professional topics

 Call for Papers

Fan Studies Network North America Virtual Conference 2020

October 13-17, 2020

For this year, we have decided to host the virtual-only Fan Studies Network North America over five days in October to encourage participation and access, and to limit Zoom mental overload. The conference will combine synchronous and asynchronous conversations. Rather than traditional papers, we will have virtual workshops, salons, and posters.

This session invites those who have experience in research, course development and/or teaching with partners from another discipline to share how to (and perhaps how not to!) build and sustain those relationships. We are interested in hearing about triumphs as well as learning from less successful attempts. The organizers (a mathematician and a humanist) will discuss their own roller coaster experiences co-leading Humanistic STEM, a major, highly interdisciplinary, project at their university and invite participants to share their own stories.

Full Abstract of Panel:  “Solidarity”, an abstract, almost unattainable ideal in higher education, often parades around as a tangible intention, as if it were an easily attainable concept. Wear a solidarity pin! Put a union sticker on your car! John W. Curtis, Director of Research and Public Policy for the American Association of University Professors, states that, “Change does require commitment and shared activism." This panel aims to explore tangible strategies at achieving and fostering solidarity and to offer insight into what commitment to shared activism could potentially look like, particularly in representing women’s, gender, and LGBTQ experiences.

The onset of the Covid-19 pandemic has dramatically if not irrevocably altered our world in ways that we are only now beginning to realize. Academia has been one of the areas profoundly impacted by this global disaster. Hiring freezes instituted at universities, structural retrenchment, and newly arisen budget crunches have ensured that the academic job market will be beset by uncertainty for the foreseeable future. Even before the onset of this crisis, the academic job market was precarious at best and non-existent at worst.

Building off GSC’s successful 2019 session, “Bridging the Praxis Gap,” which largely addressed pedagogical issues, this session aims to address an even wider variety of gaps in what is taught in graduate school and the critical skills needed to survive in academia and professional life beyond. We are particularly interested in ways to bridge traditional notions of graduate school with active leadership training frameworks that seek to develop engaged graduate students who could take the reins and influence positive change in various contexts in and out of academia.

One immediate side-effect of the current ominous economic climate and general uncertainty of our times has been a downturn in traditional publishing. Even before the COVID-19 crisis, consolidation of publishing houses, the closure of brick-and-mortar bookshops, and the supremacy of Amazon had begun to permanently alter the way creative writing is published. At the same time, creative content on the internet has never been so abundant, with poetry, film, and fiction being shared and streamed in ways that create a flourishing if generally nonremunerative cultural climate. This panel looks at options available to creative writers in the wake of the decline of traditional publishing options.

This roundtable at NeMLA (Northeast MLA, Philadelphia 2021) will explore humanities courses that incorporate service learning as a way to respond to climate change. Given the exigency of global warming and the stress it places on our local communities, it becomes increasingly vital to leverage the humanities through focused civic engagement.

Submissions Information: We seek papers for a panel titled "Critical Approaches to Tradition and Innovation in Graduate Humanities Education" to be held at the Northeast Modern Language Association's 52nd annual convention in Philadelphia, PA, March 11-14, 2021. Please submit abstracts of 300 words here: https://www.cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/18735. For questions or concerns, please contact Jo Grim at jcg314@lehigh.edu or Sam Sorensen at sms416@lehigh.edu. We look forward to reviewing your proposals!  

52nd Northeast Modern Language Association Convention

March 11-14, 2021 / Philadelphia, PA

52nd Annual Northeast Modern Language Association Convention

March 11-14, 2021

Philadelphia, PA

South Atlantic Modern Language Association conference, November 13-15, 2020, Jacksonville, Florida

The World of Alt-Ac

This session of SAMLA 92 invites proposals for a roundtable discussion about Alt-Ac (Alternative-Academic) careers, preparation, and mentorship opportunities. The goal is to provide SAMLA attendees with practical information about transitioning to Alt-Ac work. Anyone with a doctorate working in a career outside of academia or within the academy and not teaching is encouraged to apply. By June 25, 2020, please send a CV and a brief description of how you would contribute to the discussion to Dr. Trisha Kannan at tk1139@gmail.com.

Session proposals due by new extended deadline, Friday, May 8, 2020, at cfplist.com/nemla. For more information, please visit buffalo.edu/nemla/convention/session or email support@nemla.org. NeMLA's 52nd Annual Convention is slated to take place March 11 to 14, 2021, and we hope that by then we will all be able to participate in our friendly convention in beautiful Philadelphia, the "Birthplace of America," steps from Independence Hall. Circumstances permitting, important work awaits us in re-shaping the humanities for ourselves, our constituents, and our broader communities.

Extended Deadline Granted: Call for Proposals, SCMLA, Professional Writing Panel    

Accepting professional writing proposals/abstracts for the extended deadline of April 30, 2020 at 11:59 PM central-eastern time. Call for Proposals are with the South Central Modern Language Association. Conference held in Philadelphia October 2020, pending date change as needed due to COVAID-19. Please email proposals to the Chair of the Professional Writing Panel, Julie Garza-Horne, at jhorne@tamug.edu.