Lydia Davis is an award-winning author of nine short story collections, a novel, two volumes of essays, and a translator of Maurice Blanchot, Michael Leiris, Marcel Proust, and Gustave Flaubert. Beginning her career amidst the second wave of postmodernism, her very short stories - some only a paragraph or even a sentence long - have drawn comparisons with postmodern metafiction, literary minimalism, and LANGUAGE poetry. Her eclectic interests and unexpected manipulation of genre and form, however, frequently defy categorisation.

New technologies have often been viewed with strong skepticism for instance the advent of photography transformed painting, the introduction of vehicles substituted horse-carriages and the emergence of cinema replaced books. Plato’s horror over the destruction of ‘memory’ with the invention of ‘writing’ is perhaps synonymous to the inherent connection between ‘literature’ and ‘film’. In the preface of The Nigger of the Narcissus, Conrad states, “My task which I am trying to achieve is, by the power of the written word, to make you hear, to make you feel-it is, before all, to make you see” (1897). Griffith declares that the task of a filmmaker is the same as the novelist’s, to make people see through cinema.

Call for Papers:

Symposium (virtual): Hollywood and the Asian American Imagination

Date: February 20 and February 22, 2024 (Tuesday and Thursday) (tentative)
Venue: Zoom, hosted by the University of Richmond, Virginia

Keynote speaker: Yiman Wang (UC Santa Cruz)

Since the dawn of the Cold War, U.S. popular culture has been saturated with narratives that pit a morally-righteous United States against a sinister, duplicitous Russia–a binary foundational to postwar American Studies. In the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine–and the attacks on democracy and human rights that it entails–the image of a menacing Russian presence is once again salient. Rather than redeploying a Cold War logic designed to disavow the sordid histories of the United States, this panel asks how we might approach the intertwined histories of Russia and the U.S. as a way of strengthening our critique of the oppression and exploitation perpetuated by both nations.

The Comics Arts Conference is now accepting 100 to 200 word abstracts for papers, presentations, and panels taking a critical or historical perspective on comics (juxtaposed images in sequence) for a meeting of scholars and professionals at Comic-Con International, in San Diego, CA, July 20–23, 2022.  We seek proposals from a broad range of disciplinary and theoretical perspectives and welcome the participation of academic and independent scholars.  We also encourage the involvement of professionals from all areas of the comics industry, including creators, editors, publishers, retailers, distributors, and journalists.  The CAC is presently scheduled to take place in person and does not accept virtual presentations.  The CAC is designed to bring together

Starting from the assumption that identity (seen as a relationship with one's self) and individuality (seen as a relationship of the self with the group) are both discursive constructs, we presume that it is the uniqueness of these constructs that confers authenticity and validation to a particular person/community/society. This issue is a subject already widely researched and problematized in theories of otherness from the perspective of dealing with diversity or even with social distancing and alienation.

Robert Bird’s study of Andrei Tarkovsky’s cinema, published in 2008, was given a significant yet ambiguous subtitle: Elements of Cinema. Looking for the key to understanding the famous director’s films, the author took as guides “four traditional elements of matter, each captured through the distinct elements of cinema that conditioned Tarkovsky's work, from 'system' and 'imagination' to 'screen', 'image', 'story' and 'shot'”. Images of the elements, with their culturally defined symbolism – Earth as a vessel for nostalgia, water as the universal element of art and a medium of representation – became the building blocks of the unique atmosphere of Tarkovsky's films.

Our conference theme:  Solidarity With/In the Community

We are currently in a period of greater divides and contestation within our society, especially when it comes to those who exist in queer, marginal or dissident relations to normativity in its various guises.

This feeling of division and the fight for solidarity both inside and outside our communities is a common experience for queer, trans or LGBTQIA+ people, as well as BIPOC communities, disabled and neurodiverse people, working class and colonised populations, and others still.

Call for Papers: Uncovering British Chinese Cultures

TU Dresden, Germany

 8-9 August 2023

UPDATE: Hybrid sessions available

 15th GRAPHSY (Graduate Portuguese and Hispanic Symposium) - February 17, 2023 - In Person (with hybrid sessions)

           Department of Spanish and Portuguese, Georgetown University - Washington, DC

Encuentros con el cuerpo: actitudes, performances y los sentidos / Encontros com o corpo: atitudes, performances e os sentidos

– Literature –

Keynote Speaker:

Dr. Julia Chang (Cornell University)

– Linguistics –

American Literature Association

34th Annual Conference

May 25-28, 2023

The Westin Copley Place
10 Huntington Avenue
Boston, MA 02116

Edith Wharton and Beauty

The Edith Wharton Society invites papers that explore Wharton’s engagement with beauty in her works. Panelists are encouraged to consider the role of beauty in her writing on design, gardens, and travel as well as her novels and stories. All theoretical approaches are welcome. Proposals might consider (but are not limited to) the following questions:

The editors Zoe Bursztajn-Illingworth and Julius Greve seek essays for an ASAP/J cluster on “Poetic Voice and Materiality”. We understand this topic to capaciously include new approaches to questions of poetic voice in contemporary American poetry. Experimental responses to questions of voice in poetry are welcomed, including contributions not only from literary studies but also from sound studies, film and media studies, performance studies, philosophy, the posthumanities, digital humanities, and archives across the globe.

4th Literature and Cultural Studies Conference

03-05 May 2023

Ege University, Izmir, Turkey

A VIRTUAL STUDENT CONFERENCE HOSTED BY THE UNIVERSITY AT ALBANY & THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, DAVIS

The theme of connection in the humanities is far-reaching and multifaceted. This student conference is a joint initiative between

UAlbany and UC Davis focused on connection in all its significations.

We welcome undergraduate and graduate student proposals for both critical and creative projects from literary/cultural studies, creative writing, rhetorical/composition studies, and other adjacent disciplines. Potential topics on the theme of connection may include (but are not limited to):