CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS  THE DOOR OPENS AT MIDNIGHT  An International Anthology of Three-Page Plays

Email all submission to:dramaanthologyfreshwords@gmail.com 

Website:https://sites.google.com/view/freshwordsmagazine/announcements

At 11:59, it is an ordinary night.

At midnight, the door opens.

Who is standing outside?

Every year, the Association holds it annual conference, usually a two-day affair, as well as a graduate student workshop, usually held the day before the annual conference. The 2027 annual meeting will be held at the University of California, Berkeley from May 27-28.

Discipline

Overview

GAMES AND COMMUNITIES – PLAYERS, FANS, GAMERS
Sixth International Video Games Studies Conference (SVI 2027)

8-9 April 2027, University of Zadar, Croatia

Keynote Speaker: Tom Apperley

In January 2026, murals of faceless female silhouettes in yoga poses were scratched around the genital area in the Indian city of Gwalior. The figures depicted no identifiable women; they were attacked anyway. In 2024, sexually explicit AI-generated deepfakes of Taylor Swift circulated widely online, demonstrating a very different but related form of image violation. Across a scratched public wall and a fabricated digital image, the same question emerges: what happens when an image of a woman becomes the surface upon which sexualisation, humiliation or punishment is performed? This special issue asks where, if anywhere, a woman’s image can be assumed to be safe.

We are inviting contributors to our project on World Philosophy and Humor. This work aims to explore the philosophical dimensions of humor, examining its nature, function, ethical implications, and cultural significance. We are now especially interested in adding contributors for book chapters on Islamic and ancient philsoophies.

Contributions could engage with any of the following themes:

1. The Nature of Humor: What is humor, and how can it be defined? Philosophical inquiries into the essence of humor, including its relationship to comedy, wit, irony, and satire.

CFP: Red Reading the Modern Novel

Society for Novel Studies (Vancouver, BC; 13-16 May 2027)

The organizer seeks papers that apply Red Reading to twentieth- and twenty-first century novels. The literary canon has been expanded brilliantly in the last few decades, and literary critical approaches have shifted away from modes of corrosive critique. There remains however, a dearth of work grounded in Indigenous epistemologies and critical approaches. As an initial response to this gap, this panel seeks to test Red Reading’s utility for studies of the novel.

This seminar invites papers that explore the concepts of ekphrasis, the mise en abyme, and metaphorical mirrors in literature, music, and the visual arts. How are mirrors used by artists as deliberate tools to represent something else? How are metaphorical mirrors used to compare different types of reflections across mediums? How are mirrors used to suggest that the aesthetic “surface” is a distraction, and true clarity lies in understanding what the observer or listener wants to see or hear? Papers focused on one medium or interdisciplinaryapproaches from the Ancient, Medieval, Modern, and Postmodern periods are welcome.

The Claude McKay Society (CMKS) plans to convene one or two panels at the American Literature Association 38th Annual Conference at the Westin Copley Place, Boston, May 26-29, 2027. CMKS seeks proposals on any aspect of McKay’s writing. The conference registration is $200, $125 for graduate students, independent scholars, and retired faculty (the ALA requires no membership fee). Contact Gary Holcomb, holcomb@ohio.edu by January 1st, 2027. Send a title, abstract, and brief biographical information.

Dislocated Bodies: Noises, Opacities, and Irreverences

Guest editors:  Alicia Fernández Gallego-Casilda, Julio Ferrandis Buzón and Constanza Ternicier Espinosa (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona)

Call for Book Chapters: The Handbook of Witchcraft and Sorcery

Volume Editors:

Assoc. Prof. Cenk Tan (Pamukkale University, Türkiye)

Assoc. Prof. Milena Škobo (Sinergija University, Serbia)

Assoc. Prof. Nazan Yıldız Çiçekçi (Karadeniz Technical University, Türkiye)

Assoc. Prof. Oya Bayıltmış Öğütcü (Adıyaman University, Türkiye)

Submission Deadline for Abstracts:  February 1, 2027

International Conference, 16-18 August, 2027, Vaxjö, Sweden

Nostalgia has become one of the defining cultural affects of the twenty-first century. It permeates politics, popular culture, social media, environmental discourse, memory practices, heritage industries, and everyday life. While nostalgia is often discussed as a feeling directed towards a lost past, it is always encountered through acts of mediation. Memories, desires, identities, and imagined pasts are shaped, transformed, communicated, circulated, and shared through media technologies, aesthetic forms, communicative practices, and intermedial relations.

