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What a Waste! is an interdisciplinary graduate conference that seeks to explicate the position of waste in the cultural output of the post-war. This conference will be held at the University of St Andrews on 23rd September 2023, and invites proposals from postgraduates and early career researchers.

Call for Papers Special Issue of Persona Studies
*Persona and Inter(Face)*

Editor: Amanda du Preez

The human face is an encounter; it acts as a threshold between worlds
and spheres. The face is often associated with a persona, a mask, a
screen, a surface, and even a mirage. Historically the face has been
mediated through the portrait, photography, the cinematic moving image,
and, lately, by the selfie (to mention only the obvious examples).

Horror has been analyzed in literature and film endlessly. But in this modern age of surplus, more niche and obscure mediums for horror have been taking the reigns. With so much media at our fingertips and so readily accessible, film and literature are influenced by independent creations. Video games, web Alternate Reality Games (ARGs), music, Internet culture, and international media have led to the development and evolution of American mainstream horror in the past couple of years. More traditional outlets for terror like books and movies have become stale and formulaic due to Capitalism, restricted to producing what is only guaranteed to be profitable, causing the traditional mediums to take note of these newer forms of scary storytelling.

Is there such thing as too much memory? According to nineteenth-century French psychologists, there is, which is how they coined the term “hypermnesia,” or “the disease of too much memory” (Michael Roth). As Michael Roth has usefully charted, a “typical” or normal” memory, then, would be one that brings order, allowing for a clear link between the past and present that consequently allows for “possible futures.” In contrast, surplus memory becomes an “agent of disorder” that overwhelms the present.

Invite to submit to an upcoming in-person conference session, "Rethinking Critical Thinking and the Humanities."  (October 2023, Portland OR; PAMLA)

Dear colleague,

I have organized a round-table session to be held at the PAMLA 120th Annual Conference (Portland, OR) – October 26-29, 2023.

Consider submitting paper extracts for Surplus and the Melodramaric Excess at the upcoming Nemla Conference, March 7-10 2024 in Boston! 

This session investigates the surplus of melodrama through an examination of its excess. What can an overabundance of tears, laughter, and music tell us about the cultures they grew out of or ourselves? In what ways can we re-engage with and rethink the legacy and influence of the melodrama during its time and today?

Elodie Rousselot defines “neo-historical fiction” as a subgenre of historical fiction that reimagines history by offering an “active interrogation of the past.”[i] Historical fiction, broadly speaking, allows readers to witness perspectives of the recognizable past while audiences interrogate the future. Most importantly, imagining the livelihood or end of various societal institutions has different stakes for different groups. Perspective is critical in historical fiction as exploring significant historical events also offers the opportunity to actively interrogate the future.

NeMLA 2024: Boston, March 7-10, Sheraton Back Bay

This session is a panel (3-4 participants, each presenting a formal paper of 15-20 minutes, plus Q&A).
Read more about this session: https://cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/20317

 Call for Special-Issue ProposalsAngelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities Angelaki seeks proposals of 5--700 words for special issues. The journal publishes four special issues (and two nontheme ‘general’ issues) per volume/annum. Angelaki special issues are generous: 80--90,000 words. Special issues are republished, 9--12 months after the issue, as hardback books in the Angelaki: New Work in the Theoretical Humanities series. We seek proposals for special issues for publication in the second half of 2025 and for 2026.

L'oeuvre de Julien Gracq et le cinéma : quelques possibilités de partenariat.

Toxic Ecologies of the Global South: Panel, NeMLA 2024

Boston, MA, March 7-10, 2024, https://www.buffalo.edu/nemla/convention.html

Shouldn’t the World Bank be encouraging more migration of the dirty industries to the LDCs (less developed countries)? … I think the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable and we should face up to that… I’ve always thought that under-populated countries in Africa are vastly under-polluted. (Lawrence Summers, chief economic advisor to the IMF, 1991).

Concentric: Literary and Cultural Studies

Vol. 50 No. 1 | March 2024

Call for Papers

Transcultural Thought and the Planetary Emergency

Guest Editors

Hannes Bergthaller (National Taiwan Normal University)

Yen-Ling Tsai (National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University)

Deadline for Submissions: July 31, 2023

This panel will focus on cultural representations of social reproduction. Social reproduction theory developed from a Marxist-feminist concern for typically-unwaged labor performed outside the traditional workplace, demonstrating how this “invisible” work is necessary for the reproduction of a capitalist workforce and social relations as well as the maintenance of life itself.

Guest Editors:

Charlotte Beyer, University of Gloucestershire

Christine Berberich, University of Portsmouth

Sean Matthews, University of Nottingham                     

Special Issue Consultants:

David Brian Howard, Nova Scotia College of Art and Design University

Merritt Moseley, University of North Carolina, Asheville

Rebecca Nesvet, University of Wisconsin, Green Bay

Home Editor: Adriana Neagu, Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca