twentieth century and beyond

EXTENDED DEADLINE: Exploring artistic expression in the wake of 9.11, on the occasion of its twenty-fifth anniversary (PAMLA, seminar)

updated: 
Wednesday, July 8, 2026 - 11:22pm
Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association (PAMLA) (Annual Convention, 123rd, November 12-14, 2026, https://www.pamla.org)
deadline for submissions: 
Friday, July 25, 2025

A quarter century has elapsed since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, both the successful ones targeting the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and the unsuccessful one targeting the Capitol.

[NeMLA 2027 Panel] Kafka Studies

updated: 
Wednesday, July 8, 2026 - 11:37am
Northeast Modern Language Association
deadline for submissions: 
Wednesday, September 30, 2026

Conference Details

We are seeking papers for the "Kafka Studies" panel at the 57th annual Northeast Modern Language Association (NeMLA), which will be held between March 6-9 in Newport, RI. You can find more information about the event on NeMLA's website: https://www.nemla.org/convention.html

Modality

Hybrid: The session will be held in-person but a few remote presentations may be included.

Panel Abstract

Before the Renaissance: Hollywood Art Cinema Under the Studio System

updated: 
Wednesday, July 8, 2026 - 9:39am
Mark McKenna / University of Sheffield
deadline for submissions: 
Tuesday, September 1, 2026

At its most ambitious, the New Hollywood was a movement intended to cut film free of its evil twin, commerce, enabling it to fly high through the thin air of art. The filmmakers of the '70s hoped to overthrow the studio system, or at least render it irrelevant, by democratizing filmmaking, putting it into the hands of anyone with talent and determination.

Rethinking the Fantastic: Impossibility, Ontology, and Alternative Realities (NeMLA)

updated: 
Tuesday, July 7, 2026 - 3:12pm
58th NeMLA Convention
deadline for submissions: 
Wednesday, September 30, 2026

Call for Papers
NeMLA 2027 Annual Convention
Rethinking the Fantastic: Impossibility, Ontology, and Alternative Realities

What makes a text fantastic? While traditional definitions often emphasize the supernatural or the uncanny, many literary works generate the fantastic through impossibility itself. Impossible worlds, contradictory realities, unstable identities, infinite spaces, and paradoxical temporalities challenge readers' assumptions about reality and invite new ways of understanding existence.

Emancipatory Memoir: Yiyun Li's Things in Nature Merely Grow

updated: 
Tuesday, July 7, 2026 - 2:48pm
MLA Conference 2027 - Just in Time Session
deadline for submissions: 
Monday, August 17, 2026

Following Yiyun Li's May 2026 Pulitzer Prize win, this session is a critical reception of her memoir as an emancipatory narrative: a descriptive and agential act that represents the unrepresentable experience of maternal grief/trauma. Welcome papers that are interdisciplinary/inter-textual dealing with themes of maternal loss, grief, growth, birth/death, nature/unnatural, death by suicide. Mail 150-200 word abstracts to Dr. Anhiti Patnaik at apatnaik@cascadia.edu Submission Deadline:Monday, August 17, 2026Type:Just-in-Time Session, Modern Language Association Conference 2027Venue:Los Angeles

"Contemporaneities of Indigenous Poetry in the United States"

updated: 
Tuesday, July 7, 2026 - 10:53am
Transatlantica: American Studies Journal
deadline for submissions: 
Thursday, April 1, 2027

Special issue on the « Contemporaneities of Indigenous Poetry in the United States »

Edited by Aurore Clavier (U. Paris Cité), Mathilde Louette (U. Paris Cité) and Baptiste Rembert (Sorbonne U.)

 

ARGUMENT:

 

CFP for upcoming volume of Anglica Wratislaviensia

updated: 
Tuesday, July 7, 2026 - 7:03am
Anglica Wratislaviensia of University of Wrocław
deadline for submissions: 
Sunday, April 25, 2027

Anglica Wratislaviensia 65.2/2027

Anglica Wratislaviensia invites scholarly submissions for its forthcoming issue, which focuses on Anglophone literary and cultural studies and related interdisciplinary fields. While the journal's scope encompasses linguistics, translation studies, and language teaching methodology, this issue welcomes contributions in literary and cultural studies specifically. We seek rigorous, critically engaged work that brings together diverse critical traditions and perspectives from around the world. Comparative and methodologically innovative contributions are particularly welcome.

