gender studies and sexuality

MELUS 2026

Austin, Texas

Women of Color Caucus (WOCC)

Conference Dates: Thursday, April 30 – Saturday, May 2, 2026

Equity and Ethics in Digital Spaces and AI (WOCC roundtable)

Why does it seem so productive today to be simultaneously the subject and object of one’s writing? This workshop starts from the premise that certain writing and artistic practices position the theorizing self as a mediator between the subject and larger scales of social organization.

Editors: Federico Bertoni (University of Bologna), Gabriele D’Amato (University of L’Aquila and Ghent University), Luca Diani (University of L’Aquila), Massimo Fusillo (Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa)

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

 SDSU Press Presents

[caption] the journal of visual cultural studies

Issue 001 – “CAPTION THIS”

[caption] emerges from the collision of theory and spectacle. Annual, audacious, and gloriously hybrid, the journal stages encounters between scholarship and image-making—where Arbus’s restless gaze meets the ghosts of Benjamin, Mulvey, and Stuart Hall. We publish work that refuses to choose between seeing and thinking, between the archive and the avant-garde. 

Call for Papers 2026

Deadline: February 28th 2026

Theme: Gender and Supernatural

“You should be women, And yet your beards forbid me to interpret That you are so.” Macbeth 1.3.46-47

The upcoming 34th Conference of the Association for Gender and Sexuality Studies (AEGS) will take place at the University of Oviedofrom May 20th and 22nd, 2026. It will be hosted by the Institute of Gender and Diversity (IUGEN-DIV), the INTERSECTIONS research group (Contemporary Literatures, Cultures, and Theories), and the Department of English, French, and German.

CALL FOR PAPERS: VOICES

Representation, Recognition, Resistance

Neither ‘queer’ nor ‘beginnings’ are easy to pin down. Queerness is infamous for its ability to slip away from definition; it encompasses – but is not reducible to – sexuality, gender, race, ability, class, politics, and more. Beginnings, too, wriggle from our grasp. Choose a beginning for any historical event, movement, or narrative and there is always something which precedes it. Are beginnings focused into an inciting event, or do they reside in the feelings which precipitate such events? Who gets to decide?

Science Fiction & Fantasy (SFF) continue to offer new ways of considering the relationships between gender and genre. This conference is interested in how women – writers, characters, fans – use, negotiate, and operate in SFF.

We are particularly interested in papers that have an interdisciplinary and/or creative focus. We welcome papers which consider how this operates across multiple forms, including text, film, TV and videogames.

This conference is open to students and researchers at any stage of their career.

The Charlotte Perkins Gilman Society will host two panels at the 37th Annual American Literature Association Conference, May 20-23, 2026 in Chicago. We invite proposals for presentations on any aspect of Gilman’s life and work.

Possible topics include but are by no means limited to:

• Gilman and the Female Gothic

• Gilman and Xenofeminism

• Gilman and First Wave Feminism

• Gilman and Medicine / the Health Humanities

• Gilman and Utopianism

• Gilman and Evolutionary Science

• Gilman and Religion

• Gilman and Queer Culture

MICHIGAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCE, ARTS & LETTERS 614 Superior Street, Alma College, Alma, MI 48801 - Fax: 989-463-7970 - michiganacademy@alma.edu Call for Papers Women's & Gender Studies 

INVITATION 2026 conference: Friday, March 27, 2026, virtual conference held via Zoom.

You are invited to submit a 200-word abstract of the paper you wish to present at the conference.

PROCEDURES  Abstract submission deadline is 1/23/26.

Presentations are up to 20 minutes each, followed by discussion.

Undergraduates may present faculty co-authored or sponsored papers (section leaders may require proof that paper/research was reviewed by a faculty sponsor).

Queer Ecologies Across Socialisms 

15-16 October 2026

University of Regensburg, October 15-16, 2026 | CfP deadline: Feb 15, 2026
Organizers: Martyna Miernecka, Paweł Matusz

In literary and arts research on socialist worlds, both queer studies and environmental histories have been expanding – yet we still lack approaches that would systematically integrate these strands across global state socialisms. This conference responds to that gap by inviting work that reads queer practices alongside institutional and environmental policies and traces the queer ecological impulses emerging from socialist contexts across the globe.

Call for Papers: Perspectives on Netflix’s Ripley

I am pleased to announce a call for papers for the first edited volume devoted to the Netflix limited series Ripley (Zaillian, 2024). Perspectives on Netflix’s Ripley seeks to explore the myriad ways in which this striking adaptation reimagines Patricia Highsmith’s iconic character for a new era of streaming television. I invite proposals from scholars, practitioners, and critics whose work engages with adaptation, media studies, sexuality, and screen cultures.

About the Volume