general announcements

Special Session Title: Anglophone Ottoman/Turkish Writers from the Ottoman Empire to Contemporary Turkey (Online Session)

The Sally Mitchell Dissertation Prize is awarded annually to the best Ph.D. dissertation, defended in the previous calendar year, that explores the British periodical press of the long nineteenth century (including magazines, newspapers, and serial publications of all kinds) as an object of study in its own right, not as a source of material for other historical topics. Winners of the prize receive a monetary award of $1,000 and a two-year membership to RSVP.

C21 is inviting scholars and researchers to contribute book review essays for upcoming issues. We currently have a selection of titles published in 2025 available for review, spanning literary studies, film and media studies, cultural studies, and gender and sexuality studies. We invite prospective authors to submit ideas for review essays that discuss 2–3 recently published scholarly texts. For the full CFP, and to see our list of available titles, please visit: https://c21.openlibhums.org/news/923/.

We are delighted to announce the return of the Raymond Williams Society postgraduate essay competition for its 12th year. The deadline for entries is Friday 3 April 2026.

The prize for the winning entry is £250 and a year’s subscription to the Society. The winning essay will be considered for publication in the academic journal Key Words: A Journal of Cultural Materialism (subject to peer review). The competition aims to encourage a new generation of scholars working in the tradition of cultural materialism, especially those whose research is rooted in the work of Raymond Williams.

Call for Papers

University of Delaware’s 5th CMCS Conference in Material Culture

April 2-3, 2027

                                        “What’s the Matter with Description? Form, Practice, and Material Culture”

Keynote Speaker

SUSAN STEWART

(Princeton University)

Journal of Anime and Manga Studies (JAMS) - Volume 7

Volume to be published in December of 2026

The Journal of Anime and Manga Studies (JAMS) is excited to announce the call for papers for our seventh volume, to be published December 2026.

The Journal of Anime and Manga Studies is a peer reviewed, open-access journal published by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. JAMS is dedicated to publishing scholarly works exploring anime, manga, and a broad range of related topics, such as methodologies, cosplay, fandoms, adaptations, and more. As an open-access journal, JAMS aims to reach a broad-ranging audience of scholars (both within and beyond the academy) and interested general readers.

Concept Note

Call for Proposals
MLA 2027 (Los Angeles)
Special Session

We are proposing a special session for the 2027 MLA Convention in Los Angeles on "Edited Collections: Tips and Tricks to Successful Publishing." This special session will be a roundtable featuring six presenters with the following format: 

Stories and histories of power, 24-25 Septembre 2026.

 Confirmed Keynote speaker : Peter Boxall

Based on the premise that any account is the result of a re-ordered selection in facts which is the mark of the power of the author and/or the institution or cultural group they stand for., this conference will examine factual and fictional narratives of power in the English-speaking world.

In athletics, athletes are often described as ‘throwing down the gauntlet’ when they record a particularly impressive jump, race, throw, indicating a raise in the competition stakes, a nod to their fellow competitors that they are the champion to beat. In the 2001 movie A Knight’s Tale, jousting enthusiasts are depicted like modern day sports fans, with Ulrich’s friends even singing a football chant in the pub. 

LORETO COLLEGE, KOLKATA
Call for Book Chapters

Theme: Marginalized Identities: Dimensions, Perspectives and Problems

The Research and Development Cell of Loreto College is pleased to announce a call for chapter contributions for an upcoming book publication. The theme of the proposed volume is:

‘Marginalized Identities: Dimensions, Perspectives and Problems’

This publication aims to present interdisciplinary insights into the lived realities, challenges, and representations of marginalized identities across various contexts.

James Baldwin ends his “Open Letter to My Sister, Angela Y. Davis” about her imprisonment, the health of the country, and the responsibility of intellectuals, with the assertion that: 

If we know, and do nothing, we are worse than the murderers hired in our name. If we know, then we must fight for your life as though it were our own—which it is—and render impassable with our bodies the corridor to the gas chamber. For, if they take you in the morning, they will be coming for us that night.

How might scholarship today render such corridors impassable? What is our responsibility, and what are we willing to risk? 

Call for Expressions of Interest: Book Reviews Editor for The London Journal

The London Journal is seeking expressions of interest for the role of Joint Book Reviews Editor.

This role will cover the period from roughly 1800 to the present, joining Kirstin Barnard, who covers the medieval and early modern periods. The Book Reviews Editors are full members of the Editorial Board.

The history of work and labour has long occupied a central place within European social history, offering a key lens through which to examine social relations, hierarchies, forms of power, and economic formations across the longue durée. Rather than approaching work solely as an economic function, historical scholarship has increasingly foregrounded work as a lived social experience –one that has shaped identities, values, and modes of belonging.