american

Call For Submissions
31st Annual Significations Graduate Student Conference
California State University, Los Angeles
Department of English

Conference Date: April 24, 2026
Submission Deadline: February 15, 2026

IN/ACTIVITY

Starting from a sense of our own activity as literary and cultural scholars, the organizers of Significations invite graduate students to share their work on the theme of In/Activity. We welcome submissions that interpret, examine, and analyze the theme broadly. Possible topics of discussion can include, but are not limited to, the following:

The Henry James Society

CALL FOR PAPERS

Modern Language Association Convention

7 to 10 January 2027 – Los Angeles, California

The Art of Seeing Wrongly: Evil and Moral Perception in Henry James

“He had no talent for good, but he had a great talent for evil.”

Akaki Tsereteli State University in Kutaisi, Georgia will host a two-day international biennial multidisciplinary conference on American studies. The conference is dedicated to the 130th anniversary of the birth of John Dos Passos, honoring his enduring literary legacy and critical contribution to modern American literature. It is organized by Prof. Vakhtang Amaglobeli Center for American Studies at ATSU, ATSU Foreign Affairs and Development Office and John Dos Passos Association of Georgia.
The conference will be held at ATSU (59 Tamar Mepe st., Kutaisi 4600, Georgia) on October 23-24, 2026.

Call for Papers | Society of Early Americanists
American Literature Association | 37th Annual Conference | May 20–23, 2026 | Chicago, IL

New Directions in Early American Poetry Studies

This panel will develop and expand upon conversations about new directions in early American poetry studies begun at the SEA-sponsored panel on this topic to be convened during the ALA’s “American Poetry: A Symposium” (March 26–28, 2026).

Papers and presentations are invited that highlight new directions and recent developments in the study of early American poetry and poetics. Topics might include (but are not limited to):

Call for Papers | Society of Early Americanists
American Literature Association | 37th Annual Conference | May 20–23, 2026 | Chicago, IL

Teaching Early American Literature Outside the Survey Course

While recent decades have seen significant shifts in pedagogical approaches to early American literature, most undergraduate students (including many English majors) still obtain the bulk of their early American literary knowledge from some version of a broad survey course. Recognizing the potential limitations of such encounters, then, this roundtable asks: Where else in our curricula are we (or should we be) teaching early American literary texts?

CFP: Lydia Maria Child Society

American Literature Association Conference in Chicago
20–23 May 2026 at the Palmer House

https://americanliteratureassociation.org/ala-conferences/ala-annual-conference/

Revised Deadline: January 26, 2026

Political Rhetoric and Emotions in the Work of Lydia Maria Child

“Unfinished Declarations: Independence, Identity, and Imagination in American Culture” 

Hosted by the Irish Association for American Studies 

Date: 24th and 25th April 2026 

Location: Ulster University, Coleraine Campus, Northern Ireland 

Our conference theme, “All Things Made New: Creation, Re-creation, and Redemption,” aims to explore the multifaceted dimensions of the creative and re-creative acts embedded in our discipline practices and the works we study. As a number of Christian scholars have pointed out, reading and writing literature is one way we can carry out our responsibility to establish a world that pleases and praises God by cultivating its potential. Just as Adam and Eve cultivated the fruits of the Garden of Eden, so are we to cultivate the talents and abilities God has given us in all areas: technology, literature, art, music, science, social and political structures, etc.

Announcing

The 2026 First Book Institute

May 31-June 6, 2026

Hosted by the Center for American Literary Studies (CALS) at Pennsylvania State University

Co-Directors

Priscilla Wald, R. Florence Brinkley Distinguished Professor of English, Duke University, and Co-Editor of American Literature

Sean X. Goudie, Director of the Center for American Literary Studies and Past Winner of the MLA Prize for a First Book

CFP: Special Issue on Appalachian Animal Studies

To be published in Spring 2027, co-edited by Drs. Kathryn Kirkpatrick and Jessica Cory

Whether it’s the relationships we have with our animal companions, the meat we (may not) eat, or the countless more-than-human species with whom we share this region, animals are important to our lives and to Appalachian spaces.

This is a CFP for an edited collection on Vestron horror.

This manuscript is almost complete, so we cannot offer authors more than two months to complete their essays. Please bear this in mind.

At present, we are only looking for three chapters to round off the collection. The chapters should focus on one of the following films:

Slaughter High

Beyond Re-animator or Dagon

Little Monsters

Chopping Mall

The Gate

The Unholy

Chud II: Bud the Chud

Sundown the Vampire in Retreat

A chapter dedicated to thrillers made by Vestron.

Please spread the word. Below is the original CFP with the new deadline.

CFP | Pauline Elizabeth Hopkins Society (PEHS) session 

American Literature Association Annual Conference, Chicago, IL, May 20-23, 2026

Hopkins’s America, Then & Now

The Second Quarry Farm Graduate Student Workshop: “From Seminar Paper to Academic Article”The Center for Mark Twain Studies is happy to announce their second Graduate Student Workshop: “From Seminar Paper to Academic Article.” This in-person workshop will provide an intensive writing experience for students to transform a seminar or conference paper into an article ready to submit for publication. Although all approaches are welcome—and interdisciplinary approaches are encouraged – the paper must give substantial attention to Twain.

Osgood Perkins is emerging as one of the most significant directors of horror in the 21st century. His films are wildly diverse and have elicited an equally wild diversity of response from viewers and critics. Perkins has thought a lot about horror, has frequently spoken about its larger meanings in interviews, and is committed to its centrality as a genre – something he articulates in this 2025 conversation with Interview Magazine: