CFP for chapter contributions to book edited by the “VR as Empathy Machine: Media, Migration and theHumanitarian Predicament” Research Group at Utrecht University 

Book Title: Beyond the Empathy Machine: Critical Perspectives on Virtual Reality

The Cultural Studies Cell

Department of English and Cultural Studies

CHRIST (Deemed to be University) Bangalore

in collaboration with

Department of English 

Panihati Mahavidyalya

Organizes

A Symposium on 

Raymond Williams’ Keywords at 50

Dates: February 12-14, 2026

In the sociology of knowledge, some scholars argue that human memory can only function within a collective context (Halbwachs, 1968/2018). Others place the search for knowledge within the discipline of genealogy (Foucault, 2022; Mendoza, 2024). Qualitative research, on the other hand, is where sociology and philosophy intersect (Silverman, 2020; Adorno, 2022; Adorno, 1976). Genealogy, in the context of this volume, refers to the ancestry or history of a discipline, profession, or people (Haley, 1976/2021; Martin, 2016; Nietzsche, 1887/2022).  The advent of the Fourth Industrial Revolution has brought about change and continuity in qualitative research (Jung, 2019; Mosweu, 2025).

“Childhood in the Meantime: Interrupting Temporalities of Youth”

American Studies Association, Chicago, Oct. 22-25, 2026

The Children and Youth Studies Caucus seek panelists for a session entitled “Childhood in the Meantime: Interrupting Temporalities of Youth” for the American Studies Association 2026 meeting. We seek papers that consider the multiple temporalities that children are expected to inhabit: normative developmental timelines, trajectories oriented toward futures that adhere to the state-sanctioned scripts for proper adult citizenship, and culturally-accepted deviations of “sideways growth” that can ultimately be assimilated into dominant narratives of childhood presents and futures.

Queer and minor audiovisual practices increasingly challenge the assumption that any form of visibility offers a reliable route to recognition or to political and evidentiary clarity. This panel asks how, rather than treating visibility or audibility as stable states, we might attend to the ways vocal fabulations, relational and spatial practices of telling, and imaginative or speculative interventions unsettle the evidentiary burdens traditionally placed on marginalized histories. In other words, we are interested in forms that make presence felt without fully disclosing it, and in the tensions that emerge when bodies, voices, images, and testimonies exceed the representational frames built to contain them.

The historical relationship between Muslims and Christians dates back to the seventh century C.E., when Islam began to spread throughout the Middle East, Africa, and the Indian subcontinent; by the early eighth century, parts of Europe were under Muslim control. Consequently, this Special Issue seeks to understand Christian–Muslim interactions over the centuries. Recent studies of Syriac texts reveal early interactions between Christians and Muslims, the beginning of centuries of Christian–Muslim dialogues, debates, and perspectives that continue into the present day.

CALL FOR PAPERS

The First Transdisciplinary Forum on Art, Culture, History, and Theory

May 2026, Online 

The Global Forum on Art, Culture, History, and Theory (ACHT) hosted by Kaarnamaa Institute of Art and Visual Culture invites submissions.  

Call for Proposals for Vol. 4, Issue 1–Jackson & Animality [deadline extended: Feb. 1, 2026]

The Washington Irving Society (washingtonirvingsociety.org) invites papers discussing innovative ways to teach and/or research Washington Irving and his texts, for the American Literature Association Conference in Chicago, May 20-23, 2026. We welcome papers offering new insight into “Rip Van Winkle” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” and also encourage insightful studies into other Irving texts. Please send an abstract of approximately 250 words plus a brief bio to Dr.

The blog section of Locomotive Magazine is seeking submissions of poems and multimedia media works (including photos, caricatures, short video essays, and short films) that address contemporary issues, including but not limited to:

• Social justice

• Gender

• Class

• Race

INTERNATIONAL PSYCHOHISTORICAL ASSOCIATION’S 49th ANNUAL CONFERENCE

 MAY 29-31, 2026, VIRTUALLY ON ZOOM

THEME: Breaking Cycles of Violence: Psychohistorical Perspectives on Individual and Collective Healing

What Is This Conference About?

