american

During a 1969 conversation with Simon Karlinsky, Vladimir Nabokov stated that to write "about Pushkin and also about me" one had to know French literature. Hosted by the French Studies Department of Cornell University, this conference aims to look at Nabokov through a transnational and transcultural lens. Cornell University is a particularly fitting location for such a conference given that Nabokov lectured there not only on Flaubert and Proust, but also on Austen, Kafka, Dickens, Stevenson, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Gogol, and others.

American Literature Association
35th Annual Conference
May 23-26, 2024
Chicago, IL

We welcome proposals on current debates regarding Asian American literature. Our aim is to provide a forum for new and innovative work in Asian American literary studies.

Please email your proposal (max. 250 words) and a brief CV (max. 1-page) to Timothy K. August at timothy.august@stonybrook.edu by January 23rd, 2024. Please be sure to mention any technological needs for your presentation.

Applications are now open for participation in the Thomas R. Watson Conference in Rhetoric and Composition, which will be held from Feb. 28-Mar. 1 (Zoom) and Mar. 7-9 (in-person and hybrid). Titled “Create, Connect, Reflect: Launching Collaborations and (Re)building Community in Our Fields,” the conference will be devoted to launching a number of collaborative projects—from book proposals to a multi-institutional study, from teaching and learning resources to an app—and more. 

The Margaret Fuller Society will sponsor two panels on relationality at the 35th Annual Conference of the American Literature Association, to be held 23–26 May 2024 at The Palmer House Hilton in Chicago. Please help circulate our CFPs far and wide across your circles of shared interest.

Send 250-word proposals (indicating AV needs) that respond to the calls below, along with brief biographical statements, to Jana Argersinger, 1st Vice President, at argerj@gmail.com. Submissions from graduate students and folks in non-academic fields are very welcome.

One month left to submit!

CFP: Resourcing Love: Land Management in North American Literature and Culture

Chapter or Keyword Abstract due: April 1, 2024

Abstract length: 300-500 words

Named Time magazine’s ‘Person of the Year’ and Spotify’s ‘Artist of 2023,’ Taylor Swift has dominated the music scene with re-recordings, a global tour and billions of streams. Singer, songwriter, performer and film director, Swift has excelled across genres, categories and artistic mediums. Bringing together academics, students and ‘Swifties,’ this conference will consider Taylor Swift as a major feminist voice and performer in the 21st century. Coinciding with the European leg of ‘The Eras Tour,’ the conference will offer a space to explore Swift’s feminist Reputation.

Topics under consideration might explore (but are not limited to): 

The strings accentuating Norman Bates's stabbing of Marion Crane in Psycho (1960); the simple, albeit extremely effective two-note ostinato representing the shark in Jaws (1975); the sinister atmosphere established by Ennio Morricone's The Thing (1982) theme; the critique of pop music to the (diegetic) tune of Huey Lewis & The News' song "Hip To Be Square" in American Psycho (2000); the poignant use of Lynyrd Skynyrd's song "Free Bird" in the concluding scene of The Devil's Rejects (2005); the pieces of classical music accompanying Hannibal Lecter's preparation of dishes containing human ingredients in Hannibal (NBC, 2013–2015); sounds of chainsaws cutting off human limbs, alligator jaws snapping h

Jerome Charyn Anthology

Jerome Charyn is one of America’s most prolific and respected authors. He has written 50-plus works of fiction, nonfiction, essay collections, memoirs, and more. Charyn is widely celebrated in Europe (particularly France and Germany), including renown for writing award-winning graphic novels. Included in his oeuvre is the Isaac Sidel crime novels, which added a new dimension to the genre, and his recent historical fiction: Savage & Son, Big Red, Sergeant Salinger, and Cesare. 

DEADLINE REMINDER: *The deadline for submissions is December 15, 2023*

Call for Chapters

Narratives of Confinement in American Literature and Popular Culture

CALL FOR PAPERS

Flannery O’Connor Society

American Literature Association

2024 Annual Conference May 23-26, 2024
Palmer House Hilton | Chicago, IL

The Flannery O’Connor Society seeks proposals for three planned sessions at ALA 2024 in Chicago. See panel descriptions and submission details below under the appropriate headings.

The year 2024 will mark the centenary of William H. Gass (1924-2017), and a collection of essays examining the work of the influential author and educator will be published by Twelve Winters Press, edited by long-time Gass scholar Ted Morrissey. Gass -- who was born in Fargo, ND, grew up in Ohio, and taught primarily at Purdue University and Washington University in St. Louis, home of the William H. Gass papers -- is perhaps best known for his massive and controversial novel The Tunnel (1995), famously 26 years in the writing and winner of the American Book Award (1996).

The Kay Boyle Society (https://kbs.hypotheses.org/) invites proposals for papers to be presented at the 2024 American Literature Association in Chicago, IL, 23-26 May 2024.

The Kay Boyle Society invites proposals for papers examining any aspect of Kay Boyle’s life and work that provide fresh insights.

The relation between ethics and literature became a topic of intense academic debate at the end of the twentieth century—at a time, that is, when that relation was no longer self-evident after the challenges of postcolonial, feminist, and deconstructive critique. Humanist proponents of literature’s role as an empathy engine (Nussbaum, Rorty) entered into conversation with theorists who took inspiration from the work of Jacques Derrida and Emmanuel Levinas to valorize literature as a site of singular otherness—as an occasion of ethical encounter rather than moral instruction (Attridge, Eaglestone, Miller).