Critics frequently frame American literary regionalism in geographical terms, whether by emphasizing a region’s spatial boundedness or emphasizing components of regionalist writing that stretch across space and scale. A similar negotiation of spatial scales from the proximate to the planetary has come to characterize recent conversations about climate change in the environmental humanities—for example in the work of Timothy Clark, Benjamin Morgan, and Elizabeth DeLoughrey. Regionalism’s engagements with place, scale, ecology, and everyday atmospheres make it a potentially generative form for representing climate, and yet few scholarly treatments have investigated the interconnections between American literary regionalism and climatic thought.

Literature and Life Writing
Midwest Regional Meeting of the Conference on Christianity and Literature
October 23-24, 2023
Wheaton College 

This conference brings together scholars of Christianity and literature with contemporary writers of spiritual memoir to celebrate religious life writing and consider the forms, features, and thematic possibilities within the range of associated genres. How do literary works and forms shape portrayals of spiritual life? What might literature accomplish in the spiritual life within writer and reader? How might the literary space of religiously inflected life writing offer particular theological content? 

South Atlantic Modern Language Association’s 95th Conference:

Pre-1900 American Literature Panel: “Writing with Security and Insecurity in Early America.” 

One interpretation of the NeMLA 2024 theme of Surplus centers on embodiment, and the transatlantic long nineteenth century was arguably a key historical moment for envisioning material embodiment in terms of surplus, or lack thereof. Representation of both individual and corporate embodiment often turned to material resources like food to express approval or disapproval for various bodies’ relationships to each other. As David J. Hutson argues, during the nineteenth century “body weight was allowed to hold multiple symbolic positions, with thinness and fatness understood as both positive and negative” (2017).

Conference online (via Zoom)

27-28 July 2023

CFP:

​In our postmodern world there are a lot of questions that should be re-considered and re-defined. What does it mean to fight against colonialism and racism in the world of migration crisis and xenophobic attitudes towards minorities? What does it mean to be a postcommunist country in the face of the common nostalgia for order and rules? How is it possible to have a national identity being aware of the relative character of every national feature?

Horror has been analyzed in literature and film endlessly. But in this modern age of surplus, more niche and obscure mediums for horror have been taking the reigns. With so much media at our fingertips and so readily accessible, film and literature are influenced by independent creations. Video games, web Alternate Reality Games (ARGs), music, Internet culture, and international media have led to the development and evolution of American mainstream horror in the past couple of years. More traditional outlets for terror like books and movies have become stale and formulaic due to Capitalism, restricted to producing what is only guaranteed to be profitable, causing the traditional mediums to take note of these newer forms of scary storytelling.

Is there such thing as too much memory? According to nineteenth-century French psychologists, there is, which is how they coined the term “hypermnesia,” or “the disease of too much memory” (Michael Roth). As Michael Roth has usefully charted, a “typical” or normal” memory, then, would be one that brings order, allowing for a clear link between the past and present that consequently allows for “possible futures.” In contrast, surplus memory becomes an “agent of disorder” that overwhelms the present.

Invite to submit to an upcoming in-person conference session, "Rethinking Critical Thinking and the Humanities."  (October 2023, Portland OR; PAMLA)

Dear colleague,

I have organized a round-table session to be held at the PAMLA 120th Annual Conference (Portland, OR) – October 26-29, 2023.

Consider submitting paper extracts for Surplus and the Melodramaric Excess at the upcoming Nemla Conference, March 7-10 2024 in Boston! 

This session investigates the surplus of melodrama through an examination of its excess. What can an overabundance of tears, laughter, and music tell us about the cultures they grew out of or ourselves? In what ways can we re-engage with and rethink the legacy and influence of the melodrama during its time and today?

Elodie Rousselot defines “neo-historical fiction” as a subgenre of historical fiction that reimagines history by offering an “active interrogation of the past.”[i] Historical fiction, broadly speaking, allows readers to witness perspectives of the recognizable past while audiences interrogate the future. Most importantly, imagining the livelihood or end of various societal institutions has different stakes for different groups. Perspective is critical in historical fiction as exploring significant historical events also offers the opportunity to actively interrogate the future.

NeMLA 2024: Boston, March 7-10, Sheraton Back Bay

This session is a panel (3-4 participants, each presenting a formal paper of 15-20 minutes, plus Q&A).
Read more about this session: https://cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/20317

 Call for Special-Issue ProposalsAngelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities Angelaki seeks proposals of 5--700 words for special issues. The journal publishes four special issues (and two nontheme ‘general’ issues) per volume/annum. Angelaki special issues are generous: 80--90,000 words. Special issues are republished, 9--12 months after the issue, as hardback books in the Angelaki: New Work in the Theoretical Humanities series. We seek proposals for special issues for publication in the second half of 2025 and for 2026.

L'oeuvre de Julien Gracq et le cinéma : quelques possibilités de partenariat.

* Please note: This Creative Writing panel will be part of the SAMLA (South Atlantic Modern Language Association) Conference in Atlanta, Georgia Nov. 9-11, 2023.