Call for Papers – CLOSURE: Journal of Comics Studies #12 (November 2025)

Thematic Section: »Queer Comics«

Open Call for Submissions

The e-journal CLOSURE will once again provide a platform for all facets of comic studies in its twelfth issue, to be published in Fall 2025. From cultural, visual, and media studies to social and natural sciences, and beyond, CLOSURE invites essays and academic reviews that engage with the »state of the comic«. Whether in-depth analysis, comic theory, or innovative new approaches—for the open topic section, we welcome diverse contributions from the interdisciplinary field of comics research.

Adaptation is the leading international, peer-reviewed journal of adaptation studies. The journal actively contributes to the development and visibility of adaptation studies as a field of academic enquiry and seeks to advance methodological approaches to the process.

Special Issue Editor: Reto Winckler (City University of Hong Kong)

Deadline for Submissions: 31 August 2025

Scope

Playing Nice: Sincerity and Irony in Television

Edited by Owen Cantrell and Sage Westfall

Deadline for Submission: ASAP

We are urgently looking for at least one more completed essay for this collection under contract with a fast-approaching deadline. Please submit a 300-word abstract for a previously unpublished paper which is already or nearly complete. If accepted, we are looking to review your chapter and edit it within weeks, not months.

Full chapters should be between 6-8K words in length.

Collection details:

Guru Dutt’s films are integral to the golden age of Hindi cinema as they were both critical and commercial successes. In a short career spanning twenty years, Dutt has served as an actor, a director, and a producer. His versatility is testament to a deep understanding of every aspect of filmmaking. Critics contend that contradictory ideas coalesced in his movies. A prominent theme of nationalism is at the heart of Dutt’s oeuvre. While he set out to refashion Indian national identity, Dutt envisioned a utopia for the new nation. Ideologically, Dutt was influenced by Nehruvian socialism, which finds its expression in his selection of subjects and themes. His movies also critiqued the new nation’s failure to afford equal opportunities to every citizen.

Essence & Critique: Journal of Literature and Drama Studies invites submissions for the fourth issue of the journal - a general issue on Literature and Drama Studies. 

Indexed by MLA and EBSCO databases.

Essence & Critique: Journal of Literature and Drama Studies is an open access peer-reviewed academic journal that serves as a forum for multi- and interdisciplinary discussions across Literature and Drama Studies, providing academicians, scholars, professionals and students with the opportunity to disseminate their research to a diverse audience of peers and professionals.

The second issue aims to cover literary and theatrical works in general.

This is a call for chapters on specific topics for The Palgrave Handbook of Shakespearean Biofiction, an edited collection which is under contract with Palgrave. The Handbook will be published in 2026. It will be the first book to comprehensively consider the history, state of the art, global cultures, and futures of Shakespeare biofiction; as such, it will be the definitive study of the topic, intervening at a critical juncture of development for this subject matter. Proposals are sought for the following chapters: 

INTERNATIONAL PSYCHOHISTORICAL ASSOCIATION’S 48th ANNUAL CONFERENCE

 MAY 23-25, 2025, VIRTUALLY ON ZOOM

THEME: IMAGINING BRIGHTER FUTURES FOR OUR DIVIDED WORLD: WHAT PSYCHOHISTORY CAN CONTRIBUTE

SUBTHEMES: Psychohistorical Insights On

Producer, director, and screenwriter Gregg Araki is a pivotal figure in independent film, known for his distinctive style and contributions to New Queer Cinema. Despite his inclusion in such cinematic movement thanks to The Living End (1992), and his rise to fame with the Teen Apocalypse Trilogy (1993-1997), Araki's explorations of a more mainstream style and his incursions in television directing have garnered little critical and academic attention, except for his 2004 adaptation of the novel Mysterious Skin and his win of the first ever Cannes Film Festival Queer Palm in 2010 for his film Kaboom.

Revista Hispánica Moderna is currently seeking special issue proposals. Special issues should explore innovative and significant topics within Hispanic Studies. The journal is particularly interested in proposals that cross temporalities and territories, transversally studying problems that question Modern and Early Modern fields and Iberian, Hispanic and Latin American cultures.

When proposing a Special Issue, please include:

Call for Papers for an Edited Collection on Elizabeth (“Lizzie”) Champney

Psychogeography: Liminal Loci and Haunted Haunts

The Area for Esotericism, Occultism, and Magic invites special panel presentation proposals on the subject of psychogeography to be included in its events at the 46th annual conference of the Southwest Popular/American Culture Association, held this February 19-22 in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Skenographia: Rethinking Design

Yale University Department of Comparative Literature Graduate Conference

March 28th, 2025

Keynote Speaker: Spyros Papapetros (Princeton University)

What sets a scene apart from a mere place or setting? Etymologically, the term resists simplification to a physical location or continuous action. It encompasses both the material apparatus of the stage and the events unfolding upon it. This oscillation— between object and subject, exterior and interior, self and world—forms a conceptual framework that this conference seeks to apply to the study of design.

Walt Whitman and Visual Culture
A special issue of The Walt Whitman Quarterly Review (Fall/Winter 1986-1987) first brought together nearly all the known photographs of Whitman, laying the foundation for the Walt Whitman Archive’s Gallery of Images. Whitman wrote about and sat for sculptors and painters, and he has been the inspiration for many art and film projects. In light of this and the recent publication of several illustrated editions of Whitman’s writings, the Whitman Studies Association invites proposals focused on Whitman and any aspect of visual culture. We seek presentations that explore and analyze Whitman and/or his writings in relation to:

CFP: The 27th Annual University of Florida Critical Theory Reading Group/MRG Conference

“Rethinking Institutions”

The Critical Theory Reading Group/MRG, University of Florida

March 27-29, Gainesville, FL 

Keynote speakers: Michael Hardt and Kathi Weeks

Nicole LaRose Alumni keynote speaker: Wesley Beal  

The 2025 Marxist Reading Group Conference invites submissions for “Rethinking Institutions” to explore the manifold issues endured by global institutions and reimagine the former for the present and future.