NeMLA 56th Annual Convention

Philadelphia, PA, 6-9 March 2025

Primary Area / Secondary Area:

French and Francophone / Cultural Studies and Media Studies 

Chair:

Atim Mackin (Harvard University)

New Forms of Revolution in the Francophone World

 Revolutions have always been pivotal moments in the history of societies, but the forms they take are constantly evolving. This panel aims to explore the new forms of revolution within French and Francophone contexts. We seek contributions that question, analyze, and discuss the following aspects (among others):

Special Issue Call for Papers: Fictions of the Pandemic

Guest Editors: Roanne Kantor (Stanford) and Ragini Tharoor Srinivasan (Rice) Extended Deadline for Submissions: 1 August 2024

This panel is being organized as part of NeMLA 2025, centered around the theme of (R)Evolution.

Description:

In dialogue with theorists of (post)humanism, this panel seeks to examine how science fiction has historically been used to bolster erroneous and destructive "scientific" discourses, such as social Darwinism, and, conversely, how science fiction has been used toward revolutionary ends to imagine alternative formations of (post)humanity that defy socially constructed taxonomies and hierarchies.

Abstract: 

Despite the increased prominence of the Far North in the political and environmental crises of the twenty-first century, this space remains largely absent from Global South studies, an omission that unwittingly reproduces outdated notions of the Arctic as a kind of terra nullius, a region outside both the Global North and the Global South, devoid of people and history. As the effects of climate change continue to undermine perceptions of the Arctic as a region isolated from the modern world, this panel seeks to explore the relationship between the Far North and the Global South, as depicted in popular culture. How might concepts of the Global South prove generative in relation to the histories of the Far North?

Near the end of Jane Eyre, the title character famously says, “Reader, I married him.” It is a wedding her readers have expected and waited for, yet it comes after a rather inauspicious first meeting.

Fiction is full of first meetings. While a relationship’s apex or culmination might often be most memorable to readers, the initial encounter is also of special interest and significance to the story. Papers for this panel will explore fictional (or nonfictional) first meetings or initial encounters. Presenters may discuss a first meeting in light of the dynamics of the relationship’s development and/or ending, or presenters may choose to do a close reading that does not take into account the relationship’s future.

Sterile, tedious, vulgar: suburban stereotypes abound. H. G. Wells thought “the Modern City looks like something that has burst an intolerable envelope and splashed.” John Ruskin found “no existing terms of language … to describe the forms of filth, and modes of ruin,” of suburban development. Yet these supposedly repulsive spaces were extraordinarily attractive. What do the suburbs offer our understanding of the novel’s social horizons? The nineteenth-century novel's realism has been primarily understood as a metropolitan phenomenon. How does literature from the Victorian era to the present, within and beyond realism and the British tradition, confirm or challenge assumptions about suburban spaces?

Have you given a talk on drag culture recently? A conference paper on Drag Race that you’d like to publish? A thesis chapter on anything related to drag and/or social and racial justice that can be developed further? We are reopening this CFA for interested scholars to contribute a chapter to this edited collection.

Justice-oriented pedagogical practices are adapting to the advent of generative AI by prioritizing equity, inclusion, and critical engagement with these technologies. Educators and writing instructors incorporate discussions and activities encouraging students to critically examine generative AI's societal/ethical/pedagogical/citational impact and explore ways to mitigate potential harms (Bao et al., 2022). Students learn about algorithmic bias and the importance of designing fair and equitable AI systems. They also develop critical literacy skills to evaluate AI-generated content and discern misinformation.

This session engages recent scholarship on magic and science (or natural philosophy) in the Brut, as well as in the wider Brut tradition, including work on astronomy and on the Merlinian prophecies.   As evidence points to Lawman's participation in the intellectual, philosophical, and theological currents of late twelfth/early thirteenth-century England, the session invites proposals on topics related to science and magic--broadly conceived--in Lawman and in analogous Brut texts.  The session allows for a wide range of potential topics, including prophecy, demonology, astronomy, medicine, alchemy, the bestiary, dream theory, the miraculous, Welsh magical traditions, and other references to the natural and preternatural worlds.  Inclusion of other texts in

ASLE 2025 Biennial ConferenceCollective Atmospheres: Air, Intimacy, and Inequality

July 8-11, 2025
University of Maryland, College Park,
ancestral lands of the Piscataway People

Call for Proposals

Special Issue of Literature, Critique, and Empire Today (formerly the Journal of Commonwealth Literature)

Deadline for abstract proposals: 15 July 2024

Edited Volume Call for Papers on Sandeep Kumar Mishra’s Books/stories/writings

Deadline for submissions: December 31, 2024

full name / name of organization: Rukesh Sharma-Editor (Kishlaya Books)

Contact- Rukeshsharma1586@gmail.com

CFP: Edited Volume Call for Papers on Sandeep Kumar Mishra’s Books

CFP: Shoreline Shakespeares:
6th Conference of the Asian Shakespeare Association (Iloilo, 4-6 December 2024)

A shoreline is a dynamic border, being created, erased, and reshaped by the eternal dance of tide and time. It separates yet connects ecosystems, identities, and civilizations. Shorelines set boundaries but also open gateways to different experiences and perspectives. The shoreline serves as a focal point for exploration, transition, and adaptation. “Shoreline Shakespeares” welcomes papers that examine the literal and metaphorical meanings of the shoreline in Shakespeare and his afterlife. Topics may include, but are not restricted to:

The U.S. South is often a forgotten space within ecocritical discussions, yet it provides fruitful ground for thinking about environmental issues. In 2019, in the first edited collection of essays on the topic, Zachary Vernon notes that focusing attention on this bioregion might help “provide a way out of the limitations of thinking too locally or too globally,” and it might inspire a group of stakeholders to come to the table as well (7). One problem with ecocritical approaches is the long history of representing the U.S. South as an “internal other in the national imagination: colonized, subordinate, primitive, developmentally arrested, or even regressive” (Watson 254).