Today, Bollywood is not merely an industry of Indian films representing the national cinema but also a global cultural phenomenon. From the singsong dance sequences on YouTube to its widespread circulation on Netflix, Amazon Prime, and regional streaming platforms, Bollywood redefines South Asian identities and how they are consumed, contested, and celebrated globally. Moreover, the intertwining of questions on cultural appropriation, culturalized representation, caste, gender, and diasporic negotiations emerges with renewed urgency and visibility.

Epistemologies and Pathways to Truth

The University of Maryland’s Graduate English Organization (GEO) invites proposals relating to the theme of “Epistemologies and Pathways to Knowledge” for our 19th annual graduate student conference, to be held in person on Friday, March 27, 2026 at UMD, College Park. 

The “Collecting and Collectibles Area” of the Popular Culture Association invites papers on “Collecting in/as Crisis” for the 2026 National PCA/ACA Conference to be held in Atlanta, GA, USA on April 8-11, 2026. We would especially like to encourage submissions that contribute new directions and calls to the existing scholarship on “Collecting in/as Crisis” and particularly address how collections/collectibles and their institutions and practices involve or respond to natural, cultural, economic, environmental, health, epistemic crises, etc.  

Possible topics for presentations include but are not limited to:

·         Collecting as systemic violence

·         Collecting as cultural erasure

In 2025, with emerging AI, FaceTime, and robot companions, we acknowledge that the future has arrived and still remains to be explored. We invite scholars, artists, and critical theorists to contribute to our annual conference celebrating Afrofuturism and the work of Gregory J. Hampton. Hampton explored how Black writers engage with identity, power, and possibility. His work has significantly shaped modern views of Black speculative fiction, Afrofuturism, and African American literary studies. Hampton's critical analyses of authors like Octavia Butler and Samuel R.

https://ucgradconference20.wixsite.com/utopian-impulses We are excited to share the CfP for this year’s interdisciplinary graduate student conference at the University of Cincinnati titled Utopian Impulses in the 2020s! We're also pleased to announce that Dr. Angela Laflen will be this year's keynote speaker. See bio below:  "Dr. Angela Laflen is Associate Professor of English at California State University, Sacramento, and author of Critical Data Storytelling in the Composition Classroom (Utah State UP 2025).

“Curiosity & Care” - Stony Brook University English/WGSS CFP, New York Graduate Conference 

Stony Brook University’s English Graduate Department, in collaboration with the Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies Department, invites abstracts and proposals from current graduate students and independent scholars for its annual spring conference on Friday, Feb. 27, 2026, at Stony Brook University in Stony Brook, NY.

Concept Note:
Theories, or to be precise, Literary and Cultural theories are various (though at
times, overlapping) frameworks or tools used to interpret a given text.
Etymologically, the term, ‘theory’ comes from the Greek ‘Theoria’ which, broadly,
means contemplation and speculation. Every theory proposes its own interpretative
strategies and modes of extracting meaning, helping us to “discriminate between
experiences and evaluate them,” as Richards would have said. Given that meanings
of texts can hardly be considered final, theories shore up our analytical approaches
as well as selection or rejection of meanings.
Theories that have been native to literature, that is, the ones focusing on the

It’s in their Blood:

Television Series and the Representation of Violence in the 21st Century

International conference hosted by

Metropolitan University Prague and

ULICES – University of Lisbon Center for English Studies,

School of Arts and Humanities of the University of Lisbon.

6-7 March, 2026

Online

Call for Papers

The Society for the Study of American Literary Naturalism

American Literature Association 37th Annual Conference

May 20-23, 2026

Chicago, IL

The Frank Norris Society, The Jack London Society, the Stephen Crane Society, and the Theodore Dreiser Society have united for the American Literature Association into the Society for the Study of American Literary Naturalism.

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.

⸻

2026 Texas Association for Asian American Diaspora Studies (TAAADS) Annual Symposium

2026 Herman C. Hudson Symposium on:

“(re)VISION: Through Fracture, Focus. Through Vision, Freedom.”

