A small forest area that holds ecological, historical, cultural, religious and spiritual value, and is protected by the local community, can be understood as a ‘Sacred Grove’. The term ‘sacred’ signifies the importance of these groves as they protect different species despite depletion of forest areas around them. The prohibition to collect or remove any resources from these sacred groves conserve plants, parasites, animals, herbs, and even maintain the water and soil compositions (Khan et al, 2008). As a result, these sites serve as living records of geographical and ecological past, making them invaluable spaces for scientific research.

Updated: In the mid-nineteenth century, the literacy rates among women and girls were on the rise. This was due to changing attitudes toward educating girls and women and the increasing popularity and availability of reading materials aimed at girls and women. Authors such as Lydia Maria Child, Louisa May Alcott, Juliana Horatia Ewing, E.D.E.N. Southworth, L.T. Meade, and Sarah Tytler wrote works specifically for girls, from novels and short stories to periodicals and conduct manuals.

THE DEPARTMENTS OF 

COMMUNICATION STUDIES AND HISTORY

Mount Carmel College, Autonomous present 

DISCOURSES '26

on FOOD, HISTORY AND MIGRATION 

Date: 21st and 22nd of January, 2026

Venue: PJEC 1, Mount Carmel College, Autonomous, Bangalore, Karnataka, India 

Please note: Discourses '26 will be taking place at Mount Carmel College Autonomous, Bangalore, Karnataka, India. It is mandatory for all participants to conduct their presentations, offline, at the venue itself. Kindly ensure the same.

CONCEPT NOTE  

Mysteries and Mayhem is our fourth conference theme. Why do we continue to crave mystery stories?  What do they tell us about our need for suspense and our desire to solve riddles,  including the most famous of all:Whodunnit?  What do these stories of murder and mayhem teach us about the nature of evil, ideas of sin, and the essence of a villain? What do we hope to see in the survivors of these threats?  –And what do we expect from the detectives and heroes who reveal the truth in these stories? We seek papers and creative projects that explore these and related questions. 

YSLS (Young Scholars Literary Sympsium) welcomes your undergraduate,  graduate,  educator,  and independent scholar proposals! 

“Neurodivergent just means a brain that diverges.” – Kassiane Asasumasu, Radical Neurodivergence Speaking

The first year of Neurodivergent Studies at the PCA, in New Orleans in 2025, showed that there was marked interest in developing this field and expanding conversations. Neurodivergent Studies, a field that has long been relegated to more scientific study, is ready to move into different spaces as we start conversations about how neurodivergent approaches to popular culture, fandom, academia, and our own experiences can shape the way we approach the world.

CALL FOR BOOK CHAPTERS

 The Final Frontier: Race, Ecology & Colonialism in Space Opera

Edited by Mikail Boz & Cenk Tan

Editors’ Introduction

Workshop: “From Alienation to Affinities”

Organizers: Isabel Osuna Montilla and Klara Tolic, University of Tübingen, Germany

Call for Papers

United Lutheran Seminary to Host “A Vision for Liberating Our Democracy” Conference, February 27–28, 2026

 Two-day gathering will explore the religious and racialized roots of American democracy and paths toward a more just future.

United Lutheran Seminary (ULS) will host A Vision for Liberating Our Democracy: Examining the Religious and Racialized Roots of American Democracy on February 27–28, 2026, at its Philadelphia campus. The interdisciplinary conference will bring together scholars, activists, educators, and faith leaders to examine how religion and race have shaped democratic life in the United States and to explore liberative visions for the future.

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.

EGSA ANNUAL CONFERENCE (2026): GRIEF IN CONVERSATION

Invisible Wounds: Reframing Adoption Narratives in Children's Literature

MLA 2027 Convention: January 7-10, 2027, in Los Angeles, California 

Deadline extended to December 15!

University of Arizona Graduate Literature Conference: Imagining the End(s)

Conference Dates: March 6-8, 2026, Tucson, AZ, USA

“It is easier to imagine the end of the world than it is to imagine the end of capitalism” (Mark Fisher)

“But the plot too has its own history” (Wynter 101)

What is it we have in mind when we imagine the end of the world or the end of capitalism? 

Is it the temporal–the closing, conclusion, finale, the end of capitalism’s historical epoch?

