The song lyric occupies little space in academia, where it is less studied, less appreciated, and perceived as less-than other kinds of writing. Despite music’s ubiquitous cultural presence, the song lyric—as creative work—suffers from what renown songwriter Jimmy Webb calls a “status problem”: songwriters do not enjoy the same standing as writers of other kinds of traditionally studied literature. The most common way that song lyrics have earned scholarly attention is by conflating the form with the poem. Goldstein’s (1969) The Poetry of Rock is one of the first books to attend to lyrics as poetry.

International Conference on Ecocriticism and Environmental Studies10-11 October 2026 – London/Onlineorganised byLondon Centre for Interdisciplinary Research 

International Conference on Poetry Studies:“Poetry Between Creation and Interpretation”19-20 September 2026 – London / Onlineorganised by London Centre for Interdisciplinary Research

Fifth Annual Beverly Lyon Clark Children’s Literature Symposium

Trees: In Relation

Saturday, 11 April 2026 at Wheaton College (Norton, MA)

Postcolonial Interventions invites scholarly articles for an OPEN ISSUE to be published in June 2026. As the journal enters its eleventh year, we are hoping to continue critical exploration of emerging voices and recent literary creations while remaining mindful of the various threats associated with older imperial aggressions, re-appearing across the globe, fissures within nation states, multiple forms of exclusionary violence and widening inequality and precarity. The next issue of Postcolonial Interventions seeks to explore such issues and more based on postcolonial experiences across the world.

Submission Guidelines:

Seeking 250-word proposals that engage with Filipino/a/x placemaking in literature, ecology, media, the arts, and the built environment. Particularly interested in proposals that bring together some combination of urban humanities, Global Asias, and archipelagic thinking.

The Journal of Global Postcolonial Studies publishes interdisciplinary and cross-cultural articles and interviews on literature, history, politics, and art whose focus, settings, or subjects involve colonialism and its aftermath, with an emphasis on the former British Empire.

James Baldwin ends his “Open Letter to My Sister, Angela Y. Davis” about her imprisonment, the health of the country, and the responsibility of intellectuals, with the assertion that: 

If we know, and do nothing, we are worse than the murderers hired in our name. If we know, then we must fight for your life as though it were our own—which it is—and render impassable with our bodies the corridor to the gas chamber. For, if they take you in the morning, they will be coming for us that night.

How might scholarship today render such corridors impassable? What is our responsibility, and what are we willing to risk? 

The Gaskell Journal invites applications for the position of co-Editor.

The Gaskell Journal is a peer-reviewed scholarly journal published annually, dedicated to disseminating the most authoritative, dynamic and agenda-setting research in Gaskell Studies. It is owned by the Gaskell Society and is distributed to its members, as well as being indexed in various academic databases (for more details, see The Gaskell Journal – The annual Journal of the Gaskell Society). In a typical issue, the journal publishes 3-4 original articles, 3-4 book reviews, and reports from the Society’s branches across the UK and the world.

Apologies for crossposting.

Call for Papers: Journal of Contemporary Painting Special Issue & Symposium

Special Issue: ‘Conversations between Painting, Fashion and Textiles’

One-day symposium: ‘Painted Garments’

Friday 22 May 2026

The Hub, Camberwell College of Arts, Bonar Road, London SE15 5FB

Keynote: Delaine Le Bas

View the full call here>>

https://www.intellectbooks.com/journal-of-contemporary-painting#call-for-papers

Deadlines

The Cambridge Handbook of Postcolonial Law and Literature is a collection of essays analyzing the relationship between English Common Law and Anglophone literature in the colonial and postcolonial world. The collection is largely complete, but can accommodate a few more essays.   The editors particularly welcome submissions on Disability Studies, Ecological Studies, and/or essays that focus on the Caribbean.  

