals.
DEADLINE EXTENDED: Proposals must be submitted by January 9th, 2026 to be considered.
⸻
36th Annual Mardi Gras Conference
Postcolonial Environments: Re-Grounding the Discipline in the State of Emergency
Date: February 12-13, 2026
Location: Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge
Midnapore College (Autonomous)
International Seminar
on
“Aestheticism in Art and Literature” (সাহিত্য ও শিল্পে নন্দনতত্ত্ব)
To be organized by
Department of Bengali & Cultural Section
in collaboration with IQAC
on 13 January 2026
Mode: Hybrid(Online & Offline)
“The purpose of art is the realization of aesthetic bliss (Ānanda)” - Abhinavagupta.
Edited Volume with e-ISBN (Digital)
Edited Collection – Critical Perspectives on the “Flanaverse” of Mike Flanagan
4th National Conference of Translators
organised by
Sri Sri Centre for Translation and Interpreting Studies,
Sri Sri University, Cuttack, Odisha
and
Bharatiya Anuvaad Sahitya
2nd and 3rd February 2026
In recent decades, research on authority and trust in the US has seen a considerable increase across various disciplines (cf. Leypoldt and Berg 2021). However, in comparison, there has been much less scholarship on aspects of gender since Anette Baier dedicated her influential 1994 collection of essays Moral Prejudices on trust (and related issues)to her “women students, past, present, and future.” Our workshop addresses this lacuna, both from a theoretical perspective, and in the light of current cultural, social, and political developments in the US, and of (once again) contested definitions of gender(ed) identities, practices, performances, and ethics.
Re-thinking Trauma: Cinema, Performance, and Mediation - International Conference
Ekphrasis Center for Transdisciplinary, Liberal Arts and Creative Technologies Research
Department of Theatre and Film, Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
2nd to 4th of September 2026
Trauma theory emerged within a historical and conceptual framework that assumed relatively stable relations between experience, representation, and witnessing (as an ethical and narrative position). Questions of testimony, narrative rupture, belatedness (the delayed emergence of traumatic meaning), and symbolic mediation shaped the field’s core vocabulary and continue to frame contemporary trauma research.
Spectral Boundaries: Gender and Sexuality in Asian Horror Cinema
Dr. Soumyarup Bhattacharjee
CALL FOR CHAPTERS
The British Association for Contemporary Literary Studies (BACLS) is pleased to announce our first graduate conference, New Work in Contemporary Literary Studies, which will take place at the University of Leeds on May 20th 2026. This will be a hybrid conference.
Participants will be invited to contribute to a special issue of the soon-to-be relaunched journal Alluvium, to be published after the symposium.
Co-editors: Dr Debarshi Prasad Nath and Dr Swikrita Dowerah
In Traditional African Festival Drama in Performance, Austine Anigala(2006)draws on the Ukpalabor festival of the Ebedei people in Southern Nigeria to argue for the performance and dramatic potential of the indigenous African festival. This provocative work is against the backdrop of polemics initiated by scholars such as Ruth Finnegan (2012) and Michael J. C. Echeruo (1973) about the dramatic limits of indigenous African festivals. Recall that Echeruo (1973) called for a re-examination of how indigenous festivals are referred to as drama.
QUEER: PRESENT! VISIBILITY THROUGH THE BODY
International Conference
25-26 June 2026
Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland
Faculty of Philosophy
The 2026 International Postgraduate Comparative Literature Conference (IPCLC 2026), hosted by the Master of Arts in Literary and Cultural Studies (MALCS) at The University of Hong Kong (HKU), brings together postgraduate students and emerging scholars from Hong Kong and beyond for a day of cross-cultural conversation. Taking place in person at HKU on May 26, 2026, the conference offers a supportive forum for sharing work in progress, building scholarly networks, and testing new comparative methods across literary, cultural, and media studies. Featuring themed panels, a keynote lecture, and Best Paper Award(s), IPCLC 2026 invites participants to consider how comparison can sharpen our understanding of urgent questions in the humanities.
Wednesday 17th to Friday 19th June 2026
Falmouth University, UK
This in-person conference will launch the new International Women’s Writing Association (IWWA), offering a global celebration of women’s writing in all its forms, mediums, and expressions at the gorgeous Woodlane campus in Falmouth, Cornwall.
The 1st Symposium on the Chinese Translation of the Greek Septuagint
（第一屆中文七十士譯本翻譯學術研討會）
Hong Kong, 22-24 April 2026 (Wed to Fri)
CALL FOR PAPERS
Theme: Towards a Chinese Translation of the Greek Septuagint: Opportunity and Challenge
The conference aims to explore both opportunities and complexities involved in rendering the Greek Septuagint into Chinese. Participants are encouraged to present research on the following themes:
Mimbres School Monsoon Session 2026, Aug 10-14.Slavery’s Domestic Economy
The Mimbres School for the Humanities invites applications to participate in our first in-person Monsoon Session Symposium. This symposium takes recent historical and theoretical work on slavery in the Americas as an occasion to ask what it would mean to take the family and the household, rather than labor or industrial profits, as the primary point of departure for understanding the slave power and its various afterlifes in the present.