Global Indigeneities and Life Narratives: Special Issue of Biography: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly—Deadline Extension

A Special Issue of Biography: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly
 
Guest Editor: J. Kēhaulani Kauanui, 
Eric and Wendy Schmidt Professor of Indigenous Studies and Anthropology, Princeton University
 
Submit: 400-word abstracts to kauanui@princeton.edu by December 12, 2025

Crossings: A Journal of English Studies is an annual double-blind peer-reviewed journal of scholarly articles and book reviews. The articles involve, but are not limited to, issues related to language, literature, culture, and pedagogy. It is a discursive platform to critically examine human behavior and communication, and their larger role in society as well as in knowledge production.

CROSSINGS: A JOURNAL OF ENGLISH STUDIES (ISSN 2071-1107; E-ISSN 2958-3179) is inviting scholarly articles for its Volume 17 to be published in 2026. 

Submission Deadline: March 31, 2026

Proverbs and Popular Wisdom in Early Modern Literature and Culture

An International and Interdisciplinary Conference

1-3 July 2026

School of Arts and Humanities, University of Hull

Deadline 1/1/26 

Studies in American Humor, the journal of the American Humor Studies Association, invites submissions of scholarly papers for a special issue of the journal to appear in fall 2027, edited by Wesley Scott McMasters and Todd Nathan Thompson. The topic of this special issue is “Periodicals, Period: Humor and Nineteenth-Century American Newspapers and Magazines.” This special issue will be an extension of a well-received panel on this topic (co-sponsored by the American Humor Studies Association and the Research Society for American Periodicals) at the 2025 American Literature Association conference.

Call for Submissions!The Janovics Center Award for Outstanding Humanities Research in Transnational Film and Theatre Studies The Janovics Center for Screen and Performing Arts Studies and the Faculty of Theatre and Film at Babes-Bolyai University invite submissions for their annual award for outstanding humanities research in transnational film and theatre studies.The award will be offered to contributions in the fields of film or theatre studies. The award consists of an invitation to give a talk at the Center and an honorarium. What is awarded?The Janovics Center is committed to supporting highly original research in screen and performing arts studies.

The 2026 NEXUS Interdisciplinary Conference invites current graduate students to submit abstracts for this year's conference at The University of Tennessee - Knoxville on April 17-18, 2026.

We are inviting chapter abstracts for an edited volume (potentially with Routledge) on Coffee Cultures in South Asia. The proposed volume aims to understand the evolving and emerging coffee cultures from an interdisciplinary perspective. In the process, attempting to curate a scholarship that explores the historical, collective, spatial, cultural, temporal, and transnational aspects of coffee consumption and cultures in the region --- cultures that are being shaped and reshaped by discourses on and practices of new, emerging, and specialty coffee, artisanal brewing, ecological discontents, and digital practices and trends. Submission is through Google Form only

Jadavpur University

Department of English

Presents

QUEER

POLITICAL

ASSEMBLAGES 5.0

Theme:

Queer and the Cyborg in the Contemporary Understanding of Gender

Important dates:

Last Date of Abstract Submission: 1 February 2026

Confirmation of Selection: 15 February 2026

The Literary Encylopedia is lacking an entry on the life and literary career of Leonard Cohen of ca. 2500 words covering biography and historical context and giving a brief overview of relevant works.

More detailed information on the Encyclopedia – including its publishing model, editorial policies, specific information for authors, etc. – can be found on its homepage at www.litencyc.com, under the ABOUT tab. If you wish to contribute, please contact volume editor Justin Parks (justin.parks@uit.no).

Greetings, fellow scholars of Middle-earth!

Gentle reminder to all that we are still taking abstracts for our Call for Papers for the 2026 Popular Culture Association National Conference in Atlanta! Let's make this the best year ever for exploring the works of J.R.R. Tolkien and his ongoing legacy.

We recognize growing concerns surrounding travel and the challenges it presents. To ensure everyone can participate, we will happily accept remote papers! These can be submitted as either pre-recorded video presentations or delivered live via Zoom. 

Call for Submissions to Conversations:

Margaret Fuller Society’s Special Issue on “Protest” 

Speculative Futures in CanLit

Call for Papers

Article submissions in English or French are invited for a special 50th-anniversary issue of Studies in Canadian Literature / Études en littérature canadienne on the theme of Speculative Futures in CanLit. The issue will be co-edited by John Clement Ball, Laura Moss, and Cynthia Sugars, and with a submission deadline of 15 May 2026.

This issue invites submissions on the myriad manifestations of the “speculative” and “future” in the field of Canadian literature, from submissions about speculative fiction and cultural texts, to environmental and/or political futures, to speculations about the future of Canadian literature itself.