27-28 February 2026

Call for Papers

SUBMISSION DEADLINE: FRIDAY February 1, 2026

Dear Colleagues: 

Call for Contributors:

Conspiracy Theories & the Information Society

Editors:

Robert Spinelli (rspinelli@ncis.org); Matthew N. Hannah (matthew.hannah@wisc.edu)

Abstract: 

International conference on

Artificial Intelligence, Cultural Narratives, and Educational Futures in India and Australia

to be organised by the Centre for Australian Studies, Dept of English and Culture Studies, The University of Burdwan

in collaboration with Australian Consulate-General, Kolkata

on 20 & 21 January 2026

at The University of Burdwan

Call for Papers

British covert operations of the Second World War have provided source material for a string of recent films and TV series, with Operation Mincemeat (2021), SAS Rogue Heroes (2022-), and The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare (2024) all attracting media coverage and public debate. This recent wave joins and revises a longer tradition of cultural representations of the secret aspects of the war, across fiction, memoirs, cinema, television, and latterly digital gaming.

Dear Colleagues,

The Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at The Ohio State University is pleased to announce an upcoming conference as part of our biannual celebration of Popular Culture and the Deep Past (PCDP) in 2026. We warmly invite abstracts exploring topics related to medieval and Renaissance astrology and astronomy.Call for PapersStar Gazing: Astrology and Astronomy in the Medieval and Renaissance ImaginationPopular Culture and the Deep Past 2026

 April 10-11, 2026

Online via Zoom & Ohio Union - The Ohio State University

The submission deadline for abstracts and panel proposals is December 19, 2025. 

Special thematic dossier 8.1 | Digital Projections and Screened Identities in US American Culture

Editors: Laura Álvarez Trigo (Universidad de Valladolid) and Anna Marta Marini (Freie Universität Berlin) 

Journal Name: Kaleidoscope : An Interdisciplinary Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences

Website: https://kaleidoscopejournal.in/ 

We invite original, unpublished research papers, review articles, essays, and book reviews from scholars, researchers, and academics for Volume 1, Issue 1, to be published in December 2025.

Theme: Open Theme

For the inaugural issue, we welcome contributions on any topic within the broad ambit of Humanities and Social Sciences, including but not limited to:

Beauty and the Revival of Faith will take place on 8-10 May, 2026, at the Archbishop’s Palace, Southwell, Nottingham, U.K. 

In an increasingly globalized yet hierarchically structured world, the questions of whose voices

are heard, and through what forms of representation, have never been more urgent. Within global

academic and cultural discourses, East Asian perspectives continue to negotiate their positions, seeking

to assert and articulate their own voices rather than being defined through dominant paradigms of

knowledge and interpretation.

We are pleased to invite submissions for the upcoming graduate symposium, “Margins,

Institute of Literature and New Media at the University of Szczecin, Poland

invites you to take part in the international academic conference

on the 160th anniversary of the birth and 85th anniversary of the death of the author

Elizabeth von Arnim and Pomerania

6-7 June 2026

The writing of Elizabeth von Arnim (1866-1941, born Mary Annette Beauchamp) was as much a literary outcome of the author’s creative potential as it was a reflection of her individual life story, which in many ways can be seen as a sensitive reflection of the times and places in which she lived.

In 2021, the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC)  issued a position statement on “the Role of Reading in the College Writing Classroom”. In this statement, 4Cs “affirm[ed] the need to develop accessible and effective reading pedagogies in college writing classrooms” because it would help student performance across the university and in students’ roles as citizens in a democracy. The statement correctly notes that reading pedagogy is an issue writing studies has not taken up in a robust way for about 30 years and that it is now receiving attention at four-year institutions, though reading pedagogy has long been addressed at two-year schools.

Panel Announcement: Mapping Regional Divides in Energy and Food Futures
Benelux Geography Conference 2026 — Leuven, 8–10 April 2026

This panel explores how visualising and interpreting spatial imaginaries can enhance our understanding of regionalism and the rejection of socio-ecological transitions. In an era of intensifying regional polarisation, geography’s capacity to make visible moral, material, and affective geographies is increasingly crucial. Communities’ responses to transitions in energy and food systems reveal contested visions of sustainability, sovereignty, and belonging. Mapping these imaginaries exposes the regional dynamics that underpin cohesion, exclusion, and resistance across the Benelux.

Since 1975, pacificREVIEW: A West Coast Arts Review Annual (formerly Pacific Poetry and Fiction Review) has thrived as an experimental editorial cohort made up of driven, wily, undergraduates & graduate students in the department of english and Comparative Literature, san diego state university, san diego, ca 92182-6020. This year, we take on comix again!