April 1-3, 2027 | St. Louis, Missouri

The Westin St. Louis Hotel

https://cea-web.org/the-conference-hotel

The College English Association, a gathering of scholar-teachers in English studies, welcomes proposals for presentations on Latinx Literature for our 57th annual conference. Submit your proposal at www.cea-web.org

Call for Seminar Participants

Performance Forms in Shakespeare and his Contemporaries: Commercial Drama, Performance Practices and Theatrical Spaces in Early Modern England

(ESRA 2027, Bangor University, 27-30 July 2027)

Convenors: 

Aurélie Griffin, Université Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris, France 

Simon Smith, Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham, UK 

Deadline: October 31, 2026

At this stage, while proposals across all areas remain welcome, we are particularly interested in submissions that broaden the range of topics covered so far. Especially encouraged are proposals focusing on religious pluralism and faith traditions beyond Catholicism; Islam and the post-9/11 context; religion and the culture wars; members of the White House staff and other political actors; the later seasons; and the cultural legacy of The West Wing and its place in changing representations of American political leadership.

The original call for papers appears below.

In 1892, when authorities arrested Lizzie Borden for the brutal axe-murders of her father and stepmother, America, and specifically Massachusetts, stood at the forefront of the Women's Suffrage Movement. Several of the first conventions, halls, and clubs in support of the movement took place in Lizzie’s home state of Massachusetts. In this paper I will examine how the gender roles and socioeconomic factors of Victorian Massachusetts contributed to Lizzie Borden’s acquittal despite the abundance of circumstantial evidence. I will not argue for Lizzie’s innocence, as I believe she committed the crime, but instead I will present how the gender norms and socioeconomic factors of this era shaped perceptions of criminality and public opinion.

CALL FOR CHAPTER PROPOSAL

The Ghost in the Machine Learns to Speak for the Dead:

AI, Rhetorical Resurrection, the Injustice of Synthetic Voice

An edited Collection, edited by Shiva Hari Mainaly, PhD, University of Memphis

Abstracts due December 15, 2026

The Dead are Speaking. Who Gave Them Their Words?

The Department of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University is thrilled to host the 12th annual Post45 Graduate Symposium on March 4-6, 2027.

The Post45 Graduate Symposium seeks graduate-level works-in-progress related to post-1945 media, arts, literature, textual or visual objects, digital platforms, politics, and culture. We welcome submissions that expand our conception of objects and meaning-making post-1945 or place them in comparative, transnational, or hemispheric frames. We especially welcome contributions that foreground the importance of race, gender, class, and sexuality to post-45 studies. 

 Call for Proposals - Acting Out: Theatre Training Outside the Theatre Classroom 

Learning Stages is seeking contributions to a new anthology promoting the use of theatre training and educational strategies for application across post-secondary disciplines outside of the theatre classroom. 

Staging Myth: Performance, Adaptation, and Cultural Memory

Deadline for Abstract Submissions: 30th October 2026

“The true purpose of the theater is to create Myths, to express life in its immense, universal aspect.” (Artaud, 1958, p. 116)

The Center for Refugee, Migrant, and Displacement Studies is excited to share a call for submissions for the 6th volume of Roots & Resettlement, a mixed-media digital collection. For this volume, we invite creative submissions by Latine voices from across the world for a collection exploring migration, place, and belonging.

The Centre in English-Language Travel Literature – 20, 21 and 22 May 2027

MSH Clermont-Ferrand

The Department of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University is thrilled to host the 12th annual Post45 Graduate Symposium on March 4-6, 2027.

The Post45 Graduate Symposium seeks graduate-level works-in-progress related to post-1945 media, arts, literature, textual or visual objects, digital platforms, politics, and culture. We welcome submissions that expand our conception of objects and meaning-making post-1945 or place them in comparative, transnational, or hemispheric frames. We especially welcome contributions that foreground the importance of race, gender, class, and sexuality to post-45 studies.

Reminder: Teaching the Nineteenth Century in Today's University

NeMLA 2027 Annual Convention in Newport, RI, March 6-9, 2027

Abstracts due 9/30

In an environment of increasing digital distraction, courses exploring nineteenth-century literature and culture ask students to engage with some of literature’s lengthiest texts. How can we encourage meaningful engagement with nineteenth century “loose, baggy monsters” in today’s university? What resources can we call upon to better engage our students and support their learning in light of the rise of AI and the challenges of online distraction?