Call for Proposals: Edited volume on screenwriter, actor, director, and comedienne Elaine May
***EXTENSION*** Abstracts now due by January 25, 2026.
SCREEN STORYTELLERS
The Works of Elaine May
Edited by Jonathan Winchell
This edited volume on the works of Elaine May will be a book in the SCREEN STORYTELLERS series published by Bloomsbury Academic. Seeking 250-word abstracts for previously unpublished chapters on Elaine May’s work as a screenwriter and comedy writer. Final chapters will be 3,000-3,500 words, written for an audience of student readers.
The SCREEN STORYTELLERS series is designed for students, professors, and enthusiastic
CFP: E. E. Cummings Sessions at the American Literature Association’s 37th Annual Conference, Chicago, Illinois, May 20-23, 2026
The E. E. Cummings Society will sponsor a session (or two) at the 2026 American Literature Association conference in Chicago [ https://americanliteratureassociation.org/ ]. We invite proposals for papers on any aspect of Cummings’ life and/or work. Proposals that touch upon the following topics will be especially welcome:
Call for Papers: Special Issue, The Comparatist
Topic: Reistance and Refusals
General Editor: Zahi Zalloua (Whitman College)
It is with great pleasure that we announce the opening of applications for the 2026 Feminist Decolonial Politics Workshop.
The workshop will be held in a hybrid format, with both in-person and online participation options. We are especially excited to centre this year’s workshop on reading the work of Hortense Spillers, one of the most influential theorists of our time. Spillers is the Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Professor at Vanderbilt University, and her scholarship has been foundational to feminist, Black, and decolonial thought.
Participation in the workshop is by application only, and applicants must be accepted in order to attend.
This Collection invites original research that advances the field of gender economics from theoretical, empirical, or policy-oriented perspectives. We welcome contributions examining how public policies—such as taxation, welfare, investment, and public services—affect gender equality, as well as studies addressing inclusive economic growth, social equity, and sustainable development. Research on undervalued or unmeasured economic activities, including unpaid care and domestic work, is particularly encouraged. Papers exploring gender representation across industries, labour regulations, income distribution, and the gendered division of labour are also highly relevant.
The Institute for Research on Women (IRW) at Rutgers University is seeking guest editors for the Spring 2027 issue of its online journal, Rejoinder (https://irw.rutgers.edu/rejoinder). Rejoinder features work at the intersection of scholarship and activism that reflects feminist/queer and social justice perspectives and is currently published once a year. Guest editors will be responsible for the overall shape of the issue, and Rejoinder staff will advise on the process.
Trans Studies, a book series published by Bloomsbury Academic, is seeking proposals for books that provide leading-edge scholarship on transgender and nonbinary topics from any discipline in the humanities, social sciences, and biological sciences. Bloomsbury’s Gender & Sexuality Studies list pioneers the publishing of innovative scholarly research from the Global South, and from marginalized gender identities and sexualities across global and transnational contexts.
Student Conference on fantasy in cooperation between the Book Lovers Among Students (BLASt) club and the DnD club (Collegium Draconum) of Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań!
We invite submissions on themes of diversity, identity politics, race, gender, and queerness in fantasy. The choice of genre can include fantasy, interactive fantasy, DnD, adaptations, offshoots, and appropriations.
Reading Spells Conference will take place on January 24th 2026, online via MsTeams.
The Comics Arts Conference is now accepting 100 to 200 word abstracts for papers, presentations, and panels taking a critical or historical perspective on comics (juxtaposed images in sequence) for a meeting of scholars and professionals at Comic-Con International, in San Diego, CA, July 23–26, 2026. We seek proposals from a broad range of disciplinary and theoretical perspectives and welcome the participation of academic and independent scholars. We also encourage the involvement of professionals from all areas of the comics industry, including creators, editors, publishers, retailers, distributors, and journalists. The CAC is presently scheduled to take place in person and does not accept virtual presentations. The CAC is designed to bring together
“WE ARE THE ECOSEXUALS. The Earth is our lover.” — Beth Stephens & Annie Sprinkle, The Ecosex Manifesto
The Graduate Students of the Department of Comparative Thought and Literature at Johns Hopkins University are proud to announce our biennial conference, to be held on April 17–18, 2026. We are pleased to host keynote speaker Heather Davis (The New School).
