In addressing the MMLA conference theme, “Post-Now,” the permanent section on “English Literature Before 1800” welcomes papers exploring any moments in pre-1800 literary scenes and contexts that relates our cultural moment.  Topics may include, but are by no means limited to, representation, identity categories (race, class, gender, age, sexuality, disability, etc.), technologies, political movements, audience responses, and any other critical issues from any period and genre. Reflections on pedagogy and classroom practices that address the “Post-Now” theme are welcome.  

Call for Papers: “Looking Backward – Looking Forward”

The editors of Arc: Journal of the School of Religious Studies are pleased to announce a call for papers and book reviews for our forthcoming volume (Vol. 50). As the 50th anniversary of the journal presents a unique opportunity to think both retrospectively and prospectively, Arc is asking for submissions that engage with the theme of looking backward – looking forward.  

The 7th International Academic Conference on Humanities and Social Sciences is a must-attend event for the academic community. Join us on the 19-21 of August in the dynamic city of Paris. IACHSS continues to recruit top speakers in the field, showcase findings from the latest research, and provide premier networking opportunities.

Refractions: A Journal of Postcolonial Cultural Criticism is a journal dedicated to interdisciplinary and experimental scholarship in postcolonial cultural studies. In physics, refraction is the phenomenon by which a wave changes its direction as it passes from one medium to another, and in the process, alters perception of that thing.

We seek paper abstracts on English-language films. The topic is broadly conceived and open, and approaches may favor criticism, theory, history, etc. At least one panel, more as interests warrant and the program allows, will be conducted at SCMLA’s 79th Annual Hybrid Conference, to be held in Memphis, Tennessee from October 13-15, 2022. The conference will be hybrid and offers options for either in-person or virtual attendance to suit presenters’ needs.

Papers might cover any variety of topics on films in the English language.

If you are interested, please submit a paper title and abstract of approximately 400 words to

Scott L. Baugh (scott.baugh@ttu.edu) and

The Midwest Modern Language Association’s 2022 conference theme is “Post-Now.” The conference will take place November 16-21 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (https://www.luc.edu/mmla/convention/callforpapers/)

The Writing Across the Curriculum permanent session will explore this theme by exploring our ethical responsibilities as instructors of writing, our pedagogy, and our work with students as they seek to find their voice in composition classrooms. 

Topics might include, but are not limited to:

The SAMLA 94 conference theme of “change” encourages us to look at texts in different ways, which might include looking at texts that reflect real change or that perhaps illustrate the appearance of change coupled with a sense, ultimately, of stasis. This theme of “change” gives us a chance to examine Conrad’s authorial engagement with the potential complexities of change in society or politics and in our personal lives.

We are currently accepting submissions for the longstanding Bibliography and Textual Criticism panel at the South Central Modern Language Association conference to be held in Memphis, TN on October 13-15, 2022.

This panel will examine bibliography as a field ripe for intersections and collaborations with other methodologies, including digital humanities, publishing studies, textual criticism, critical theory, and literary history.

Interdisciplinary approaches to bibliography and technical studies are welcome.

Literature Compass Special Issue:

"Global Visions from Oceania"

The Creative Writing II: Poetry permanent section of the Midwest Modern Language Association seeks creative, critical, and hybrid proposals that connect to this year’s convention theme of “Post-Now.” We are particularly interested in presentations from poets and poet-scholars who engage with future-oriented poetics and praxis. Questions to consider include: How is (your) poetry and poetic practice positioned within the (ecological, technological, political, intersectional) contemporary momentum of the twenty-first century? How does poetry engage with and/or towards the future while also negotiating past and present? What poetic possibilities lie ahead, and what cannot be left behind?  

Under the auspices of the project ‘Orientation’: A Dynamic Perspective of Contemporary Fiction and Culture (1990-onwards) (Ref. FFI2017-86417-P), this Conference explores how the concept of ‘orientation’ can offer a renewed perspective on literary texts and cultural products alike. By positioning ‘orientation’ in close relation to (multiple) temporalities (or “polytemporality”, following Victoria Browne), space, and recognition of the ‘other’, this Conference (and the project) addresses the dynamic and fluid nature of today’s fiction and culture in English. As Sara Ahmed points out, “[o]rientations are about the direction we take that puts some things and not others in our reach” (56).

Silence (tacere or Schweigen) has been considered by Franz Rosenzweig among others as a subversive act or defiant stance of the tragic hero against overwhelming power mechanisms of necessity, i.e., totalization and universality. It has also, however, been regarded as an epiphenomenon (or a result) of marginalization and oppression by postcolonial theorists. The latters’ understanding marks silence as an end, a potential violent effect of the logics of exclusion and marginalization by “signifying machines”. The former understanding marks silence as a means of rendering mechanisms of powers inoperative.

119th PAMLA Conference

Los Angeles, CA | November 11-13, 2022 (entirely in-person)
PAMLA 2022: UCLA Luskin Conference Center and Hotel

Sponsored by UCLA Department of English

Special Session: Gazing Through a Pandemic Lens: Absurdist Literature, Theatre & Film

Presiding Officer:  Dr. Kimberly Jew, University of Utah

This panel seeks papers that explore the connections between our experiences of the recent (and ongoing) global pandemic and Absurdist literature, theatre & film. 

A burgeoning professional literature attests to the rewards and challenges of teaching comics and teaching with comics (for recent examples, see Wallner, Framing Education, 2019; Parker, Teaching Artfully, 2021; the forthcoming Smyth, Teaching with Comics and Graphic Novels, 2022; and the authoritative anthology With Great Power Comes Great Pedagogy, eds. Kirtley, Garcia, and Carlson, 2020).

In response to that literature, as well as the challenges of remote learning under COVID, this panel invites succinct 15-minute presentations that address the questions, What is it like to relearn the teaching of comics? and How can comics teachers reframe crisis as opportunity?