The critically acclaimed science fiction series Severance (produced by Ben Stiller and created by Dan Erickson, 2022-) explores the idea of surgically dividing a person’s memories between their work and private lives. It raises many thought-provoking questions, embedded in a rich environment of cultural references and equipped with a distinct visual style, nuanced storytelling, and outstanding performances of its cast. With its second season, it has become the most successful production by Apple TV+ so far and is widely discussed by critics and fans. A large part of the fascination for the series comes from the multitude of possible readings it elicits.

CFP – “CARIBBEAN METAMORPHOSIS”

liquid blackness: journal of aesthetics and black studies 10, no. 2, Fall 2026 Guest edited by Christina León, C.C. McKee, Judith Rodriguez

Submissions due September 15, 2025

Words of Suffering: Autobiographical Writing and Pain

EXTENDED DEADLINE: 24.04.2025

July 15-17, 2025

Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu, Romania

International Pynchon Week 2026

June 15-19, 2026

TU Dortmund University, Germany

 “Consider coal and steel. There is a place where they meet.” (Gravity’s Rainbow)

"Sin City": Las Vegas in Popular Culture

PopCRN (the Popular Culture Network) will be holding a free virtual symposium exploring the many faces of Las Vegas in popular culture. The conference will be held online on 30-31 July 2026.  

Las Vegas, a city of spectacle, excess, and reinvention, has been depicted in myriad ways across popular culture. From its neon-lit casinos and extravagant performances to its depictions as both a playground for high-stakes drama and a symbol of the American Dream, Las Vegas occupies a unique cultural space. This symposium seeks to examine the diverse representations of Las Vegas through a multi-disciplinary lens.

PopCRN – The UNE Popular Culture Network invites scholars to explore the multifaceted representations of death in popular culture at a virtual symposium to be held online on 27th-28th of November 2025.

Death has long been a central theme in cultural narratives, shaping how societies understand grief, mourning, the afterlife, and the macabre. From Gothic fiction to true crime podcasts, horror films to digital memorials, popular culture both reflects and influences our attitudes toward death. This conference seeks to examine these representations across media, genres, and historical contexts.

Many mainstream media outlets have observed an uptick in the mainstream popularity of American women's fiction that center on rage-filled female characters or that express anger at contemporary society. The complicated aftermath of second-wave feminism has in some ways enabled women to speak more frankly about their bodies, desires, and experiences, but these forms of sexual and social liberation of the past several decades have led to a strong backlash against reproductive freedom and a resurgent public-sphere misogyny; many feminist critics have also noticed that media discussions of progress for women—how many female CEO’s run Fortune 500 companies, for instance—have silenced structural critique of a patriarchal society.

The way our current globally interconnected and digitally enabled capitalist formation continuously reshapes itself to reinforce categories of class and overarching capitalist structures requires analyses that engage and critique these adaptive forces of capital. Responding to this need, this seminar seeks to examine the relationship of texts to a global capitalist economy by asking how class and capitalism function within and exert force upon texts and their contexts—in film, literature, art, video games, social media, and other extratextual spaces such as fan sites.

The Jahrbuch für internationale Germanistik, published by Peter Lang and indexed by the Web of Science (Arts and Humanities Index – AHCI) and Book Citation Index (BKCI), is calling for submissions for its upcoming special issue on Addiction and Crisis in German and English Narratives.

This issue will address how addiction—in its various manifestations such as substance abuse, behavioral dependency, and psychological compulsions—is depicted in literature and culture. We particularly seek contributions that situate addiction within broader societal, existential, and ecological crises in German- and English-language narratives.

Possible areas of focus include but are not limited to:

Seminar  “P raises his head”. Acts of Resistance in Samuel Beckett

Convenors:

Davide Crosara (“Sapienza” Università di Roma) davide.crosara@uniroma1.it

Rossana Sebellin  (Università degli Studi di Roma “Tor Vergata”) sebellin@lettere.uniroma2.it

Abstract

On the 100th anniversary of Alain Locke's New Negro anthology, this panel seeks presenters eager to discuss what they see as new trends in New Negro research.  Possibilities include the New Negro in international, regional, or local contexts; the New Negro in newspapers, magazines, college yearbooks and other digitized sources; the New Negro on the move, re-envisioned to meet the needs of different socio-political groups; the New Negro in literature (especially in literature relatively new to the canon); the New Negro is conjunction with other "New" movements:  the New Woman, New Psychology, New Thought, and the New American.

Call for papers

On Metamorphosis. Interdisciplinary Perspectives

International Conference, Palermo, 8th - 9th May 2025

Cultures and Societies Department, University of Palermo, Italy

Academy of Fine Arts, Palermo, Italy

French Cultural Center, Palermo, Italy

Deadline for abstracts: April 20th, 2025

What Ever Happened to Gary Cooper?

How 21st Century American Television Shaped a Political Revolution