american

The emergence of modern documentary poetics is often attributed to twentieth-century writers who were interested in redefining the purpose and limits of artistic expression, a redefinition that occurred in the context of labor exploitation, racial violence, and ethnic cleansing. This panel asks participants to consider the nineteenth-century precursors of modern documentary literature. How and to what ends do documents and literature intersect throughout the long nineteenth century? What constitutes a document and how might this definition enable new ways of interrogating issues of race, gender, class, indigeneity, and ethnicity? What formal features and aesthetic innovations emerge during the nineteenth century?

The Kay Boyle Society is calling for proposals for an open panel or roundtable at the American Literature Association conference on May 21-24, 2025 in Boston at the Westin Copley Place hotel. We are looking for papers on any aspect of Kay Boyle’s work in prose or poetry. Topics could include (but are by no means limited to) Boyle and other writers and artists, transatlantic modernisms, literary and print cultures, racial and social justice, ageing, war and exile, approaches to Boyle’s letters, and teaching Boyle.

If interested, please email a proposed title and abstract of approximately 200 words by January 20th to anne.reynes@univ-amu.fr

American Literature Association
36th Annual Conference
May 21-24, 2025
Boston, MA

The American Religion and Literature Society welcomes proposals for one guaranteed, open-topic panel at the forthcoming American Literature Association Conference.

We invite presentations on any topic related to the intersection of religion and literature. Papers on any time period, genre, and religious tradition are welcome.  

Please submit a one-page abstract to andrew_ball@emerson.edu by January 20.

Call for Participation:

Visual Culture Papers

American Studies Association (ASA)

November 20-23, 2025 | San Juan, Puerto Rico

**As the ASA has extended the deadline for its general CFP, the Visual Culture Caucus is also extending its call until January 24.**

This year the Latina/o/x Literature & Culture Society welcomes submissions focusing on diverse topics including literary genre, single authors, children’s literature, speculative fiction, comparative analyses, as well as cultural studies approaches. The society also encourages a variety of theoretical and interdisciplinary prisms, and a variety of panel types, including traditional paper sessions, roundtable discussions, and sessions dedicated to the teaching of Latina/o/x literature and culture.

Deadline Extended to Friday, January 17, 2025

The George Saunders Society invites prospective participants for one or two panels at the 2025 American Literature Association conference in Boston, MA, to be held May 21 to 25, 2025. We are interested in presentations on any aspect of George Saunders’s life and work; in this, our fifth year of activity at ALA (returning after an absence in 2024!), we continue to be interested in papers that challenge, complicate, or go beyond the most common (particularly religious, ethical, or new sincerest) readings of the author’s work in the critical literature to this point. The topic is therefore open, but possible approaches might include:

CFP: MEDIA REVIEWERS and SCHOLARLY ARTICLES – MIDDLE WEST REVIEW

Middle West Review (MWR) is a peer-reviewed, interdisciplinary journal that examines the American Midwest. The journal is published biannually by the University of Nebraska Press.

MWR is seeking scholars to review media texts that engage with midwestern identity, history, and/or culture. From popular films and television series to online exhibitions and digital archives, MWR spotlights Midwest-oriented media texts in each issue.

2025 SSAWW Conference
Nov. 6-9 Philadelphia, PA
Roundtable CFP: American Women Writers and the Civic Humanities

CFP: 

We are seeking participants for a roundtable for the American Literature Association’s 2025 Conference in Boston, Massachusetts, May 21-24, 2025. This roundtable aims to further our understanding of the Federal Writers’ Project’s (FWP) literary legacy. 

American Literature Association
36th Annual Conference
May 21-24, 2025
Boston, MA

The Postwar Area Literature Group invites submissions on the following postwar and contemporary topics for the 2025 American Literature Association Conference, which will be held in Boston, MA from May 21-24, 2025 (information about the annual conference can be found at the ALA conference page website). The Postwar Literature Group has three guaranteed panels this year, two in postwar studies and one in contemporary studies. Please review our calls for papers below, and email Jacqueline.Foertsch@unt.edu with any questions.

CFP for ALA 2025 Panel

In the 2005 article, “A Narrative of the Interesting Origins and (Somewhat) Surprising Developments of African-American Print Culture,” Frances Smith Foster observed that “the definitions and assumptions with which one begins have a significant influence upon the story one finds” (735).

The E. E. Cummings Society will sponsor two sessions at the 2025 American Literature Association conference in Boston [ https://americanliteratureassociation.org/ ]. We invite proposals for papers on any aspect of Cummings’ life and/or work. Proposals that touch upon the following topics will be especially welcome:

Readers Needed for “Author Meets Readers” Roundtable

American Studies Association Conference

November 20th-23rd

San Juan, Puerto Rico

Email me if you’re interested in discussing my forthcoming book, That Book is Dangerous!: How Moral Panic, Social Media, and the Culture Wars Are Remaking Publishing. It will be published by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press and distributed by Penguin Random House on August 12th, 2025. I will send you an advance reader copy in March. 

Please email me by January 31st  if you’re interested.

de genere - Journal of literary, postcolonial and gender studies

Special issue: 

Gender and Work in Literature and the Arts at the Turn of the 20th Century: A Theoretical and Historical Inquiry

Editors for this issue: Federico Bellini (Catholic University of Milan), Lisa Marchi (University of Trento)