Submission Guidelines

Disability and Horror: A Companion

updated: 
Tuesday, July 7, 2026 - 6:31am
Michael Wheatley
deadline for submissions: 
Friday, July 31, 2026

Disability and Horror: A Companion

Call for Chapters

 

*** FINAL MONTH ***

OMNIALANG: International Journal of Language Continuum (Omnia-LC) Volume 1, Issue 2

updated: 
Monday, July 6, 2026 - 2:32pm
OMNIALANG: International Journal of Language Continuum (Omnia-LC)
deadline for submissions: 
Sunday, November 15, 2026

OMNIALANG: International Journal of Language Continuum (Omnia-LC) invites original, unpublished manuscripts for Volume 1, Issue 2.

Omnia-LC is an international, peer-reviewed, open-access journal dedicated to advancing interdisciplinary scholarship on language, literature, linguistics, translation, education, and related fields. The journal welcomes innovative theoretical, empirical, and methodological contributions that deepen our understanding of language and its diverse cultural, social, and literary contexts.

We welcome submissions in (but not limited to) the following areas:

Call to Host the 2027 Post45 Graduate Symposium

updated: 
Monday, July 6, 2026 - 12:46pm
Post45
deadline for submissions: 
Friday, July 24, 2026

We are pleased to announce an open call for bids to host the 2027 Post45 Graduate Symposium. The Post45 Graduate Symposium is a two-day event, typically held in Spring, which brings together graduate students and faculty members working on post-1945 arts, literature, media, and culture. Around fifteen graduate students each submit a work-in-progress and convene in a workshop-style setting along with faculty respondents to discuss each participant's work. 

The Ultimate Cell

updated: 
Sunday, July 5, 2026 - 11:19pm
The Samuel Beckett Society
deadline for submissions: 
Saturday, July 25, 2026

The Ultimate Cell in Samuel Beckett

Seminar: 28/11/2026

Abstract Deadline: 25/07/2026

- ‘I woke up in a bed, in my skin’ (Beckett 39).

The Invisible Labor of Women in Canon Formation

updated: 
Sunday, July 5, 2026 - 6:08pm
NeMLA
deadline for submissions: 
Wednesday, September 30, 2026

In keeping with the theme of Empowering Communities, this panel looks at the ways in which scholarship can make visible the previously obscured agency of women and other historically marginalized groups. Invisible labor is a concept frequently applied to the domestic sphere to describe the work women do to maintain households. In the literary world, too, women have shaped the canon in ways that have been overlooked.

Consuming Serialized Fiction in the US, from 1800 to Today

updated: 
Saturday, July 4, 2026 - 5:01pm
Amanda Louise Johnson / Pitzer College
deadline for submissions: 
Sunday, July 19, 2026

Panel topic: "Consuming Serialized Fiction in the US, from 1800 to today.”

Venue: American Literature Association Symposium, Santa Fe, NM; Nov. 5-7, 2026

Note: as indicated here, ALA does not require presenters to be paying members of the organization

Volume 19 of Katherine Mansfield Studies: Placing Katherine Mansfield

updated: 
Saturday, July 4, 2026 - 2:22pm
Katherine Mansfield Studies
deadline for submissions: 
Monday, August 31, 2026

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS FOR VOLUME 19 OF
Katherine Mansfield Studies
THE PEER-REVIEWED YEARBOOK OF THE KATHERINE MANSFIELD SOCIETY
PUBLISHED BY EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY PRESS
on the theme of
PLACING KATHERINE MANSFIELD

Editors
Dr Erika Baldt and Dr Gerri Kimber

Katherine Mansfield Society Essay Prize 2026: Placing Katherine Mansfield

updated: 
Saturday, July 4, 2026 - 2:21pm
Katherine Mansfield Studies
deadline for submissions: 
Monday, August 31, 2026

The Katherine Mansfield Society is pleased to announce its annual essay prize competition for 2026, open to all, on the subject of
Placing Katherine Mansfield

The winner will receive a cash prize of £200 and the winning essay will be considered for publication in Katherine Mansfield Studies, vol. 19 (2027), the peer-reviewed yearbook of the Katherine Mansfield Society, published by Edinburgh University Press.

