Stevens and Fiction | American Literature Association 2026 | Chicago, IL | May 2026

Since its inception, Verge has championed the role of special issues in making visible key questions in Global Asias scholarship while also suggesting new possibilities in the field. Maintaining this commitment, we invite proposals from potential guest editors for issue 14.2, a special issue slated for publication in Fall 2028.

The relationship between music, sound, and memory has become a focal point of scholarly inquiry in recent years, illuminating the intricate connections between auditory experiences, cognitive functions, and how these might be written down or discussed in a wider dialogue within culture. Researchers have begun to explore the way various musical elements, such as melody, rhythm, and harmony, can evoke specific memories and emotional responses, thereby influencing individual recollection and perception of past events.

Call for Papers from the Carson McCullers Society

American Literature Association Annual Convention, May 20-23, 2026, Chicago, IL

The Short Fiction of Carson McCullers: New Directions in Scholarship

https://invivoarts.fr/  

Bluesky: @invivoarts.bsky.social 

Pour le français, voir ci-dessous / Para español, ver abajo   

                                                             IN VIVO ARTS - CALL FOR PAPERS 3rd ISSUE

                                                                                     VIRTUALITIES

Society for the Study of Southern Literature Conference 2026

“Building Spaces of Freedom,” March 28th-31st at Fisk University, Nashville, TN

Panel: The Future of Southern Studies

Building on the 2026 theme, Building Spaces of Freedom, this panel seeks work that imagines where southern studies is going and who will help carry it forward. The Emerging Scholars Organization (ESO) invites papers from emerging scholars for an open-call panel that looks ahead toward the next questions, methods, and interventions shaping southern studies. 

“When Humans are On the Menu: Cannibalism and Modernity”

BAMS/MSA 2026

Loughborough, UK, 1-4 July 2026

I’m seeking abstracts for papers exploring representations of cannibalism in global modernist literature and culture for BAMS/MSA 2026. I’m planning this as an entirely virtual panel, but I am open to an in-person panel if that is everyone’s preference!

We welcome proposals that investigate aurality across media and genres, including literature, film, television, radio, theatre, podcasting, music, video games, and performance. Paper proposals might consider how adaptation translates, transforms, or reimagines texts as auditory experiences.

Sessions will be held on the Burman University campus, but we will also offer “Early Bird” and “Night Owl” online sessions for scholars facing travel difficulties at the moment. Please select “Online” on the proposal form if you are interested in this option.

We welcome contributions that engage with any topic related to adaptation studies, but our program will focus particularly on the following topics:

The representation of fatness in media has long been a subject of scrutiny, often intertwined with discourses of desirability, stigma, humor, and social control. Whether in films, advertisements, cartoons, or social media, fat bodies are frequently portrayed through the lens of excess, deviance, or comic relief, shaping cultural perceptions and reinforcing existing hierarchies of appearance and worth. This issue seeks to explore the multiple ways in which fatness is constructed and negotiated across various media forms, interrogating its intersections with gender, sexuality, class, power, and social anxieties.

Edited Volume with e-ISBN (Digital)

CFP | Pauline Elizabeth Hopkins Society (PEHS) session 

American Literature Association Annual Conference, Chicago, IL, May 20-23, 2026

Hopkins’s America, Then & Now

The Society for the History of Women in the Americas (SHAW) welcomes proposals for its annual conference, hosted by the University of Toulouse Jean Jaurès, France.

This year's conference invites papers on any topic relating to histories of women and gender non-conforming people in the Americas, but encourages proposals for papers, panels or roundtables that explore the subject of confinement.

Abstracts are invited on, but not limited to, the following sub-themes:

• Digital Transformations in Literary Studies
• Artificial Intelligence and Literary Criticism
• Hybrid Genres, Graphic Narratives, and New Media
• Ecocriticism and Environmental Literature
• Trauma, Memory, and Narrative Representation
• Identity, Intersectionality, and Representation
• Postcolonialism, Neocolonialism, and Cultural Identity
• Tribal Literatures, Indigenous Knowledge Systems, and Forest Ecologies
• Dalit Literatures and Narratives of Marginality
• Language, Multilingualism, and Cultural Diversity
• Translation, Transculturation, and Cross-Cultural Mediation

Call for papers – Series of Workshops on Sacred Writing Traditions

The HaZen (Handschriftenzentrum) project, based at the Institute for Jewish Studies at Freie Universität Berlin, would like to invite international researchers to three workshops in Berlin.

Drama and theatre have long served as dynamic mediums through which societies narrate their myths, record their histories, and preserve traditions. The interplay of myth, history, and tradition shapes the content and form of dramatic expression, influencing storytelling techniques, character archetypes, and performance styles across different cultures and time periods.

Plenary Lecture: Professor Daniel Cook (University of Dundee)

Artist’s Talk: Martin Rowson (in conversation with Brigitte Friant-Kessler)

Venue: St. Bride Library (London, U.K.)

Dates: 23–25 September 2026

Guest editor: Maxime Fecteau

Primordial and born of Chaos, Gaia wears many faces. In Hesiod’s Theogony she is a fertile, earth-bodied mother; she is also an insurgent force—ally to the Titans and to violent births. This constitutive ambivalence—nourishing ground and upheaval, regeneration and revolt—guides the 15th issue of MuseMedusa. We follow the figure to probe the regimes of time and action it exceeds, while noting how modern representational devices have narrowed its plurality of faces (Latour, 1991; 2015). In short, understanding Gaia today means holding Greek myth together with attention to planetary change.

Queen’s Graduate Conference in Literature

Call for Papers | Haunted Bodies

Date: May 22-24, 2026 Location: Queen’s University, Kingston and Online

Submissions due: January 12, 2026

The Asian Studies section is currently accepting paper and panel proposals for the 68th Annual Conference of the World Social Science Association. The conference will be held at the Clyde Hotel in Albuquerque, New Mexico, from March 25th through 28th, 2026.

The Asian Studies section welcomes research on the historical, cultural, social, and political aspects of the Middle East, South Asia, Southeast Asia, Pacific, and East Asia. Previous panels have explored Asian immigrant women’s participation management, governance in China, contemporary Japanese digital culture, and feminist readings of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa. We encourage innovative and critical approaches that address contemporary and historical issues.

Special Issue Call for Papers

Special Issue: 'Moving Violations: Asian Crime Films'

Special Issue Editors: Victor Fan, Kristof Van den Troost, and Earl Jackson

Call for Papers

Midwest Winter Workshop 2026

Rhetoric Program

Indiana University Bloomington

Friday, February 6th – Saturday, February 7th, 2026

ALA 2026: Politics in American Fiction

ALA Annual Conference (May 20-23, Chicago, IL)

Graduate Students in English Interdisciplinary Conference 2026

Call for Papers on the Theme: “Transformation”

University of Arkansas at Fayetteville – March 14-15, 2026

The Graduate Students in English at University of Arkansas in Fayetteville invite proposals on the theme “Transformation,” a topic as broad as the literary and academic canons themselves. As we bear witness to changes in higher education landscapes across disciplines, we might consider how our own perceptions have evolved, what has been reliable in scholarship historically, and what needs to adapt.

The Medievalism in Popular Culture Area (including Early to Later Middle Ages, Robin Hood, Arthurian Legend, Chaucer, Norse, and other materials connected to medieval studies) accepts papers on all topics that explore either popular culture during the Middle Ages or transcribe some aspect of the Middle Ages into the popular culture of later periods. These representations can occur in any genre, including film, television, novels, graphic novels, gaming, advertising, art, etc. For this year’s conference, I would like to encourage submissions on some of the following topics: