modernist studies

T.S. Eliot called Ulysses ‘the most important expression which the present age has found; … a book to which we are all indebted, and from which none of us can escape.’’ Indeed, after a century it is a book which is still read, discussed, translated, researched and which influences not only writers, but painters, musicians, philosophers, photographers, film directors.

We invite scholars and students from various fields to send proposals for a 15-minute paper with a creative approach towards any aspect of Joyce’s works.

Topics include, but are not limited to:

Two-day symposium of the American Studies division at Leibniz University of Hannover, 22 & 23 September, 2022

Online Conference: Women and Comedy 1890 - 1950

(Sponsored by the International Conference of The Elizabeth von Arnim Society)

17th- 18th September 2022

Having accepted papers on a range of fascinating writers and topics, we have responded to feedback from international participants and have decided to convert this conference from a face-to-face event in Cambridge to a fully-online event.

As a result, we’re delighted to open the conference to those who were unable to join us in person but are interested in participating online, via this supplementary call for papers.

We are seeking additional participants for a panel examining the question of love in Joyce’s works for XXVIII International James Joyce symposium Dublin (“JAMES JOYCE: ULYSSES 1922–2022”), this year.

The conference focuses on Ulysses. But papers do not have to focus on Ulysses and reflections on love in Joyce's other works are more than welcome too.

Please submit a 250-word abstract that includes the speaker’s name and academic affiliation (if applicable) alongside the paper title to both Gaurav Majumdar (majumdg@whitman.edu) and Benjamin Boysen (benjamin.boysen@outlook.dk) before March 15, 2022.

MFS is currently looking for potential book reviewers. Below is a list of some of our current books received. If you are interested in writing a review for us, please send an email containing the title of the book you would like to review and a short CV to mfs@purdue.edu. We will consider requests from doctoral students who are ABD. Also, please explain any personal or professional relationship you have with the author of the book. 

Current List of Books Received

Lindsay Thomas, Training for Catastrophe: Fictions of National Security after 9/11 (Minnesota 2021)

Al Filreis, 1960: When Art and Literature Confronted the Memory of World War II and Remade the Modern (Columbia 2021)

Modernity is a cracked looking-glass, a double-edged sword. Michel Foucault describes modernity as a period acutely aware of itself as modern, determinedly engaged in reflecting on what it means to be of the moment, and self-consciously focused on presenting itself as new. But as Kirby Brown (Cherokee Nation) reminds us, formulations of the modern are equally formulations of the non-modern, since there is ‘no civilization without the savage, no modernity without the primitive, no modernism without tradition (or convention), no modern subject without its cultural, racial, temporal, geographic, and historical Other.

Two years ago, soon after the first wave of pandemic-related closures, Laura Hartmann-Villalta and Emily C. Bloom organized a discussion on “Precarity, Caregiving, and Covid” at the MLA’s first virtual conference. It offered an opportunity for scholars from a range of academic positions to discuss the personal impact of Covid on their lives and careers.

The Golden Age of Crime: A Reappraisal

22nd – 23rd of June 2022 at Bournemouth University

The Golden Age of crime fiction, roughly defined as puzzle-based mystery fiction produced between the First and Second World Wars, is enjoying a renaissance both in the literary marketplace and in scholarship. This conference intervenes in emerging academic debates to define and negotiate the boundaries of Golden Age scholarship. 

. HERA invites research, papers, panels, and presentations embracing inclusivity in all aspects of the human conditions––including, but not limited to, race, class, gender, sexuality, age, veteran status, ability, power, ecology, sustainability. We encourage a wide and extensive representation of disciplines and interdisciplinary projects. Every field in the humanities, liberal & creative arts, and social sciences is appropriate. Our goal is to foster the sharing and expressing of the humanities as an urgently important human enterprise––helping to clarify the crucial immediacy of the humanities and why they should be encouraged, supported, and sustained.

The John Dos Passos Society invites paper proposals for one or two open-topic panels at the American Literature Association conference, to be held in Chicago on May 26-29, 2022.

As such, we invite proposals for papers on any aspect of Dos Passos’s life or work.

For consideration, please submit a 300-word abstract and a brief bio in Word or PDF format to jdpsociety@gmail.com by January 29, 2022. Be sure to also note any A/V requirements.

The E. E. Cummings Society invites proposals for two panels at the American Literature Association conference, to be held at the Palmer House Hilton, Chicago on May 26-29, 2022.

Panel 1: Cummings and Transcendence

In 1960, Norman Friedman declared that Cummings’ “philosophy of life” was “transcendental, romantic, prelapsarian, organicist, and individualistic. The same is publicly available in the writings of many others, such as Emerson, Whitman, Thoreau, and Emily Dickinson” (Art 66). We seek papers examining, critiquing, clarifying, or complicating these assertions through a close reading of any Cummings work(s).

Deadline Extended to January 23!

Thoreau  and Frost Societies: ALA Proposals 2022

The Robert Frost Society the Thoreau Society are pleased to sponsor these two joint sessions at the upcoming ALA Conference in Chicago, May 26-29, 2022. (https://americanliteratureassociation.org/).

Panel Session:

In Episode 9 of James Joyce's Ulysses, “Scylla and Charybdis,” Stephen Dedalus develops a theory about the origins of Shakespeare’s works that is both original and controversial. It is in the National Library of Ireland that Dedalus, in a wild and winding conversation, develops his ‘Hamlet theory’. The episode stages the strong and sometimes comic appeal of a biographical approach to Shakespeare’s works and, at the same time, casts Dedalus – Joyce’s alter ego – variously as Hamlet, Hamlet’s father, Shakespeare, and as a modern-day Ulysses.

The Henry James Society

American Literature Association

33rd Annual Conference

Chicago

26-29 May 2022

Call for Papers

The Futures of Henry James