The distinguished panel of judges will comprise:
PROFESSOR JANET M. WILSON
University of Northampton, UK
Chair of the Judging Panel
DR CHRIS MOURANT
University of Birmingham, UK
JOHN WOOD
Independent Scholar

Workshop: ‘The Cultural Imaginary of the Cambridge Spies’

updated: 
Saturday, July 4, 2026 - 4:14am
‘The Afterlives of the Cambridge Spies’ AHRC project
deadline for submissions: 
Tuesday, July 21, 2026

 

Workshop: ‘The Cultural Imaginary of the Cambridge Spies’

 

18 September 2026

The National Archives, Kew, London, UK

 

As part of the AHRC project ‘The Afterlives of the Cambridge Spies’ (2026-8), we will be holding a one-day workshop exploring the extensive cultural impacts of the Cambridge Spies. This will be an in-person event hosted by The National Archives, in Kew, London, on the day of 18th September 2026.

 

Litera: Journal of Language, Literature, and Culture Studies 37/1&2

updated: 
Friday, July 3, 2026 - 8:17am
Litera, Istanbul University Press
deadline for submissions: 
Monday, November 30, 2026

Call for Papers – Volume 37, Issue 1 & 2 (2027)

Dear Colleagues,

Litera: Journal of Language, Literature and Culture Studies – Dil, Edebiyat ve Kültür Araştırmaları Dergisi, the official publication of the Department of Western Languages and Literatures at Istanbul University, invites submissions for its 2027 issues (Volume 37, Issues 1 & 2).

Alizés n°47 Special Issue: "Discursive Resistance in Contemporary Anglophone Literature and Public Discourse"

updated: 
Friday, July 3, 2026 - 6:22am
Alizés (University of Reunion Island)
deadline for submissions: 
Tuesday, September 1, 2026

Call for Papers: Alizés 47 (2027)

Special issue edited by Talal Hochard (University of Reunion Island) and Zuzana Fonioková (Masaryk University)

 

Discursive Resistance in Contemporary Anglophone Literature and Public Discourse

 

Abstract submission deadline (400 words) and short biographical notes (150 words): September 1, 2026

Notification of acceptance: October 1, 2026

Full draft papers submission: February 15, 2027

Final papers submission: June 30, 2027

T. S. Eliot's Engagements with Music

updated: 
Thursday, July 2, 2026 - 11:56pm
The American Literature Association (International T. S. Eliot Society panel)
deadline for submissions: 
Tuesday, September 15, 2026

The International T. S. Eliot Society invites you to propose a conference paper for a guaranteed member society panel at The ALA (American Literature Association) Winter Symposium--"Music and American Literature" Jan 28-30 in Nashville, TN

Poets' Novels

updated: 
Thursday, July 2, 2026 - 8:57pm
American Literature Association -- American Poetry and Poetics Association
deadline for submissions: 
Sunday, July 19, 2026

I'm seeking participants for an APPA panel on "Poets' Novels" at the upcoming ALA symposium "The American Novel: Forms, Genres, Traditions," to be held at the Drury Plaza Hotel in Santa Fe, NM, 5-7 November 2026.

Proposals on novels or experimental prose forms by writers who primarily identify or are recognized as poets will be welcome for this session. Our definition of "novel" can be as broad as your claims for it will support. 

For best consideration, please send a precis of no more than 500 words to mrh@unm.edu by Sunday, 19 July  

 

The Poet in the Novel

updated: 
Thursday, July 2, 2026 - 8:53pm
American Literature Association -- American Poetry and Poetics Association
deadline for submissions: 
Sunday, July 19, 2026

I'm seeking participants for an APPA roundtable discussion on "The Poet in the Novel" at the upcoming ALA symposium "The American Novel: Forms, Genres, Traditions," to be held at the Drury Plaza Hotel in Santa Fe, NM, 5-7 November 2026.

