Writing about a series of human-object relationships, Robin Bernstein employs the term “scriptive thing” to articulate how objects become things when they orient, choreograph, or compel human action. In one such case study, she analyzes a photograph of a woman posing with a racist caricature at the Hotel Exposition in New York’s Grand Central Palace, circa 1930. Using this photo, she further clarifies the nature of this particular subject-object relationship, stating that it is “neither an isolated woman and her ‘whys’ nor an isolated caricature and its textual ‘hows,’ but instead through a complex interaction between the two figures,” that the photo constructs race.

MELUS 2026

Austin, Texas

Women of Color Caucus (WOCC)

Conference Dates: Thursday, April 30 – Saturday, May 2, 2026

Genre-blurring as Feminist Practice and Methodology (WOCC scholarship panel)

The Department of Foreign Language Education at Middle East Technical University is pleased to announce the call for the 28th British Novelists International Conference. This year’s theme is Ali Smith and Her Work. The conference will be held on 3-4 December 2026 in Ankara, Turkey.

We invite submissions from a broad range of disciplines, including literary studies, cultural studies, environmental humanities, queer studies, narrative studies, media studies, philosophy, sociology, and fine arts. We welcome papers on any aspect of Ali Smith’s work from any theoretical perspective. Proposals by graduate students are also welcome.

MELUS 2026

Austin, Texas

Women of Color Caucus (WOCC)

Conference Dates: Thursday, April 30 – Saturday, May 2, 2026

Equity and Ethics in Digital Spaces and AI (WOCC roundtable)

International Journal of Arts and Humanities (IJAHS) 

Submission System

Scope

CALL FOR BOOK CHAPTERS - CFP CLOSED -THANK YOU FOR YOUR INTEREST!

 REIMAGINING FRANKENSTEIN IN THE 21ST CENTURY: Cross-Cultural Adaptations in Visual Culture

Edited by Cenk Tan & Defne Ersin Tutan

Editors’ Introduction

CFP: “American Carnage”

Canadian Association for American Studies, October 23-25, 2026 (In person at Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada)

Call for Papers | Society of Early Americanists
American Literature Association | 37th Annual Conference | May 20–23, 2026 | Chicago, IL

New Directions in Early American Poetry Studies

This panel will develop and expand upon conversations about new directions in early American poetry studies begun at the SEA-sponsored panel on this topic to be convened during the ALA’s “American Poetry: A Symposium” (March 26–28, 2026).

Papers and presentations are invited that highlight new directions and recent developments in the study of early American poetry and poetics. Topics might include (but are not limited to):

Call for Papers | Society of Early Americanists
American Literature Association | 37th Annual Conference | May 20–23, 2026 | Chicago, IL

Teaching Early American Literature Outside the Survey Course

While recent decades have seen significant shifts in pedagogical approaches to early American literature, most undergraduate students (including many English majors) still obtain the bulk of their early American literary knowledge from some version of a broad survey course. Recognizing the potential limitations of such encounters, then, this roundtable asks: Where else in our curricula are we (or should we be) teaching early American literary texts?

From Indigenous testimonies about extraction economies to eco-dystopian manga, comics across the world function as powerful visual laboratories for engaging with the natural world. The graphic form—with its unique interplay of word and image, its use of framing, juxtaposition, and sequentiality—stages ecological questions in ways prose often cannot. By dramatizing the temporality of both sudden catastrophes and slow processes of degradation, comics enable us to see environmental crises unfolding across multiple scales of time and space. They ask us to imagine multispecies entanglements, toxic futures, and alternative modes of dwelling, while also foregrounding human complicity in environmental collapse.

Why does it seem so productive today to be simultaneously the subject and object of one’s writing? This workshop starts from the premise that certain writing and artistic practices position the theorizing self as a mediator between the subject and larger scales of social organization.

Ecology and the Human Being in German Literature and Other Media (planned, 2026)

Book Series: Interdisciplinary Studies on German Philology

About the Series

The book series Interdisciplinary Studies on German Philology, published by Istanbul University Press, is dedicated to interdisciplinary research in German literary and cultural studies. It brings together approaches from literary studies, cultural studies, media studies, philosophy, history, and related disciplines, with the aim of rethinking German philology in dialogue with contemporary theoretical and societal debates.

Published and forthcoming volumes include:

The Collectively Reimagining Global Politics Taft Research Group and the University of Cincinnati School of Public and International Affairs Graduate Student Association are organizing our Annual Symposium titled "Radical Hope: Reimagining Justice in Insecure and Precarious Times," March 26-27, 2026, at University of Cincinnati.