This year’s ICSAH meeting approaches the Art of Mediation as a framework for understanding cross-cultural interaction in history. Throughout time, individuals, institutions, communities, and cultural forms—ranging from language and performance to visual and material culture—have acted as mediators between societies. In negotiating religious difference, political conflict, economic rivalry, and artistic exchange, they shaped the shared spaces where civilisations met, interacted, and coexisted.

CFP for Special Issue in IMAGO MUNDI: The International Journal for the History of Cartography

“Maps and the Imagination”

In light of the ongoing “cartographic turn” in literary studies and recent critical attempts to

“remap” the field of cartographic history, we are seeking contributions for a special issue that

examines the relationship between maps (from historical prints to digital creations) and the

imagination (from the impact of maps on literary and visual arts to earthworks and new media).

Following the growing interest in cartographic imaginaries, documented, for example, in studies

The Cultural Studies Cell

Department of English and Cultural Studies, Central Campus

In collaboration with

Department of Media Studies, Central Campus

CHRIST (Deemed to be University), Bangalore

Organizes

An International Conference (Hybrid)on

Urban/Media Infrastructures

March 5-7, 2026

Call for Expressions of Interest: Book Reviews Editor for The London Journal

The London Journal is seeking expressions of interest for the role of Joint Book Reviews Editor.

This role will cover the period from roughly 1800 to the present, joining Kirstin Barnard, who covers the medieval and early modern periods. The Book Reviews Editors are full members of the Editorial Board.

Call for Papers: SCMS Horror Studies SIG Graduate Student Essay Prize

The SCMS Horror Studies Scholarly Interest Group is delighted to announce that submissions are now open for our annual Graduate Student Essay Prize.

The winning essay will be published in an upcoming issue of the open-access journal Monstrum and the author will receive:

Papers, delivered in English, on adaptations of works by Joseph Conrad, in any form and language, including film, television, games, opera, theatre, musical compositions, and graphic novels. This is the planned guaranteed session for the Joseph Conrad Society of America Allied Organization at the Modern Language Association Convention in January 2027. Email 300 word proposals and a 100-word biography to Jana Giles, giles@ulm.edu. Deadline: March 15, 2026.

For further information and to see the call posted on the MLA website, see: https://mla.confex.com/mla/2027/webprogrampreliminary/index.html.

Concept Note

Narratives of Resistance and African Literature: Articulating Dissent, Disobedience and Pluriversal Futures

Special issue of English Academy Review (Taylor and Francis)

Link: https://think.taylorandfrancis.com/special_issues/narratives-of-resistan...

Special Issue Editor(s)

Goutam Karmakar, University of Hyderabad, India
goutamkarmakar@uohyd.ac.in

CFP: WHAT MIRACLE: NEW REVELATIONS ON THE PROSE POEM

October 15 and 16, 2026, in Rome, Italy

The Activist Author: Contemporary Forms and Historical Precedents of Activist Literature

Dates and Location:

November 9th & 10th, 2026.

UCLouvain (Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium).

Confirmed Keynote speakers:

Sara Dimick: Northwestern University; author of Unseasonable: Climate Change in Global Literatures.

Juan Meneses: UNC Charlotte; author of Resisting Dialogue: Modern Fiction and the Future of Dissent and editor of Postpolitics and the Aesthetic Imagination.

 In a Conference Far, Far Away…Traversing Forms of the Folkloric  (Graduate Student Conference)

 New York University, Department of Comparative Literature: Friday, May 1, 2026

“American Shorts 2026” will take place on October 29-31, 2026, at the School of Arts & Humanities of the University of Lisbon, Portugal.

American Shorts 2026 webpage: https://sites.google.com/view/americanshorts2026

Submission deadline: 10 June, 2026

Conference: 29-31 October, 2026

Location: Lisbon, Portugal

Updated CFP: We invite three additional contributors to join the volume, replacing previously shortlisted chapter authors who were unfortunately unable to continue with the project. This presents an excellent opportunity to participate in a substantial scholarly publication that already includes confirmed contributions from researchers based in India, Palestine, Indonesia, the Netherlands, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States.