How do we break the cycles of violence — within ourselves, our families, and our societies — that perpetuate suffering across generations? What can psychohistory contribute to understanding and transforming these deep patterns? The 2026 IPhA Annual Conference invites scholars, clinicians, educators, and activists to explore these vital questions from both individual and collective perspectives.

American Literature Association

May 20-23, 2026

Chicago, IL

Thoreau, Place, and Travel

In his delineation of the moral commitment of thinkers, Edward Said notes that “the proliferation of intellectuals has expanded into the very large number of fields in which intellectuals have become the object of study.” This self-reflexivity drives Said and other prominent scholars to grapple with the ever-changing global dynamics. The public role of the intellectual is therefore to critically engage in political life, rejecting moral detachment as ethical bankruptcy, emphasizing the responsibility of the intelligentsia, and cultivating anti-parochial modes of thought. They stand as a counterforce to the global corporate economic and political agendas that marginalize the human being and attempts to overwhelm human agency.

This panel presents a historical account of the aesthetic and political resistance movements that proliferated across Asia in the 1970s, a decade marked by the legacies of post–World War II decolonization in South and Southeast Asia, as well as by pan-Asian militancy inspired by the 1949 Chinese Revolution. During this period, Asia emerged as a global center of radical politics, with revolutionary energies circulating transnationally and influencing militant movements in the United States, Europe, and beyond.

Call For Papers

The 3rd International Conference on Global Plant Humanities

Botanical Life in Art, Science, and Imagination

Conference Dates:     8–10 May 2026 (Fri–Sun)

Mode:                         In-person primarily (limited online participation available)

Host:                           Department of English, North-Eastern Hill University, Shillong, Meghalaya, India

NEKST 2026

13th International Conference of NextGen Korean Studies Scholars

May 8–9, 2026 | Ann Arbor, MI

Call for Papers

We invite graduate students in Korean Studies across all disciplines to participate in the 13th International Conference of NextGen Korean Studies Scholars (NEKST) at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. The NEKST conference provides an opportunity for graduate students to share their research, receive feedback from faculty members and other graduate students, and participate in an interdisciplinary community of future and present scholars in Korean Studies.

2026 Ralph Waldo Emerson Society Graduate Student Works in Progress Online Symposium / Friday, April 3rd, 2026,10:00-12:00pmCST

“Reconciliation in Action”

2026 WAR AND MEDIA STUDIES GRADUATE STUDENT WRITING AWARD 

The War and Media Studies SIG is holding its annual graduate student writing award competition to showcase innovative work in the field by our graduate student members. We will again be partnering with the Sage journal Media, War & Conflictand the winning author will have the opportunity to be published in the journal.  

Call for Submissions

The Arthur Miller Online Teaching and Learning Center www.amotlc.com  warmly welcomes contributions that reflect diverse perspectives on teaching Arthur Miller’s works. Submissions may include, but are not limited to:

Digital Subjectivities

Digital technologies have become integral to our everyday lives – from work, play, and relationships to political engagement and scholarship – shaping our subjective experiences and the ways we relate to others and ourselves. Their proliferation not only offers new tools for communication and knowledge production but also fundamentally reconfigures how the self is conceptualised and lived. This conference will explore the impact of digital technologies on subjective experience, knowledge production within and beyond academia, culture and politics, and questions of individual and collective agency.

“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.

The Shirley Jackson Society invites scholars at all stages of their careers to submit to our panels for the American Literature Association’s 37th Annual Conference in Chicago, May 20-23, 2026.

For “Shirley Jackson in an Age of Anxiety,” we invite papers that explore how Jackson’s texts speak to, reflect, or anticipate our current age of political instability, social fragmentation, economic uncertainty, and concerted attacks on human rights. Topics of interest include cultural and historical trauma, social conformity and marginalization, surveillance and paranoia, the uncanny in everyday life, prejudice, mob mentality, the dismantling of the American Dream, and mental illness as a cultural phenomenon.

Paper proposals invited for papers of 15-20 minutes. Please note corrected deadline of Friday, December 19, 2025 for submission of abstracts.

African and Caribbean Theatre and Performance Working Group
IFTR 2026 World Congress 6-10 July 2026 
The University of Melbourne
Melbourne, Australia 

Working Group Theme: 

“What Theatre Does” – African and Caribbean Perspectives on Performance, History, and Identity