The origin myths of nations, regions, and cities provided an obvious appeal in the Middle Ages and Renaissance to those interested in the deep histories of the places where they lived and were born. While such stories were used to bolster local or national prestige, many origin myths also stretch across borders, inscribing deep connections between places: Britain claimed Trojan origins through Brutus’ foundation, but so too did the French, the Norse, and even the Dutch; and Noah’s offspring were believed to have been the originators of different peoples across Europe.

                        Call for Papers: "Womanism, Afrofuturism in the Paradigm Era"

Hosted by the Department of English, Howard University

The Department of English at Howard University invites scholars, researchers, and educators to submit abstracts for our forthcoming virtual conference on "Womanism, Afrofuturism in the Paradigm Shift Era." This second annual conference will explore contemporary approaches to the study of Womanism and Afrofuturism during this transformative period in American history.

Conference Themes:

We encourage submissions on a wide range of topics, including but not limited to:

1. Literary Works and Authors:

Resurgens Theatre Company, along with the Georgia State University Department of English, is pleased to announce our third biennial conference on early modern verse drama by Shakespeare’s contemporaries, “A Marlowe for All Seasons.” We’re calling for papers that examine some aspect of Christopher Marlowe’s plays in performance, from the Elizabethan era through the current day, but also welcome topics involving Marlovian influence on the development of Renaissance drama and/or early modern print culture. The conference will be held on its NEW DATE, September 13 and 14, 2024, at the historic Pythagoras Masonic Temple (108 E.

The intersection of literature and heritage provides a rich tapestry for a nuanced interdisciplinary exploration  of cultural narratives, historical contexts, and societal evolution. This symbiotic bond intertwines the text with the material and immaterial facets of the cultural identity. Literature engages in re/negotiating identity and re/imagining heritage in complying with the transformations of community over the ages owing to various factors. These narratives, having fictional or realistic bases, are the spaces that mirror the intricate collective memory of a community, regulating a dynamic reciprocity with the past and the present.

Abstract: 

What role do the genres autoethnography and/or memoir play in the revolution and evolution of Black women in the academy? How can they help instigate radical change and encourage sustainable practices for Black women who seek to thrive in higher education?

In a roundtable format, "Write Smack In the Middle: Black Women, Autoethnography, Memoir, and the Academy" will shift the conversation from studying others to reflecting on oneself. This interactive session aims to create an intentional space for Black women who serve in academia to reflect and center on their daily experiences in their own words. 

From the Indian boarding schools of North America to the English curriculum mandate of the British empire, formal education, and the various guises it assumed, was an important instrument for colonial powers to exert dominance over its colonized subjects. The afterlives of such an education continue today through dominant knowledge systems that benefit the few at the expense of the many. This panel seeks papers that aim to disentangle and liberate education from colonial control, so that education can be a vehicle for vital knowledge production and empowerment.

Please note that all papers are accepted on a first come/first served basis so to guarantee the slot you want (subject to the paper being accepted), we recommend applying as early as possible.

I’m opening up the call for the 2025 Romancing the Gothic talk series! Each month has a theme but please interpret it liberally. We want a range of papers from different countries and traditions.

We welcome people from all stages of their academic career and from outside academia.

You can find a list of topics by month. If you don’t know where you’d fit, reach out anyway!

SPECULATIVE DETECTIVES

The biannual journal Studies in the Fantastic invites proposals for an upcoming special issue investigating the popular yet puzzling pairing of detective and speculative genres, guest edited by Christiana Salah and Steven Mollmann.

The Southern Humanities Conference, 2025

Call for Papers

Conference Theme: Real, Artificial, and Superficial

Greenville, SC, January 30- February 2, 2025

The Southern Humanities Conference offers an opportunity for scholars, artists, writers, musicians, performers, and humanists of all kinds to share their knowledge, research, work, and experiences in an interdisciplinary, welcoming, and engaging intellectual space.

The explosion of revolutionary literature in South Asia is traced back to the formation of the All India Writers’ Association in 1936. Within a few years, the Indian People’s Theatre Association was formed in 1943. Operating with a distinct socialist fervor partly inspired by the Bolshevik revolution, these umbrella organizations brought together hundreds of poets, writers, thespians, and musicians working in various languages across the length and breadth of undivided India to consolidate a consensus against colonialism and fascism. Although the 1947 partition soon separated them into India or East/West Pakistan, the polemics of their art could not be stopped from reverberating across borders.

L’Afrique est un continent aux expériences historiques et culturelles diversifiées, aux contextes politiques, économiques et sociaux variés. Ce continent incarne également des disparités culturelles, politiques et économiques, notamment en matière de développement humain et d’égalités de genre. Dans la majorité des pays africains, il est possible de tracer les grandes lignes d’un état des lieux du genre dans sa complexité et ses contradictions.

This panel seeks to explore and shed light to the multiplicity of voices and accounts that surround issues of memory and exile in Spain in relationship to the Spanish Civil War and its impacts as a reflection of unresolved issues that are portrayed in recent contemporary fiction. The goal is to foster an interdisciplinary discussion about how memory, and exile, that in many cases are intertwined in these narratives, deepen our understanding of how the female experience is portrayed. The intention of giving agency to the unheard women voices and those marginalized by normative discourses is prevalent in these counter discourses that, frequently, have an autobiographical component. 

In Plant-Thinking: A Philosophy of Vegetal Life (2013), Michael Marder posits that plants “are agents in the production of meaning” (35), echoing Jane Bennett’s claim that “the concept of agency [is enlarged] once nonhuman things are figured . . . as actors . . . [and] affective bodies forming assemblages” (Vibrant Matters 21-24).

We invite proposals for 20-minute papers on any aspect of affective expression in medieval mystical and devotional texts. These papers will compose a series of panels to run at the International Medieval Congress, University of Leeds, July 7-10, 2025.

Potential themes could include – but are not limited to – the following:

• Experiencing divine grace/consolation

• Longing for God

• Compassionating Christ’s Passion

• Mystical ecstasies and affective transports

• External perceptions of mystics’ emotionality