This global collection of essays – emerging from a session presented at the Modern Language Association (MLA) Conference 2021 – raises important ethical and aesthetic questions regarding narratives of serial murder. How is the serial killer constructed in World Literature and Culture by invoking or debunking Western criminological theories and detective genres? Why does a ‘murderous sublime’ dominate mainstream cinema, Netflix shows, graphic novels, and podcasts? On what historical and cultural terms, do these graphic representations of violence vacillate between notions of ‘normality’ and ‘abnormality’ or ‘banality’ and ‘exceptionalism’?

During the pandemic, we’ve heard that a lot of people went back to read their favorite novels as comfort and sustenance through the hard times. We at South Central Review have therefore decided to do a special double issue on this topic, scheduled to appear in Fall 2021. We hope to run approximately thirty brief essays (5-8 pages in manuscript form) in which the authors reflect on the literary, artistic, or other merits of the novel in question, why it resonates as it does, and perhaps why it was important at a particular moment in history, or why it remains influential today. We also hope to interview several contemporary novelists and writers about their favorite novels as sources of or inspiration for their own work.

We hereby invite proposals of original articles related to the general theme of Cultural Intertexts, an academic journal of Literature and Cultural Studies, ISSN 2393-0624, E-ISSN 2393-1078.

The editors will consider for publication papers which tackle strategies of representation and of (inter)textual construction emerging from the dialogic relation between:

-       literature and the historical and cultural context of text production;

-       distribution and consumption;

-       literature and other arts (music, film, visual arts, etc.) or sciences (linguistics, psycholinguistics, psychology, history, sociology and political sciences, internet and new technologies, etc.);

Education, Technology & Culture in Crisis: Secondary & Higher Education in a Time of Virtual Instruction

International Conference
(Zoom sessions:2 days/Virtual platform:5 days)

15 & 16 MAY, 2021

Organizing Committee
John Dean  –  Gerhard Finster  –  Konstantinos D. Karatzas

Thematic Approach

Online conference:
6, 13, 20 August 2021

Confirmed Keynotes:
Dr Georgia Ennis
Penn State, US

More keynotes be be announced shortly

https://shuprssconference.wordpress.com/call-for-papers-2021/

Emerging from oral literature, folk and fairy tales are embedded and entangled within the very confines of human consciousness and are continuously rewoven into the fabric of cultural memory. Often categorised as stories for children, these tales not only provide vital information into the psyche and disposition of the human mind, but also enable us to understand social and cultural interactions. The vast imagery, motifs, and archetypes these tales produce enable them to be constantly re-conceived, reinterpreted, and disseminated. Even though folk and fairy tales emerge from differing cultures with diverse traditions and customs, they seem to share similar formation mechanisms.

Important Dates
- Paper submission (abstract and full paper): April 30, 2021
- Notification of acceptance/rejection: May 31, 2021
- Camera-ready deadline and copyright forms: June 18, 2021
- Early Registration Deadline: June 30, 2021
- Conference: August 9-11, 2021

Aims and Scope

Critical Insights: Amy Tan

 “Writing is an extreme privilege but it’s also a gift.  It’s a gift to yourself and it’s a gift of giving a story to someone.”

 Invitation to submit to the International Journal of Critical Media Literacy Special Issue: 

Inside the Anthropocene: Critical Media Literacy & the SARS-CoV2 Pandemic 

SARS-CoV2 has created a global health emergency with real human cost that has also manifested as a media spectacle. This special issue will focus on the ways many different media platforms work as a kind of cultural pedagogy, a pedagogy that depends on the replication and distribution of certain forms of biopolitical power. 

Call for Papers: Faulkner Journal special issue, “William Faulkner, Race, and the Work of Antiracism”

“Open Borders: Translation and its Perils”

Conference Organizers: Professors Alexandra Coller and Amin Erfani 

(Languages and Literatures, Lehman College, CUNY)

Location: Virtual via Zoom 

Date: October 15-16, 2021

CFP for the 2022 MLA Annual Convention--“Art Becomes Life and Life Is Art”: Langston Hughes and the Art of Interconnection
January 6-9, 2021 | Washington, DC

MLA 2022 will be held 6–9 January, 2022 in Washington, DC. We invite abstracts for an Transdisciplinary Connections [TC] Race and Ethnicity Studies-sponsored panel, "Transnational Migration and Empire." 300-word abstracts that examine how texts that center on transnational migrations, forced or otherwise, produce anti-imperialist modes of thought and practice. Any geographical location and time period. Send submissions to trans.migration.empire@gmail.com by Monday, 15 March 2021.

From Alice Walker’s womanism to bell hooks’ oppositional gaze, Black girls’ rebellion inspires concepts and theoretical approaches that aid in understanding the lives of girls and women.  These theorizations—and Black girls’ actions—counter dominant narratives and distortions of Black girlhood. Despite censoring, surveilling, and policing, Black girls find creative ways to assert and insert  themselves in spaces where their behavior may be considered “deviant,” “rebellious,” or “womanish. ”They often engage in what Aimee Meredith Cox calls shapeshifting to “ confront, challenge, invert, unsettle, and expose the material impact of systemic oppression”(7).