4th International UTAD Theatre Research Conference
“Borders & Boundaries”
Hosted by:
Turkish Society for Theatre Research (UTAD), Marmara University, Department of English Language and Literature
Conference Dates: 10-12 September 2026
Venue: Marmara University, İstanbul, Türkiye
Thoreau Annual Gathering, July 8-12, 2026
Ralph Waldo Emerson Society
“Give Me Health and a Day”: Emerson and Health, Illness, and Unity
Call for Papers.
Theatre and Performance Notes and Counternotes seeks short articles or extended essays (1,500-3,000 words) on American (US) theatre at the United States semiquincentennial (250th anniversary). 2-3 sentence abstracts should be submitted by February 2, 2026 and essays/articles before April 6, 2026 to Harvey Young (issue editor) at cfadean[at]bu.edu.
Conference Call for Papers
“Navigating Global Governance in a Multipolar World”
(28-29 May 2026)
Cergy, France
The Faculty of the Anglo-American Legal Program at the Faculté de droit de l'Université CY Cergy Paris is proud to organize this conference in collaboration with the Laboratoire d'Études Juridiques et Politiques (LEJEP) and the newly formed Institute for Multipolar Governance.
Call for Papers
Ege University
20th Cultural Studies Symposium
“AI & Cultural Production”
6–8 May 2026 | Faculty of Letters, Izmir, Türkiye
Artificial Intelligence has distinctly shifted from being a technological tool to a shaping factor in present-day cultural practices. Ranging from AI-related literature, music, and visual arts to AI-enabled storytelling, translation, and co-creative practices, AI confronts traditional concepts of authorship, creativity, agency, and responsibility. Furthermore, AI raises critical moral and political considerations with respect to power, bias, labour, and representation.
Call for Conference papers and contributions
Failure & Resistance
16th International Illustration Research Symposium
November 13th-14th, Arts University Plymouth, United Kingdom
Submission deadline: February 28th 2026
Under certain circumstances failing, losing, forgetting, unmaking, undoing, unbecoming, not knowing may in fact offer more creative, more cooperative, more surprising ways of being in the world. (Jack Halberstam)
A Two-dayInternational Conference
Plates of Memory, Palates of Change: Memory, Identity, Community, and Millennial Transformations
28–29 March 2026
Call For Papers
Baldur’s Gate 3 (Larian Studios, 2023) represents a milestone in the evolution of narrative gaming. As both an heir to Dungeons & Dragons and a contemporary work of interactive storytelling, the game synthesizes centuries of myth, moral inquiry, and imaginative world-building into a playable form. This edited collection seeks essays that investigate how Baldur’s Gate 3 draws upon, reinterprets, and transforms literary and philosophical traditions—from the medieval and Renaissance periods through modern fantasy and posthuman theory—to create new modes of narrative, ethics, and embodiment.
European Journal of Theatre and Performance (EJTP)
CALL FOR PROPOSALS
Mobilising Heritage: Dance, Theatre, and Performance in the Age of (In)Tangibility
Guest editors:
Timmy De Laet, Franz Anton Cramer, Vicky Kämpfe, and Dunja Njaradi
(proposal deadline: 25 January 2026)
Modernism Remodelled
A Transdisciplinary Conference
Conference Webpage: https://labrc.co.uk/2025/10/22/modernism-remodelled-2026/
Oxford University (and online)
February 28-March 1, 2026
Fees: £180 (in person)
£100 (Online)
Abstract Deadline: January 18, 2026
**Participants interested in attending the conference without presenting a paper are also welcome.
Call for Presentations
The purpose of this issue is to understand the experiences and practices of people living in different geographical contexts. If someone believes that Christianity caused conflict and wars throughout history, this issue suggests that understanding each other's experiences and practices can promote harmony, especially in Asian and Western contexts. The integration of diverse thoughts benefits the well-being of the world. This issue will not only provide a platform to engage with such religious harmony but also serve as a valuable resource for researchers in understanding different experiences and practices.
'It is not down on any map; true places never are' - Herman Melville
American Literature Association
May 20-23, 2026
Palmer House, Chicago, IL
The Richard Wright Society announces two sessions on Wright to take place at the 37th Annual American Literature Association Conference.
Rethinking Richard Wright’s Depiction and Analysis of Gender and Sexuality
Family, Power, and the Politics of Capital: A Symbolic Reading of HBO’s Succession
Shohini Sen
Research scholar
NorthCap University
Dr. Chetna Karnani
Assistant Professor
The NorthCap University, Gurugram, India
Dr. Gouri Kapoor
Assistant Professor
The NorthCap University, Gurugram, India
Abstract :
Motherhood Unbound: Global Pathways of Motherhood Across Cultures and Disciplines