In the years leading up to the publication of The Waste Land, T. S. Eliot decried what he called the moral cowardice endemic to post-war London, and particularly to its literary circles.  D. H. Lawrence was similarly preoccupied with morality in his literary critical essays, writing, for example, that "Morality in the novel is the trembling instablity of the balance [between opposing forces].  When the novelist puts his thumb in the scale, to pull down the balance to his own predilection, that is immorality."  And, finally, Hemingway once suggested to a group of professors that of all his novels, the best to teach is The Sun Also Rises because, he said, it is a "very moral novel."

The global pandemic and long periods of self-quarantine shifted everything from work habits, to school, to media consumption, and more.

For example, the game Animal Crossing: New Horizons brought families together and even provided a supportive space for on-line memorial services.

Zoom parties became a new way of coming together, as did streaming watch parties.

2022 Midwest Modern Language Association Conference

November 16-21, 2022

Minneapolis, MN

Permanent Section Call for Papers: Irish Studies

Ulysses: 1922-2022

“We are not essential. We are sacrificial.” With this statement, Sujatha Gidla, a subway conductor in New York City compelled back to work during the COVID-19 pandemic, observes that service workers who have been defined by their disposability constitute a bedrock for racial capitalism in an era of proliferating crises. We invite submissions to a special issue of Post45 that will turn to aesthetic and cultural mediations of service in the late 20th and early 21st century in order to theorize and historicize the relations between death, labor, and racial capitalism.

We invite you to join us in building a creative, interdisciplinary, and accessible symposium that considers the challenges of engaging the public and the role of resistance within the cultural spaces curating Americana. This two-day event will take place on the 19th and 20th of May. Hosted online by the University of Kent, UK. 

Please submit a 250-word proposal, with title and 50-word biography for a presentation, panel or workshop to kentamericanists@gmail.com by April 17th, 2022.

This year’s Midwest Modern Language Association Convention will be held in Minneapolis, MN November 16th-21st.  Please see the conference website for details: http://www.luc.edu/mmla/convention/.

In response to the MMLA 2022 theme “Post-Now” this panel seeks papers that deal with environmental futures.  Possible topics include, but are not limited to:

­Call for Papers: Edited Volume, Brill, European Perspectives on the United States Series

Title: From Memory to Marriage: The Archive, Political Agency and the Advance of LGBTQ Rights in America

Editors:

Ben Alexander: Balexa@usc.edu

Mary Foltz: mcf209@lehigh.edu

Introduction:

Proposals on any topic related to Shakespeare are welcome, though we specifically seek proposals that engage with the 2022 MMLA theme of “Post-Now.” What is the role of Shakespeare in society moving forward or are we “post-Shakespeare”? Are there pedagogical approaches, performances, or research foci that might help us envision the “revolution of the times” as it relates to Shakespeare and Shakespearean studies? Please submit a 250-word abstract and brief bio (or brief CV) to Jeanette Goddard at goddardj@trine.edu by April 15, 2022.

This session welcomes papers that delve deeply into the shared spaces between literature and philosophy for this year's PAMLA Conference in Los Angeles, California (Nov. 11-Nov. 13, 2022).  Literature has had a long history of being discerned and practiced through the philosophical. From the early writings of Plato to the contemporary work of Martha Nussbaum, literature has generated invaluable resources of epistemology, normativity, aesthetics, and studies of language and consciousness (among other critical fields of study).

October 20-22, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC*

Plenary Speakers: Kristen Carella (Assumption University), “Crossing Every Border: Transgender Identity from Merlin to Laura Jane Grace;” and Orville Hicks, renowned Appalachian storyteller

Call for Papers

 Campus Nostalgia

East-West Cultural Passages (peer reviewed, open access journal, https://sciendo.com/journal/EWCP)

Special Issue: Campus Nostalgia. July 2022

Deadline: 1 May 2022

Participation both depends on and produces agency. Therefore, it is always embedded in power structures and power remains unequally distributed. Though empires are long gone, neo-colonial structures of domination continue to exploit the so-called Global South, to privilege Eurocentric knowledge traditions over non- Eurocentric knowledge, and to exclude racialized subjects or people and communities from erstwhile colonized countries from power positions. For decades, postcolonial subjects have worked against imperial forms of oppression. They continuously labor to create space for local and hitherto marginalized world views and experiences. Processes of (self-)translation produce spaces of articulation and enable participation.

Penn State’s Center for American Literary Studies presents

Racial Justice Protests and The Media: Unprecedented and Routine Violence

Friday, April 15, 2022, Noon–1:00 p.m. EST via Zoom

 Register here.

https://psu.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_DzxDxHiLThy5-9mGxbPzuQ

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email

Since launching its hugely popular “Countdown to Christmas” made-for-TV movie series in 2009, Hallmark has expanded its offerings of American small-town romances to include Valentine’s Day, Easter, Thanksgiving, New Year’s, and Hanukkah, as well as winter, spring, summer, fall, and “Christmas in July.” Dozens of original films are planned and shot each year, often in Canadian locations such as Vancouver and Ottawa. These now-year-round productions are formulaic, heteronormative, Christian, and overwhelmingly white—and they have been undeniably commercially successful, rocketing Hallmark to cable success and spawning imitations across multiple platforms.