In a significant portion of feminist criticism in its populist interpretation, there is an ongoing sense of wanting to shape feminine characters from legends, folklore, and history into models for a kind of feminism and perceived empowerment more closely associated with twenty-first-century understandings of the feminine than those directly connected to social, historical, or cultural sources. This backcasting and interpretation changes these characters into ones that would better suit a modern set of beliefs through syncretism and the creation not of folkloric or cultural beliefs but of a folkloresque sense of the subject.

The Katherine Mansfield Society is pleased to announce its annual essay prize competition for 2025, open to all, on the subject of Katherine Mansfield’s Men.

The winner will receive a cash prize of £200 and the winning essay will be considered for publication in Katherine Mansfield Studies, vol. 18 (2026), the peer-reviewed yearbook of the Katherine Mansfield Society, published by Edinburgh University Press.

The distinguished panel of judges will comprise:
D R A N D R E W H A R R I S O N
University of Nottingham, UK
Chair of the Judging Panel
K A T H L E E N J O N E S
Royal Literary Fund Fellow and Biographer
D R M A R T I N G R I F F I T H S
Author and Musician

Researchers at Northumbria University and the Open University invite contributions for a peer-reviewed edited collection of essays on Culture and Offence.

Our current ‘age of offence’ demands that we reflect critically on debates about trigger warnings, ‘cancel culture’, ‘anti-wokeness’, and free speech, to ask:

Poison(s) and Poisoning in Nineteenth-Century Popular Fiction

A special issue of Victorian Popular Fictions Journal

Guest-edited by Manon Burz-Labrande and Sarah Frühwirth

Students in Writing Studies 4200, “Writing and Cultures,” will edit a collection of creative writing (visual art, poems and nonfiction writing) entitled "Through my Eyes" -- How we perceive world issues, crises or maybe even beauty. As such, they solicit writings from everyone (students, alumni, and the broader community) on this topic for inclusion in the collection.
Submissions could address the ways that we use our own experience to think about local, global, international or interpersonal issues.  Or, they could address the ways that local, global, international or interpersonal issues change the ways that we understand our own experiences.  

CFP: MEDIA REVIEWERS and SCHOLARLY ARTICLES – MIDDLE WEST REVIEW

Middle West Review (MWR) is a peer-reviewed, interdisciplinary journal that examines the American Midwest. The journal is published biannually by the University of Nebraska Press.

MWR is seeking scholars to review media texts that engage with midwestern identity, history, and/or culture. From popular films and television series to online exhibitions and digital archives, MWR spotlights Midwest-oriented media texts in each issue.

Raymond Williams Society Postgrad Essay Prize 2025

We are delighted to announce the return of the Raymond Williams Society postgraduate essay competition for its 11th year. It’s open to anyone studying for a higher degree (master’s or doctoral) in the UK or elsewhere, or who graduated no earlier than 31st January 2024. The deadline for entries is Friday 28 February 2025.

The Center for Cold War Studies and International History (CCWS) of the University of California at Santa Barbara, the George Washington University Cold War Group (GWCW), and the LSE Cold War Studies Project (CWSP) of the London School of Economics and Political Science are pleased to announce their 2025 International Graduate Student Conference on the Cold War, to take place at the University of California, Santa Barbara, from May 8 to May 10, 2025. 

American Studies Association 2025

November 20-23, 2025 in San Juan, Puerto Rico

Session Proposal Call for Participants

Homonationalism, Imperial “Harm-Reduction,” and Pinkwashing Zionism

New Horizons in English Studies vol. 10/2025

LITERATURE, MEDIA AND CULTURE HERE AND NOW

New Horizons in English Studies (indexed in MLA International Bibliography and ERIH+) invites submissions to the 10/2025 issue, welcoming previously unpublished research papers and reviews in the broadly understood field of literary, media and cultural studies (L, M & C). The scope of subjects includes but is not limited to the following:

CFP: 

We are seeking participants for a roundtable for the American Literature Association’s 2025 Conference in Boston, Massachusetts, May 21-24, 2025. This roundtable aims to further our understanding of the Federal Writers’ Project’s (FWP) literary legacy. 

Hiding Behind Trees: Anthropomorphism in Children’s Literature and Culture

Guaranteed Session at MLA 2026 (Toronto, Jan. 8-11), sponsored by the Children's Literature Association

This panel seeks papers that consider the role of anthropomorphism in children’s literature and culture.

Humans have long believed we are distinct from other animals in our rationality, self-consciousness, and use of language. Why, then, do writers, artists, and even scientists so often use anthropomorphism to interpret the behaviors of animals, plants, and even nonliving things such as trains, teapots, and toys? What are the repercussions of this tendency to understand the world in terms of human social and cultural identities?

The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) is the most financially successful franchise in film history. Between 2008 and 2019 not only did it become a commercial behemoth, redefining the landscape of blockbuster cinema, but also a cultural phenomenon, delighting fans all around the globe. Yet post-Avengers: Endgame (2019) and the conclusion of “The Infinity Saga,” the MCU has struggled to maintain the same level of success and no longer resonates with audiences the way it once did. The MCU, and the wider superhero genre, has faced mounting criticism from fans, critics and even notable industry professionals on a wide range of issues.

This chapter will be part of an edited collection that aims at examining (the intersections between) the notions of monstrosity and evil in the literary and artistic depictions of non-human and hybrid (or post-human) intelligence in different cultural and historical contexts. It focuses on the representation of monsters and creatures that have cognitive abilities as well as on the demonizing and vilification of artificially or magically enhanced human intelligence. It also deals with the depiction of malignant non-human entities interfering with human thoughts and evil non-human cosmic intelligences interfering with human destinies.