Toward a Critical Color Theory; Black American Women’s Writing and Color

This is a call for proposals to participate in a proposed panel at MLA in Toronto in January 2026.

Higher education had three socially pertinent effects in previous eras of capitalist development. It: offered graduates a pathway to upward mobility; conferred a “stake” in normative society such that graduates could “buy into” the dominant economic systems from which they stood to benefit; and was an incubator for mass social and political movements such as the 1960s student movement.

But much recent fiction evinces a change in attitudes to university – a weakening of the assumption that higher education is a pathway to social mobility for the individual and social justice/progress for the collective.

As we prepare to launch the tenth issue of our academic journal, we invite submissions for a special issue dedicated to the theme of Polyphony.

Why Polyphony? 

Polyphony—the coexistence of multiple, independent voices—offers a compelling lens through which to explore the interconnected perspectives in scholarship and creativity. Ideas do not develop in isolation; they emerge through conversation, contradiction, and resonance across disciplines, generations, and methodologies. Our journal has always nurtured interdisciplinary engagement, and Polyphony allows us to celebrate this fully by embracing the richness of intellectual and artistic dialogue.

On behalf of the English Graduate Association at the University of Idaho, this is a reminder that all abstracts for the 2025 University of Idaho Graduate English Conference are due on February 24, 2025. All graduate students are invited to submit an abstract for work that is relevant to the conference theme, “What Fuels Feeling?: Multidisciplinary Studies of Emotions and the Elements”. While the English Department is hosting this conference, we are seeking work from graduate students of all disciplines. 

We are excited to host Nicole Seymour from California State University as our keynote speaker for this conference. 

IL PARLAGGIO

ISSN 2280-6849

This section of the academic journal “Sinestesieonline” is open to contributions about theatre and performing arts in all historical ages, forms and variations, in English, Italian and foreign languages. We use double blind peer review.

“Il Parlaggio” is the name created by Gabriele d’Annunzio for the amphitheatre in Vittoriale – a place of empathy, a cradle of emotions, a crossroads of cultures, a connection between antiquity and contemporaneity, an emblem of the “neverending show”.

The maternal figure has long been central to literary imaginings of the nation-state, shaping narratives of belonging, exile, and inheritance. As both metaphor and material reality, motherhood is entwined with national reproduction, kinship structures, and the regulation of bodies, often reinforcing but sometimes resisting dominant ideologies. At the same time, motherhood is a site of labor—both reproductive and economic—raising questions about care work, migration, and the feminization of labor within and across borders. Maternal grief, loss, and displacement further complicate the imagined continuity between mother and motherland, exposing fractures in nationalist and colonial narratives.

December 12, 2025

Aula Baratto, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice - Dorsoduro, 3246, Venice

Conference Dates: October 22-25, 2025
Venue: Hilton Cincinnati 

This panel examines how contemporary artistic practices—including monumental, visual, and performing arts—engage with memory-making processes. By focusing on the interconnection between material experiences and memory, the panel explores how artists embody and reimagine memory while challenging traditional approaches. For instance, activist artists push the boundaries of memory work by challenging conventional notions of archives and historical narratives, positioning artists as critical contributors to understanding how societies remember and forget.

** UPCOMING DEADLINE: 28 FEBRUARY 2025 **

If you'd like to submit an abstract but cannot make the deadline, please get in touch at r.gregory-fox@kent.ac.uk to discuss an extension.

Hostile Environments and Hospitable Praxes

Literary and Cultural Responses to Racial and Migratory Politics

University of Kent

23 – 24 June 2025

 ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF DELEUZE(NESS)

International symposium

18-19 September 2025

National Gallery of Art, Konstitucijos pr. 22, Vilnius

Sibiu, Romania | 1-3.07. 2025                                    

Lucian Blaga University is pleased to announce a Call for Papers for the upcoming international conference, “Tragic Form Across Europe and Beyond,” to be held between July 1-3 in Sibiu, Romania. The conference aims to explore tragedy as it is reflected in literature, theater, and other cultural forms from antiquity to the present day, with a focus on European (semi)peripheries and non-European cultural spaces. 

For MLA 2026 - Toronto, we invite papers that examine how contemporary literature and film reimagine haunted space narratives through the lens of immigrant experiences and displaced families. Please e-mail a 250-word abstract, title, and short bio by March 16th, 2025 to Ibrahim and Laura.

Panel organizers:Ibrahim Williams, The University of Mississippi (iawillia@go.olemiss.edu )Laura Evers, Washington University in St Louis (e.laura@wustl.edu )

What does the future hold for us, as the inhabitants of a planet much burdened by a burgeoning population, whose demands for time-saving technologies and physical comfort are endless? Will there be wars over potable water? Will we give up gold and gems and treasure oxygen instead? Or will existence end with either bang or whimper?

Utopian visions carry hope and contrarily, but more importantly, dystopian ones are much-needed warnings of what is likely to happen. This latter view made us feel that cli-fi needs to urgently present unflattering futuristic scenarios of our continued apathy towards nature and climate.

CALL FOR PAPERS

MLA 2026 (Guaranteed Session)

Toronto, January 8-11, 2026

Generous Modernisms