For a generation, J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter franchise was emblematic of heroism, fighting against adversity, and inclusion of outsiders. This is why Rowling’s arguable alignment of herself, in 2020 and since, with transphobic and trans-exclusionary rhetoric felt like such a betrayal to many of her readers, prompting a revaluation of her work and what it means to them now. With the co-edited collection Potions, Powers, and Prejudice: Reassessing Harry Potter, we intend for contributors to explore the matter of what we collectively do with Harry Potter in the wake of its creator’s very public turn. Some readers have favored a careful delineation between author and work; others have regretfully concluded that no such delineation is possible.

Call for Papers: Studies in Hogg and his World 

Call for Expressions of Interest.

In July of 2026 Punch magazine will be 185 years old!

The Punch’s Pocket Book Archive team are editing a special commemorative issue of Victorian Periodicals Review to celebrate Punch, both the magazine and the evolution of a clear brand identity that witnessed many imitations and adaptations across the world.

We would like to invite expressions of interest from scholars who are working on Punch, developing and enriching the field, to consider topics such as: global imitators of the magazine; the merchandise; the almanacks; the pocket-books; the reprinted bound volumes and thematic collections; the online digital resources and more.

Call for Papers

The 32nd Annual Midwest Conference on Literature, Language and Media (MCLLM)

April 5th & 6th 2025

Theme: “Trouble” - Confronting Bigotry in Higher Education and Academic Scholarship

Every year, the Association holds it annual conference, usually a two-day affair, as well as a graduate student workshop, usually held on the day before the annual conference. The 2025 annual meeting will be held at Georgetown Law from June 17-18th. The theme of the conference, our call for papers, and submissions guidelines can be found below:

Speech Matters

To face climate change is, in part, to grapple with a narrowing range of possible futures. Thus, we find that reproduction itself is up for interrogation, reimagination, and revision. This panel explores precisely these shifts in thought by inviting papers that consider environmental crisis through the lens of sex and gender studies. As invoked by the panel’s title, the trope of Mother Nature exemplifies the powerful role that gender has historically played in environmental cultures. And although Mother Nature has undergone successive waves of critique, human norms of gender and sexuality continue to inflect ecological discourse.

The Victorians Institute Journal is still accepting submissions for Volume 52, which is expected to be published in 2025. We accept manuscripts between 7k-9k words on any aspect of Victorian and Edwardian literature, art, and culture.

For complete submission instructions and to upload your manuscript for consideration, please visit http://www.editorialmanager.com/vij and follow the steps given by the online system.

If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to us at victoriansinstitutejournal@gmail.com

Topic:Expressivity, Bodies and Language in the Twenty-First Century

Venue: University of Montpellier – Paul Valéry, France

Date: 20-21 November 2025

Conference organizers: Sandrine Sorlin (University of Montpellier – Paul-Valéry /IUF - EMMA) and Julie Neveux (Sorbonne University - CeLiSo)

Adaptation, Restoration, Rebirth

Association of Adaptation Studies Conference

1-4 June 2025, Istanbul Bilgi University, Istanbul, Türkiye

Keynotes (CONFIRMED):

• Dr. Ahmet Gürata, Department of Cinema and Digital Media, İzmir University of Economics, Türkiye

• Dr. Iain Robert Smith, Department of Film Studies, King’s College London, UK

On his way to the Temple of the Grail Knights, Parsifal says: I move only a little, yet already I seem to have gone far. The all-knowing Gurnemanz replies: You see, my son, here time turns into space. - Wagner’s “Parsifal”

The Department of Religions and Cultures at Concordia University is pleased to announce the 30th Annual Graduate Interdisciplinary Conference (AGIC). In part commemorating AGIC’s 30th year of existence and coinciding with Concordia University’s 50th anniversary, we invite both academic and creative submissions (research papers, short films, visual arts/media, short stories, poems, etc.) that engage with this year’s theme,“Journeying”. 

INTERDISCIPLINARY; COMPARATIVE; GRADUATE - PROFESSIONAL DEVLOPMENT

Graduate students are invited to present on Dress and Fashion of Baroque Spain at the Boca Raton Museum of Art on March 27, 2025. The conference will be held in the Museum’s Wolgin Education Center, 501 Plaza Real, Boca Raton, FL 33432.

The Linda H. Peterson Fellowship was named after the widely influential Yale professor and longtime RSVP Board member and Vice President, Linda Peterson. The purpose of the Peterson Fellowship is to support one scholar for four full-time months to enable him or her to conduct a research project on the British periodical and newspaper press of the long nineteenth century. It was created with funds from a generous bequest to RSVP by the late Eileen Curran, pioneering researcher and Emerita Professor of English at Colby College.

Within Cli-Fi, Anthropocene Literature, Speculative Futurism, and visual cultures of the Anthropocene, increasing attention and sympathy have been given to the non-humans in narratives of climate crisis. From films like 20th Century Fox’s Planet of the Apes reboot to texts such as Ted Chaing’s Parrots of The Great Silence, The Strange Bird of Jeff VanderMeer’s same-named Novella, and the Elk-Headed Woman of Stephen Graham Jones’ The Only Good Indians, to visual works like Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg’s The Substitute, Animal perspectives have never been more prevalent in narratives of human-driven climate catastrophe.

Call for Proposals

Masculinities and Men’s Studies

(formerly known as Men and Men’s Studies)

National Popular/American Culture Association (PCA/ACA) Conference

 April 16-19, 2025

New Orleans, LA

Proposals on any aspect of masculinities and/or men’s studies are welcome; however, the following topics are of particular interest: