PAMLA 2021 LAS VEGAS: "CITY OF GOD, CITY OF DESTRUCTION" (Thursday, November 11 - Sunday, November 14, 2021 at Sahara Las Vegas Hotel, hosted by University of Nevada, Las Vegas)

Session: Crime Fiction and Film

Contacts: Cynthia Kuhn, Metropolitan State University of Denver (kuhnc@msudenver.edu)

Description: This virtual (online) session welcomes paper proposals on any aspect of This virtual (online) session invites submissions on any aspect of crime fiction and film. Given the conference theme of "City of God, City of Destruction," papers that attempt to engage with this theme are also welcome.

Circuitous Channels: The Communications Circuit at 40

Robert Darnton’s “communications circuit,” proposed in his field-defining 1982 essay “What Is the History of Books?”, has become one of book history’s foundational paradigms. Since 1982, the “communications circuit” has been endlessly reprinted, debated, revised, and amended; it has become a touchstone heuristic for more articles, books, and papers than it is possible to list.

This global collection of essays – emerging from a session presented at the Modern Language Association (MLA) Conference 2021 – raises important ethical and aesthetic questions regarding narratives of serial murder. How is the serial killer constructed in World Literature and Culture by invoking or debunking Western criminological theories and detective genres? Why does a ‘murderous sublime’ dominate mainstream cinema, Netflix shows, graphic novels, and podcasts? On what historical and cultural terms, do these graphic representations of violence vacillate between notions of ‘normality’ and ‘abnormality’ or ‘banality’ and ‘exceptionalism’?

We hereby invite proposals of original articles related to the general theme of Cultural Intertexts, an academic journal of Literature and Cultural Studies, ISSN 2393-0624, E-ISSN 2393-1078.

The editors will consider for publication papers which tackle strategies of representation and of (inter)textual construction emerging from the dialogic relation between:

-       literature and the historical and cultural context of text production;

-       distribution and consumption;

-       literature and other arts (music, film, visual arts, etc.) or sciences (linguistics, psycholinguistics, psychology, history, sociology and political sciences, internet and new technologies, etc.);

Emerging from oral literature, folk and fairy tales are embedded and entangled within the very confines of human consciousness and are continuously rewoven into the fabric of cultural memory. Often categorised as stories for children, these tales not only provide vital information into the psyche and disposition of the human mind, but also enable us to understand social and cultural interactions. The vast imagery, motifs, and archetypes these tales produce enable them to be constantly re-conceived, reinterpreted, and disseminated. Even though folk and fairy tales emerge from differing cultures with diverse traditions and customs, they seem to share similar formation mechanisms.

Critical Insights: Amy Tan

 “Writing is an extreme privilege but it’s also a gift.  It’s a gift to yourself and it’s a gift of giving a story to someone.”

 Invitation to submit to the International Journal of Critical Media Literacy Special Issue: 

Inside the Anthropocene: Critical Media Literacy & the SARS-CoV2 Pandemic 

SARS-CoV2 has created a global health emergency with real human cost that has also manifested as a media spectacle. This special issue will focus on the ways many different media platforms work as a kind of cultural pedagogy, a pedagogy that depends on the replication and distribution of certain forms of biopolitical power. 

Call for Papers: Faulkner Journal special issue, “William Faulkner, Race, and the Work of Antiracism”

MLA 2022 will be held 6–9 January, 2022 in Washington, DC. We invite abstracts for an Transdisciplinary Connections [TC] Race and Ethnicity Studies-sponsored panel, "Transnational Migration and Empire." 300-word abstracts that examine how texts that center on transnational migrations, forced or otherwise, produce anti-imperialist modes of thought and practice. Any geographical location and time period. Send submissions to trans.migration.empire@gmail.com by Monday, 15 March 2021.

SUBMISSION DEADLINE EXTENDED TO 29 Mar 2021.

16th National Communication Ethics Conference

Communication Ethics in Urban Settings

Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Date: June 8-10, 2021

The 16th Biennial Communication Ethics Conference will be held virtually June 8–10, 2021. The conference is sponsored by the Department of Communication & Rhetorical Studies of Duquesne University and the Communication Ethics Institute.

NOTE: The conference venue is shifting to an online format in order to accommodate the circumstances of COVID-19.

In her 2014 text, All Joking Aside, Rebecca Krefting argued that “Jokesters unmask inequality by identifying the legal arrangements and cultural attitudes and beliefs contributing to their subordinated status—joking about it, challenging that which has become normalized and compulsory, and offering new solutions and strategies” (2). Humor has long been a tool for upsetting the status quo, for questioning the social institutions that exalt some, while leaving so many others behind. But does this comedic approach succeed in effecting change? What are the tangible results of challenging the existing situation?

PAMLA 2021 LAS VEGAS: "CITY OF GOD, CITY OF DESTRUCTION" (Thursday, November 11 - Sunday, November 14, 2021 at Sahara Las Vegas Hotel, hosted by University of Nevada, Las Vegas)

Session: American Literature 1945 to the Present

Contacts: Marc Malandra, Biola University (marc.malandra@biola.edu)

The Message Is? is an edited volume dedicated to exploring the expressed and sometimes hidden gems of black spirituality found in the creativity of the award-winning artist and filmmaker Arthur Jafa. Nathanael J. Homewood and Isis Pickens are co-editing this volume.

We are inviting chapter proposals. Please consider submitting a 250-word abstract briefly outlining your potential chapter contribution.  We kindly ask that these be submitted by March 15, 2021, and be emailed to nathanaelhomewood@depauw.edu.