Shakespeare’s dramas in all their generic types—history, romance, comedy, and tragedy—show an interest in exploring what sustains sociopolitical orders, what damages them, and what the human consequences are when such damage occurs. A great deal may be revealed about the viability of a society if we attend to those who are cast as (or see themselves as) aliens, foreigners, or non-conformists with regard to that society’s ruling order, mores, laws, and other key aspects. Bearing in mind that characters who offer the greatest difficulty in terms of identity and relation may be the most valuable objects of study, we will consider a range of Shakespeare’s “outsiders” for the understanding they can provide.

Call for Papers

Special Issue for December 2024 (Issue 39)

“Theatre in Iranian Society”

Guest Editor: Fatima Parchekani, Kharazmi University

Deadline for article submission: 30 June 2024

Dates: August 6 & 7, 2024

Location: Chicago at DePaul University (Lincoln Park Campus)

Theme: Punk Aesthetics, Community, Culture, and Politics

Following the success of our first in-person conference in August 2023, we are excited to announce our second in-person conference sponsored by PSN Canada and PSN USA.

The Native American Literature Permanent Section of the Midwest Modern Language Association (MMLA) seeks proposals for papers addressing the Midwest Modern Language Association conference theme of “Health in/of the Humanities,” with a focus on representations of health in Native American literature. Abstracts addressing any aspect of the conference theme in text(s) of Native American literature will be considered. In particular, papers may explore literary treatments of individual physical or mental health or of social, cultural, or environmental health. The MMLA Convention will be held in Chicago, November 14-16, 2024.

C.S. Lewis and Last Things:

How the Writer of Narnia Saw the End of Our Story

4th November 2024

At Union Theological College

Belfast, Northern Ireland

Co-Sponsored by 

The C.S. Lewis Institute Belfast 

& 

John Brown University

Rationale

In the preface to the second edition of Elsie Venner: A Romance of Destiny, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. refers to his work as a “medicated” novel. He also claims to have written his “medicated” work to provide a meditation on the doctrine of “original sin,” wondering whether the eponymous character is morally responsible for her amoral nature. With a background in the medical field, however, Holmes approaches the concept of morality and amorality from a purely physical point of view, forcing his readers to confront both the fact of the impressionable nature of the human body as well as the potential long-term effects on human psychology of disability induced by bodily trauma.

Pop Culture Constituency Group

National Women’s Studies Association

Inspired by the NWSA’s 2024 conference theme of “(Re)thinking Feminist Movements”, the Popular Culture Constituency Group is proposing the following panel for the 2024 Conference. We invite paper submissions from members and non-members of our group, and we look forward to meeting in Detroit.

Northeast Popular Culture Association (NEPCA) 2024 Hybrid Conference

Call for Papers: Race and Ethnicity in Popular Culture
Current Chair: Indya Jackson, Ramapo College of New Jersey, ijackso2@ramapo.edu

Dates: Thursday, October 3, 2024 - Saturday, October 5, 2024. 

Location: Nichols College in Dudley, MA and Online*

Call for Papers

ESOTERICISM, OCCULTISM, and MAGIC

Southwest Popular / American Culture Association (SWPACA)

2024 SWPACA Summer Salon

June 20-22, 2024

Virtual Conference

https://www.southwestpca.org

Submissions open on March 25, 2024

Proposal submission deadline: April 15, 2024 

Philophantast: A Speculative Fiction and Philosophy Conference CFP

A free hybrid conference for postgraduate students and early career researchers to be held June 05 and 06 2024 at the University of Glasgow, supported by Glasgow’s Centre for Fantasy and the Fantastic.

Deadline for Submissions: April 19 2024

Contact Email: philophantast@gmail.com

Call for Papers:

Special issue of Global Nineteenth-Century Studies
CFP: The Global / Oceanic / Nineteenth Century

In November 2022, the Society for Global Nineteenth-Century Studies held a two-day international symposium on “The Global / Oceanic / Nineteenth Century.”  Intentionally broad in scope, the symposium sought to cross-map nineteenth-century studies with key currents of the blue humanities, the Black and circum-Atlantic, Indian Ocean studies, oceanic ecologies, post- and decolonialism, maritime globalization, and beyond.

Special issue of Global Nineteenth-Century Studies
CFP: Comparative Empire: Conflict, Competition, and Cooperation, 1750-1914

By the time the First World War erupted in 1914, most inhabitants of the globe resided within an empire, either as citizens of a colonizing power or as subjects of colonial rule. The preceding “long nineteenth century” had witnessed the rise of various empires with significant overseas colonial possessions—such as Britain, France, the Dutch Republic (subsequently the Kingdom of the Netherlands), and Meiji Japan—to coexist alongside imperial powers contained within contiguous land masses, including the Ottoman, Russian, and Qing empires.

Call for Papers

Southwest Popular / American Culture Association (SWPACA)

2024 SWPACA Summer Salon

June 20-22, 2024

Virtual Conference

https://www.southwestpca.org

Submissions open on March 25, 2024

Proposal submission deadline: April 15, 2024

Disability and musicals have a complicated relationship. Usually comprised of athletic, triple-threat actors, the musical theatre genre is preoccupied with health and wellness–often figuring disability as a stumbling block to a musical’s slickly choreographed world. At the heart of musicals like Side Show, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and The Light in the Piazza, a disabled character’s non-normative status is of narrative consequence. However, these inclusions of disabled characters with diegetic disabilities are often only remarkable because of their societally defined excessive existence.