theory

This seminar is about wonder. Specifically, we want to explore how wonder might enliven and invigorate our profession in a time of many pressures, if not crises, in higher education. Why wonder? From the ancients, who claimed that philosophy begins in wonder, to contemporary philosophers like William Desmond, who articulates wonder as a primal experience of “astonishment at the too-muchness of being,” wonder has been identified as a starting point from which to think, and therefore—as we might more closely consider—read, write, and teach. 

In her resolute commitment to telling stories about Black life without the white gaze, Toni Morrison articulated a model of community empowerment grounded in local knowledge, intra-communal collaboration, and the self-reflexive narration of Black worlds. While Morrison remains one of the most visible public advocates of this aesthetic and ethical orientation, practices of Black worldmaking across African and diasporic literatures have long exceeded mere response to anti-Blackness. Even under conditions structured by racial violence, coloniality, displacement, and social rupture, Black communities have continually generated modes of life, relation, memory, and imagination that assert the possibility of worlds otherwise.

(ONE WEEK LEFT) The 98th annual SAMLA Conference is taking place Thursday, November, 5, through Saturday, November, 7, 2026, at the Wyndham Atlanta Buckhead Hotel & Conference Center in Atlanta, GA.  For more information, see https://southatlanticmla.org/.

I am proposing two "Just In Time" sessions at the MLA Convention (January, Los Angeles) on reparations for empire. They are prompted by the passing of UN Resolution A/80/L.48 at the end of March. JIT session proposals can't be submitted until September, and I believe we hear in early November if the session is accepted and added to the convention program, or not. Also, you need to be a member of MLA to present.

Originally coined by David P. Barash and Judith Even Lipton in their 2001 book The Myth of Monogamy: Fidelity and Infidelity in Animals and People, “the myth of monogamy” is defined as “the often unspoken assertion that even desire-at-a-distance is not only wrong, but a uniquely human sin.” This roundtable builds on this definition and suggests that in 2026, the “myth of monogamy” also refers more broadly to the pervasive (and socially constructed) idea that monogamy is biologically natural and socially superior.

Article Collection: Writing in A Cage: Creativity Under Structural, Political, Religious Constraints

Journal: Cogent Arts & Humanities

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Article Collection Guest Advisor: Dr. Natalia Morzhenkova, Huaqiao University (China)

Natalia.morzhenkova@gmail.com

Manuscript Submission Deadline: April 9, 2027

PCA/ACA Fat Studies 2027 Call for Papers/Presentations/Panels

Deadline: 10.31.26

PCA Fat Studies Area Call for Papers

Attention all Fat Studies academics, activists, and artists: Please join other Fat Studies scholars for the 2027 PCA/ACA National Conference in Boston, Massachusetts from March 24-27, 2027. Presenters must become members of the Popular Culture Association. Find more information on the conference and organization at https://sites.google.com/view/2026pcaconference/home.

This seminar convenes Cuban, Mexican, and U.S. Gulf South scholars to theorize the Gulf of Mexico as a transnational zone of ecological entanglement, rather than a set of discrete national environments. Although the Gulf’s waters, storms, labor histories, and extractive infrastructures circulate across borders, scholarship often remains siloed within national or linguistic frames. This seminar asks how environmental humanities approaches might illuminate the Gulf as a shared, relational ecology shaped by movement, sedimentation, and uneven histories of extraction.

Mirrors of Desire: Ekphrasis & Mise en Abyme in Literature, Music & the Visual Arts 

This seminar invites papers that explore the concepts of ekphrasis, the mise en abyme, and metaphorical mirrors in literature, music, and the visual arts. How are mirrors used by artists as deliberate tools to represent something else? How are metaphorical mirrors used to compare different types of reflections across mediums? How are mirrors used to suggest that the aesthetic “surface” is a distraction, and true clarity lies in understanding what the observer or listener wants to see or hear? Papers focused on one medium or interdisciplinary approaches from the Ancient, Medieval, Modern, and Postmodern periods are welcome.

American Comparative Literature Association  IN-PERSON 2027 Annual Meeting (May 20-23, 2027), Houston, Texas

Organizers: Dr. Julia Chan (Lingnan University)

Fatma Betul Ciftci (Lingnan University)

One is not born a monster; the monster is produced. From Beowulf to Ruthven to Dracula to cyborgs, ‘monster’ is a cultural construction, a humanly-produced non-human. This seminar invites scholars to discuss the monster both as a literary figure and as the representation and construction of a cultural and political identity. Through this, it aims to explore the question of where, why, and how monsters are produced, and what these monsterized creatures "show" about the communities that "produce" them. 

This MLA just-in-time panel explores the evolving status of non-binariness in trans studies and beyond. Following Marquis Bey’s Nonbinary Life, we ask: Is non-binariness an emancipatory narrative? What are its critical potentialities and limitations? Send 150-200 word abstracts + bio to m.stekl@colostate.edu by 8/21. (The MLA will take place in Los Angeles from 7 to 10 January 2027.)