Call for Papers

Cultural Studies and the Nonhuman Turn

Workshop, TU Dresden, 01-02 July 2022

In addressing the MMLA conference theme, “Post-Now,” the permanent section on “English Literature Before 1800” welcomes papers exploring any moments in pre-1800 literary scenes and contexts that relates our cultural moment.  Topics may include, but are by no means limited to, representation, identity categories (race, class, gender, age, sexuality, disability, etc.), technologies, political movements, audience responses, and any other critical issues from any period and genre. Reflections on pedagogy and classroom practices that address the “Post-Now” theme are welcome.  

Writing as Resistance and Transgression: Gender, Poetics and Activism in
Post-World-War-Two Literature in English

Date: May 26-27, 2022

Keynote Speakers: Professor Dominika Ferens (University of Wrocław, Poland) and Professor Evie Shockley (Rutgers University, USA)

We can build for the United Kingdom and for the European Union
a mountain of debris for us nimble-hoof goats to climb, and gloat.
But we need to move on to talk about our future relationship
with razor lips like bad ram john
Of course we recognize that we can’t leave the EU and have everything stay the
same
So we regurgitate ole talk, chew and re-chew, fling blame and cus you.

Seeking abstract proposals for new chapters

Asexualities: Feminist and Queer Perspectives

Revised and Expanded 10-Year Anniversary Edition (2024 Publication with Routledge)

Since Asexualities: Feminist and Queer Perspectives was published in 2014, we have seen exponential growth in scholarship on asexuality as well as more widespread recognition of asexuality in socio-political life, including increased asexual representation in art and media, a surge in people identifying as asexual and aromantic, and a greater presence of asexuality in the public lexicon. 

We seek paper abstracts for a panel on the short story (and other forms of short narrative broadly conceived). This panel will be conducted at SCMLA’s 79th Annual Hybrid Conference, to be held in Memphis, Tennessee from October 13-15, 2022. The conference offers options for both In Person and Virtual attendance to suit presenters’ needs.

Papers might cover any variety of topics, including studies of the traditional 'short story' literary genre as well as other types of short narrative — like short-program multimedia, short films, music videos, short-episode video games, social media micro-literature, and anything else that pushes at the boundaries of literature studies.

This special session of the 94th South Atlantic MLA conference welcomes submissions on any aspect of Power, Society, and Adaptation in and of Charles Dickens. Abstracts addressing the conference theme, Change, are especially welcome. By May 7th, 2022, please submit an abstract of no more than 300 words, a brief bio, and any A/V or scheduling requests to Meghan Hodges at mberg35@lsu.edu. 

Dissident Feminisms: 

Inaugural bell hooks center Symposium

Sponsored by the bell hooks center and the Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Berea College

June 16th-18th, 2023

Berea College

Berea, KY

Conference: 2-3 June 2022, online (via Zoom)

Scientific Committee:

Professor Wojciech Owczarski – University of Gdańsk, Poland

Professor Polina Golovátina-Mora -  NTNU, Norwegian University of Science and Technology

​

CFP:     

This special issue of Administory focuses on the relationship between different traditions of literature or art, on the one hand, and of state administration, on the other. By highlighting the "story" in Administory, it seeks to unpack aesthetic configurations manifest in literary and artistic works engaging with bureaucratic topics and spaces, set in (or against) a variety of historical backgrounds. Drawing on literature, but also on film or other arts to highlight different administrative cultural contexts and then contrasting them in their specificity is the goal of the edition.

SUBMISSION DEADLINE April 22, 2022

Reading Minds:  Artificial Intelligence, Neural Networks and the Reading Human

SLSA 2022, Purdue University

Under the auspices of the project ‘Orientation’: A Dynamic Perspective of Contemporary Fiction and Culture (1990-onwards) (Ref. FFI2017-86417-P), this Conference explores how the concept of ‘orientation’ can offer a renewed perspective on literary texts and cultural products alike. By positioning ‘orientation’ in close relation to (multiple) temporalities (or “polytemporality”, following Victoria Browne), space, and recognition of the ‘other’, this Conference (and the project) addresses the dynamic and fluid nature of today’s fiction and culture in English. As Sara Ahmed points out, “[o]rientations are about the direction we take that puts some things and not others in our reach” (56).

Silence (tacere or Schweigen) has been considered by Franz Rosenzweig among others as a subversive act or defiant stance of the tragic hero against overwhelming power mechanisms of necessity, i.e., totalization and universality. It has also, however, been regarded as an epiphenomenon (or a result) of marginalization and oppression by postcolonial theorists. The latters’ understanding marks silence as an end, a potential violent effect of the logics of exclusion and marginalization by “signifying machines”. The former understanding marks silence as a means of rendering mechanisms of powers inoperative.

119th PAMLA Conference

Los Angeles, CA | November 11-13, 2022 (entirely in-person)
PAMLA 2022: UCLA Luskin Conference Center and Hotel

Sponsored by UCLA Department of English

Special Session: Gazing Through a Pandemic Lens: Absurdist Literature, Theatre & Film

Presiding Officer:  Dr. Kimberly Jew, University of Utah

This panel seeks papers that explore the connections between our experiences of the recent (and ongoing) global pandemic and Absurdist literature, theatre & film. 

A burgeoning professional literature attests to the rewards and challenges of teaching comics and teaching with comics (for recent examples, see Wallner, Framing Education, 2019; Parker, Teaching Artfully, 2021; the forthcoming Smyth, Teaching with Comics and Graphic Novels, 2022; and the authoritative anthology With Great Power Comes Great Pedagogy, eds. Kirtley, Garcia, and Carlson, 2020).

In response to that literature, as well as the challenges of remote learning under COVID, this panel invites succinct 15-minute presentations that address the questions, What is it like to relearn the teaching of comics? and How can comics teachers reframe crisis as opportunity?