Through their intricately textured scenes and characters, the ten plays of August Wilson’s American Century Cycle chart the epic historical contours and idiomatic genius of Black American life across the entire twentieth century. Despite his plans for continued literary production after the Cycle’s completion, Wilson died shortly after the final play (Radio Golf)’s world premiere in 2005. 

Two decades hence, and now in the second quarter of the twenty-first century, Wilson’s presence and prescience in American culture are not only enduring but expanding:

As environmental crises intensify, ecocriticism has emerged as a vital interdisciplinary lens for examining how literature and media represent, challenge, and reimagine human relationships with the natural world. Invested in the idea that, in such times, the center cannot [and should not] hold, this seminar explores how queer ecocritical approaches reveal the de-centering cultural, ethical, and political possibilities embedded in apocalyptic environmental narratives in both literary texts and visual media.

Seminar title: Transgender Storytelling: Accounts of Oppositional Being and Becoming

Seminar link: https://www.acla.org/seminar/c997c5c5-09fd-4307-ba24-29af11d554d6 

Organizers: Clarke Crockett and Ezekiel Greenwood, Florida State University, USA

American Comparative Literature Association (ACLA), Annual Convention 2026, Montreal, Canada

Abstract Submission Deadline: October 2, 2025. Must be submitted through the ACLA portal. 

For I do not exist: there exist but the thousands of mirrors that reflect me.   

-Vladimir Nabokov, The Eye 

The Cornell Medieval Studies Program is pleased to announce the 36th annual Medieval Studies Student Colloquium (MSSC) in person at Cornell University’s A.D. White House on Saturday February 21, 2026. This year’s theme is “Mirror Worlds.”  

 This VIRTUAL panel invites papers on “Dismantling the Neocolonial Maritime Archive:  Indigenous Oceanic Epistemologies” for NeMLA 57th Annual Convention to be held on March 5-8, 2026.

The panel addresses how West Asian, South Asian, and Gulf literatures regenerate the power of oceanic precarity that propels newer modes of decolonial resistance and resilience to interrogate and distrust the rigid structures that propagate epistemic violence and archival control. 

NeMLA’s 57th Annual Convention (Virtual Session)

Conference Date: March 5-8, 2026

Abstract Submission Deadline: September 30, 2025

All presentations will be delivered via Zoom.

Session Title: Touching the World at the Speed of Light: Community and Conflict in the Global Village

Howells Society CFPs for ALA 2026 (Chicago)

The W.D. Howells Society will host two panels at the American Literature Association’s 37th annual conference, which will meet at the Palmer House in Chicago, May 20-23, 2026 (Wednesday through Saturday of Memorial Day weekend). 

PANEL 1: HOWELLS & MEDIA

PCA True Crime CFP 2026 

Abstract Submission Deadline: November 30th, 2025 

PCA/ACA will be held from April 8-11th, 2026 in Atlanta, GA 

True Crime typically focuses on investigative journalism used to present a mystery or attempt to understand the psychology of a crime/perpetrator. It may include narratives of a case, victimology, forensics, or analysis of evidence, although each case is different. Much of True Crime focuses on serial killers/killings, although subsets of the genre may delve into topics such as kidnappings, cults, wrongful convictions, advocacy, white-collar crimes, trial proceedings, prevention of crime, survivor stories, or sensationalism/entertainment. 

Popular Culture Association: British Popular Culture 

Call for Papers

The British Popular Culture area of the Popular Culture/American Culture Association (PCA/ACA) is now accepting submissions for the 2026 national conference to be held April 8-11, 2026, in Atlanta, GA at the Atlanta Marriott Marquis!

Academics at all stages in their careers, as well as independent scholars, are encouraged to apply. We particularly encourage submissions by graduate students. 

Call for Papers

ETKI: Journal of Literature, Theatre and Culture Studies

ETKI: Journal of Literature, Theatre and Culture Studies invites submissions for the New issue of the journal - a general issue on literature, theatre and culture studies.

Against Evidence Otherwise:

Bad Faith and Antiblackness in Education & Society

Under Contract with Brill Publishing 

Edited by Amir A. Gilmore, Washington State University

What is to be done in a world of near universal sense of superiority to, if not universal hatred of, Black folk?

–Lewis R. Gordon (1997, p. 1)

I know I am a Human because I am not Black. I know I am not Black because when and if I experience the kind of violence Blacks experience there is a reason.

