Located at the juncture of philosophy and the arts, mimesis is one of the most ancient concepts of literary theory and may not initially appear new, let alone original. It was indeed marginalized and forgotten in the Romantic and modernist periods, haunted by the myth of originality. Yet, in recent years, scholars across the humanities, social sciences, and even the neurosciences, have returned to the ancient, yet strikingly contemporary, realization that humans are an imitative species, or homo mimeticus (www.homomimeticus.eu).

Infrastructures, both visible and invisible, are all around us and they permeate our lives in various ways. Larkin defines infrastructures as “built networks that facilitate the flow of goods, people, or ideas and allow for their exchange over space” (327). Though most commonly associated with its physical manifestations, the term infrastructurealso encompasses intangible elements that play a crucial role in society. Thus, infrastructures are not merely "limited to pipes, roads, and wires" but should, instead, be understood as “interdependent networks of materials, people, and nature that enable the functioning of modern life” (Lockrem 529).

After working in alternative or hybrid spaces throughout the pandemic, the return of educators and students to the “traditional” classroom has brought its own unique challenges and frustrations both for students and instructors. Learners who previously participated in fully remote classes are expected to integrate smoothly into synchronous in-person courses with little guidance or preparation. Instructors are offered little guidance in easing the transition for students and are often already stretched thin themselves. In light of these circumstances, educators must reevaluate what teaching methods and structures might best serve students and instructors in a technological and AI-driven era.

CALL FOR PAPERS
The 12th International Conference
Synergies in Communication (SiC 2024)
31 October- 1 November 2024
(hybrid format)

Teaching Medievalism

Deadline for Submissions: December 1

Session: February 28, 2:00 pm (Central)

See ACLA (American Comparative Literature Association) listing for submission portal: https://www.acla.org/literature-and-international-development. 

Paper proposals cannot be accepted via email.

ACLA conference will take place May 29–June 1, 2025, via Zoom.

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“Literature, whether handed down by word of mouth or in print, gives us a second handle on reality…What better preparation can a people desire as they begin their journey into the strange, revolutionary world of modernization?" (Chinua Achebe, “What Has Literature Got to Do With It?”)

Julia Kristeva’s landmark essay, Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection (1980), will have its 45th publication anniversary in 2025. In that time, its influence has been wide ranging, whether on women and gender studies broadly, on the fields of feminist, psychoanalytic, queer, horror/gothic, and disability theory, as well as on media studies. For this roundtable session we invite proposals that consider any aspect of the influence of Powers of Horror, past and present.

SCRC welcomes 15-20 minute papers on all aspects of Renaissance Studies for its international conference which will be held, for the first time, in coordination with the Saint Louis University 12th Annual Symposium on Medieval and Renaissance Studies June 9-11, 2025.

Submit 300 to 500 word abstracts on the SLU Symposium Site (accessible via the SCRC website, here: https://southcentralrenaissanceconference.org/scrc-2025-st-louis-univers...). Deadline December 31, 2024.

Nurturing Curious Minds: Approaches to Assessing and Enhancing Critical Thinking and Writing in Higher Education

13 – 14 June 2025

Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

https://blogs.ntu.edu.sg/cts2025/

We invite abstracts for a two-day symposium that aims to gather educators, researchers, and practitioners from all disciplines to share their experiences and contribute to the ongoing dialogue on improving the critical thinking skills of university students. 

Aside from panels, our symposium will feature two keynote speakers.

In How Societies Remember (1989), Paul Connerton writes that the present “distort[s]” the past, and vice-versa, in our collective memory” (2). These distortions can be instrumentalised by politicians seeking to mobilize people behind a nostalgic vision of the past. Conceiving of nostalgia as a “superimposition” of the past over the present, Svetlana Boym explores how it creates a multi-temporal memory-scape that one longs to recover – but which, paradoxically, has never and can never exist (The Future of Nostalgia, xiv). Similarly, Joseph Roach describes how societies seek replacements for figures from the past via a process he calls “surrogation,” which is virtually always doomed to fail (Cities of the Dead, 2).

A Critical Companion to George A. Romero

Part of the Critical Companion to Popular Directors series edited by Adam Barkman and Antonio Sanna

In a 2023 article, the Black British writer Derek Owusu describes the transformative experience of reading D. H. Lawrence’s St Mawr (1925) as simultaneously an awakening to language and to a wider sense of connectedness. ‘I don’t have the words to describe what happened to me while turning the pages of that short story,’ he writes, ‘but I know language became something three-dimensional, and everything around me seemed connected by an unexpressed narrative.’

Women Filmmakers: Genre and Gender in French, British and US Cinema and TV Series

3-4 July 2025

University of Le Mans, France

Call for Book Chapters for Edited Volume

Performing Crisis: Interdisciplinary Insights on Identity and Existence

Deadline for Abstract Submissions has been extended to October 31, 2024

“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced” (Baldwin 2).