Proposals on novels or experimental prose forms that feature a poet as protagonist will be welcome for this session. Our definition of "novel" can be as broad as your claims for it will support. Samuel R. Delany is likely to feature significantly.

For best consideration, please send a precis of no more than 500 words to mrh@unm.edu by Sunday, 19 July  

Violence, Political Becoming, and Resistance in Childhood

updated: 
Thursday, July 2, 2026 - 4:34am
NeMLA
deadline for submissions: 
Wednesday, September 30, 2026

Childhood is often imagined as a period of innocence, protection, and dependence. However, across many historical and contemporary contexts, children experience various forms of violence, including interpersonal abuse, structural inequality, displacement, war, and environmental harm. Recent scholarship in childhood studies has challenged the tendency to view children solely as vulnerable victims, emphasizing their capacity for agency, resilience, and political engagement. Understanding how cultural narratives represent these experiences is essential for examining broader questions of justice, rights, and social belonging.

Pacific Northwest Literatures (PAMLA Seattle Conference 12-15 Nov. 2026)

updated: 
Wednesday, July 1, 2026 - 7:03pm
PAMLA
deadline for submissions: 
Wednesday, July 15, 2026

Past and present, the Pacific Northwest has functioned in literature as a dynamic space defined by transition, ecological precarity, and socio-political friction. This panel explores writers of fiction, poetry, memoir, and non-fiction whose work investigates the unique sense of place, history, and culture defining the region. We welcome papers that engage with the tensions between industry and preservation, indigenous sovereignty, labor movements, and the mythologies of the western wilderness.

True Crime CFP - MAPACA Annual Conference

updated: 
Wednesday, July 1, 2026 - 1:43pm
Mid-Atlantic Popular and American Culture Association
deadline for submissions: 
Tuesday, July 7, 2026

Mid-Atlantic Popular & American Culture Association (MAPACA) 2026 Annual Conference, November 5-7, 2026 in Baltimore, MD

Slip into "The Backrooms"

updated: 
Wednesday, July 1, 2026 - 10:33am
Jess Flarity / University of New Hampshire
deadline for submissions: 
Wednesday, September 30, 2026

This panel session seeks to explore the cultural fascination surrounding "The Backrooms," an internet 'creepypasta' about an abandoned office building with endless corridors that became a popular YouTube series and most recently, a blockbuster horror film. What are the Backrooms? Do they represent an artificial or alien intelligence attempting to simulate reality? Are they a glitch in the imperfect fabric of an unstable universe? Are they a metaphor for the subconscious, techno-paranoia, wasteland necrocapitalism, corporate control, or the internet itself? Or is this all just a retelling of the Greek myth of the Labyrinth for a Gen Z audience?

The Rewritten Self: Counter-Narratives and Resistant Aesthetics

updated: 
Wednesday, July 1, 2026 - 9:32am
Northeast Modern Language Association
deadline for submissions: 
Wednesday, September 30, 2026

On January 19, 2022, Sheila Heti published the first of ten weekly installments of “A Diary in Alphabetical Order” in The New York Times. Each installment included an author’s note explaining that Heti had “loaded all 500,000 words of [her] journals into Excel to order the sentences alphabetically,” hoping to “see the self in a new way.” Over time, the project “grew into something more novelistic,” and the note concludes that “the self’s report on itself is surely a great fiction.” Heti is hardly the first author to challenge or destabilize autobiographical conventions.

Rethinking M.R. James: Antiquarianism, Horror, and the Supernatural

updated: 
Wednesday, July 1, 2026 - 9:29am
Dr. Sakti Sekhar Dash
deadline for submissions: 
Friday, July 31, 2026

Call for Chapters
Edited Volume: Rethinking M.R. James: Antiquarianism, Horror, and the Supernatural

Editor: Dr. Sakti Sekhar Dash, Fellow of Social Science Research Council

Introduction

Pages