renaissance

CFP: MW/SWCCL, “Taking Care”

Midwest/Southwest Conference on Christianity and Literature

College of the Ozarks
Point Lookout, Missouri
September 25-26, 2026

UVA Wise Medieval-Renaissance Conference XXXIX
Undergraduate Sessions
The University of Virginia’s College at Wise
September 17-19, 2026

Keynote Address:  
“Arthur's Great Death in Malory and its Afterlives”
Karen Cherewatuk, Saint Olaf College

MMLA 2026 Convention Theme: "After the Archive"  (https://mmla.memberclicks.net/call-for-papers)Meeting Dates: 12-14 November 2026Meeting Location: voco Chicago Downtown (350 W Wolf Point Plaza)

Presentation Length: 15 Minutes (7-8 Double-Spaced Pages)
Submission Materials: 250-Word Abstract and CV
Submission Deadline: April 25, 2026

In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the players come with their own requests (“Write me a prologue”, Botttom asks), in a hilarious example of group-working. In Hamlet, as the Prince of Denmark gets ready to take action, one of his first decisions is to appoint himself as co-writer of The Murder of Gonzago: “You could, for a need, study a speech of some dozen or sixteen lines which I would set down and insert in’t, could you not?” (2.2.5.528-30). Both examples show the nuts and bolts of early modern stage practice, in which co-writing was commonplace. 

The session “Women in Literature” includes papers dealing with any aspect of women in literature or literature by women. The session may contain essays on a wide variety of topics related to literature by and about women, including essays engaging with a wide variety of critical or theoretical approaches. Presentations might include consideration of women/women writers in terms of gender, race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, and geographical region. Papers may engage with the conference theme, “Our Ruling Classes: Culture, Power, Conflict," but doing so is not required. Additional topics might include:

Cunterbury is a scholarly arts & comedy podcast hosted by three Gen Z academics — A.J. Scott, Alice Fulmer-Zelinka and Shannen Escote — exploring the major works of Geoffrey Chaucer and friends, starting with The Canterbury Tales. In our first season, we are providing witty commentary and voices to discuss the Tales and their pilgrims like you’ve never heard them before. 

About Time: Temporality in Theatre and Drama

Special Section of Skenè. Journal of Theatre and Drama Studies 12.2 (Dec 2026)

(https://skenejournal.skeneproject.it/index.php/JTDS)

Edited by Alessandro Grilli – Università di Pisa – alessandro.grilli@unipi.it

This panel seeks papers that explore the early modern relationship between loss and melancholy for the Sixteenth Century Society Conference to be held in Chicago, 29-31 October 2026. In his Anatomy of Melancholy (1621), Robert Burton writes, “Now go and brag of thy present happiness… thou seest in what a brittle state thou art, how soon thou mayst be dejected… by bad diet, bad air, a small loss, a little sorrow or discontent.” Bereavement permeates the early modern landscape, appearing in paintings, prints, poems, plays, ego documents, and legal testimony, among many other sources. It may involve the loss of love, friends, honor, possessions, homeland, freedom, political stability, or even religious conviction.

International Conference

VASSALS AND LORDS. CHRISTIANS, MUSLIMS, AND JEWS

IN THE WESTERN MEDITERRANEAN (13TH-15TH CENTURIES)

October 26-28, 2026

Faculty of Geography and History, UNED

Madrid (Spain)

The nature of free speech has been a flashpoint in the past decade of contemporary Anglo-American and Western politics. Depending on who you ask, free speech is imperiled by politically correct language and the silencing of right-leaning voices among the elite, or by political administrations, corporations, and other institutions that remove books from libraries and syllabi from classrooms. As these principles collide, the dialectic between freedom of expression and institutional censorship reaches a crucible—a volatile tension that distills our understanding of these core principles.  

The Milton Society of America invites proposals for 15-minute papers for one or more sessions at the 2027 MLA Convention in Los Angeles. Papers on any aspect of Milton’s works, historical milieu, sources, and reception and comparative approaches are welcome. Send 150-word abstracts and 50-word biographical statements to Marissa Greenberg, MSA Secretary, at MiltonSocietySec@gmail.com  by Monday, 16 March 2026.

Description: The session is currently accepting submissions for papers on all topics related to Shakespeare. Submissions from Ph.D. candidates and early career scholars are especially encouraged.

NOTE: This call is for papers to be presented at the conference.

Please direct your brief abstract (less than 250 words) and/or any questions to Jennifer Topale at rmmla2026proposals@gmail.com. Abstracts are due by 1 April 2026.

Boccaccio Beyond Boccaccio: Reception, Adaptation, and Afterlives from the Seventeenth to the Nineteenth Century

Panel Co-Sponsored by the Forum on 17th-, 18th-, and 19th-Century Italian Studies and the American Boccaccio Association

Call for Chapters

Evident Tongues, Evident Bodies: Language, Sense, and Proof in the Early Modern World

Editors: Dr Mary Katherine Newman and Dr Rana Banna

What counted as evidence in the early modern world? 

How did language itself – spoken, written, translated, or performed – shape conceptions of proof? 

And how did sensory experience lend authority, or uncertainty, to what language claimed as true?