The American Association of Australasian Literary Studies (AAALS) invites proposals for a Virtual Seminar Series held during the month of June 2026 over Zoom. This seminar series will take place in lieu of the 2026 AAALS conference.

For this guaranteed session of the TC Religion and Literature forum at the January 2027 MLA convention, we invite papers focusing on literatures of migration and spirituality. Given the convention’s location in Los Angeles, we especially welcome proposals that consider authors and texts with connections to LA and the city as a site of contact, dialogue, and religious syncretism.

Papers might consider, for example:

-       Memoirs of migration in place and faith

-       Religious affect in literatures of exile and precarity

-       Indigenous survival and reemergent spiritual practices in and around LA

-       Sacred spaces and urban geography

CFP: Lydia Maria Child Society

American Literature Association Conference in Chicago
20–23 May 2026 at the Palmer House

https://americanliteratureassociation.org/ala-conferences/ala-annual-conference/

Revised Deadline: January 26, 2026

Political Rhetoric and Emotions in the Work of Lydia Maria Child

Speculative Narratives Beyond Consensus Reality: Navigating the Senses from Wonder to Horror
International Interdisciplinary Conference
29th – 30th June and 1st July, 2026

Venue: Department of Languages and Cultures, University of Aveiro, Portugal
Conference Organisers: Popular Culture Group

We invite scholars, researchers, and artists to submit abstracts for the upcoming academic conference, Speculative Narratives Beyond Consensus Reality: Navigating the Senses from Wonder to Horror. This event will explore the transformative potential of speculative narratives – across literature, film, visual arts, and other media – in breaking free from the boundaries of “consensus reality.”

 SDSU Press Presents

[caption] the journal of visual cultural studies

Issue 001 – “CAPTION THIS”

[caption] emerges from the collision of theory and spectacle. Annual, audacious, and gloriously hybrid, the journal stages encounters between scholarship and image-making—where Arbus’s restless gaze meets the ghosts of Benjamin, Mulvey, and Stuart Hall. We publish work that refuses to choose between seeing and thinking, between the archive and the avant-garde. 

Extended Deadline: February 15, 2026!

Call for Papers

Knowledge in the Age of AI: Multi-Disciplinary Approaches to Learning, Writing, and Teaching

The English Graduate Organization at North Dakota State University (NDSU) invites proposals for the 2026 Red River Valley Graduate Student Conference, April 10-11, 2026, on the beautiful NDSU campus in Fargo, North Dakota.

Call for Papers: Journal of Gaming & Virtual Worlds

Special Issue: ‘Save State: Ethics, Politics and Poetics of Video Game Preservation’

Guest Editors: Paweł Frelik (University of Warsaw), Magdalena Kozyra (SWPS University), Tomasz Z. Majkowski (Jagiellonian University) 

Important Dates 

• Abstract Submission Deadline: 1 March 2026

• Notification of Acceptance: 10 March 2026

• Full Article Submission: 15 June 2026

• Peer Review Returned: 1 August 2026

• Revised Article Submission: 31 August 2026

The recent Mandarin Chinese translation of The Canterbury Tales (Linking Publishing, 2025) by Dr. Francis K. H. So offers a timely opportunity to reflect on the growing presence, vitality, and diversity of Chaucerian studies outside the Anglophone world. This significant contribution not only opens new avenues for engaging with Geoffrey Chaucer’s language and narrative art, but also foregrounds the crucial role of translation, pedagogy, and local scholarly traditions in shaping how Chaucer is read, interpreted, and taught across different linguistic and cultural contexts.

Eco-Poetics and Environmental Artivism
A Transdisciplinary Conference
July 18-19, 2026
July 18: In person participation at Pembroke Lodge, Richmond Park (and online)
July 19: Fully online
Conference Page: https://labrc.co.uk/2026/01/21/ecopoetics2026/

Fees** (for both attendees and presenters):
£180 (In person participation)
£100 (Online participation)
**Prices exclude Eventbrite fees

Call for Presentations:

The Dos Passos Society has extended the deadline for its 2026 biennial conference in Posta do Sol, Madeira, by one week to February 8th. We do hope you will join us in Madeira this May for a celebration of the life and works of one of America's greatest chroniclers of the twentieth century. 

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The John Dos Passos Society is proud to announce its 2026 biennial conference in Ponta do Sol, Madeira Island, Portugal. The conference will be held at the John Dos Passos Cultural Center in the municipality of Ponta do Sol, the home of the author's Portuguese ancestors.

International Symposium: SDGs through Hindu Worldviews – Spiritual Care in a VUCA–BANI World
February 25–26, 2026 | IIT (BHU), Varanasi | Hybrid (Online + Offline)