Call for paper proposals - DEADLINE SEPTEMBER 30th

Please submit an abstract of no more than 300 words and a short (ca. 50 words) bio to the NeMLA portal at this link: https://cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/21839.

In periods of economic and cultural crisis, cui bono? Who benefits? How are accounts kept, and gains accounted for? Who is accountable and who is not? What forms does the balance sheet take? What is its narrative and who gets to construct it? How is creative accounting investigated?

Imagining the Impossible: International Journal for the Fantastic in Contemporary Media

CFP for Volume 5, Issue 1 (2026) Theme: Ciphers and Codes

INTERNATIONAL DAVID FOSTER WALLACE CONFERENCE IN AUSTIN

June 4-6, 2026

University of Texas, Austin

CALL FOR PAPERS

#DFW26

To mark the 30th anniversary of the publication of Infinite Jest, the 2026 David Foster Wallace Conference invites papers examining Wallace’s masterwork. 

The paradigmatic scene in a Western – witnessed in numerous movies, such as High Noon (1952), The Gunfight at the OK Corral (1957), or Tombstone (1993), as well as in classic western novels, such as Louis L’Amour’s The Lonesome Gods (1983) or Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove (1985) – is that of a confrontation between a sheriff and a bandit: it suggests the forces of civilization taking hold on the frontier, even if tentatively, and ultimately a triumph of the order imposed to protect those in need of protection.

LANGUAGE AND THE INEFFABLE: EXPRESSING THE INEXPRESSIBLE

8th Annual International Comparative Literature Conference Louisiana State University March 27-28, 2026 (Friday-Saturday) Virtual Format

Conference Theme

What happens when language encounters its own limits? This year's conference explores how writers, thinkers, and artists across cultures and centuries have grappled with expressing experiences that seem to transcend ordinary language—the mystical, the traumatic, the sublime, the deeply personal, and the utterly foreign.

Call for Papers

Teaching Literary Maximalism

Call For Papers Nº 26 (Summer 2026)
"Touch Screen. Imaginaries of Hapticity in Audiovisual Media"

Interspaces is an open-access, student-led journal that welcomes submissions in interdisciplinary work and research from inside and outside the proverbial ivory tower of the academic world. Interspaces currently seeks submissions for a special themed section, “Queering the Public Humanities.” The pitch deadline (200 words) is November 1, 2025. The final submission deadline is January 15, 2026. Click the link above to learn more about the theme and submission guidelines.

Masculinities Students' Conference I: Current Issues, Future Directions

Join us for a day filled with insightful discussions, engaging workshops, and networking opportunities. This event aims to create a space for discussing diverse approaches and complexities of contemporary masculinities and their impact on society. Whether you're a student, researcher, or simply interested in the topic, this conference is the place to learn and exchange ideas.

The conference will be held in person. 

DATE: Thursday, 11 December 2025

Call for Abstracts for a Special Issue

 Interdisciplinary Literary Studies. A Journal  Of Criticism and Theory 

Contaminated Bodies, Contaminated Lands:

Transcorporeality in Eco-narratives

Editors

Dr. Paula Wieczorek, Assistant Professor, Department of English Studies, University of Information Technology and Management, Poland. E-mail: pwieczorek@wsiz.edu.pl

                                                                                Tattva Journal of Philosophy

                                                                                                     And

                                                         Department of English and Cultural Studies, Central Campus

                                                                 CHRIST (Deemed to be University), Bengaluru, India

                                                                                                Organizes 

April 10-11, 2026

Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas, USA

Keynote Speakers

Dr. Alan Liu, Distinguished Professor of English, University of California, Santa Barbara

Dr. Kalindi Vora, Professor of Ethnicity, Race, and Migration, Yale University

Dr. Neda Atanasoski, Professor and Chair of the Harriet Tubman Department of

Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park

Dr. Bruce Clarke, Paul Whitfield Horn Distinguished Professor of Literature

and Science Emeritus, Texas Tech University

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS — Mini Plays Review | December 2025 Issue
Theme: UNFINISHED BUSINESS

Deadline      December 15, 2025  
Format:       1-Minute Plays and Monologues  
Length:       Maximum one page (A4 size)  
Submission Email: miniplaysmag@gmail.comWebsite: 

—

The curtain didn’t close. The letter was never sent. The apology… still unspoken.

Mini Plays Review invites you to explore the weight of what’s left hanging — the stories suspended mid-air, the emotions caught in the throat, the promises half-made and paths not taken.