46th Annual Convention, Northeast Modern Language Association April 30 - May 3, 2015 Toronto, Ontario
Chairs: Alla Ivanchikova, Michael Modarelli
Area: World Literatures (non-European Languages)

Space and Place in World Literature

This panel seeks to bring together papers that explore the issues of space and place in world literature. We are interested in works that investigate the multiple ways in which space and place are imagined, produced, and consumed, or disputed and dismantled in today's world literature. Presenters are encouraged to explore the panel's theme using a variety of methodological approaches, situating the work both within global and national contexts. Specific areas might include:

The Lehigh University English graduate program is organizing our first annual conference on "Literature and Social Justice" for March 7th, 2015, to be held at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. We welcome proposals for 15-20 minute presentations by MA and Doctoral students on all aspects of literature and social justice across any specialties within the discipline of English, comparative literature, or modern languages. Scholars working in all time periods, genres, and theoretical methodologies are welcome to submit abstracts. Potential topics could include, but are not restricted to:
-questions on whether literature should be socially or morally "useful"
-the current state of didactic literature

Call for Papers: Picking Through the Trash
PIVOT: A Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies and Thought

***Extended CFP Deadline: August 31, 2014***
"Ours is a culture and a time immensely rich in trash as it is in treasures."
—Ray Bradbury

"[T]rash talks to us, or certainly speaks of us. However much we want to put trash and garbage and waste and rubbish out of sight, out of mind, out of smell, there is considerable evidence that we take them to be revelatory of all manner of not insignificant facts about individuals, communities, civilizations, or that tired old workhorse the 'human condition.'"
—Elizabeth V Spelman

"Laughter in the Digital Age"
Special Issue of Comedy Studies
Guest Editor: Peter C. Kunze, University of Texas at Austin

Websites, social media platform, and YouTube and other video-sharing services make the dissemination of comedy easier than ever, and studies of the implications of new media on comedy and humor is only beginning. This issue examines how the Internet as well as new technologies radically change how humor and comedy are produced, exhibited, and distributed in the digital age. I invite papers, broadly conceived, that consider these issues through either theoretical discussions or case studies of specific artists, texts, platforms, or sub-genres. Potential articles may cover:

We are inviting papers for a seminar to be hosted at the American Comparative Literature Association's 2015 Annual Meeting, in Seattle, Washington on March 26-29. This seminar explores how settler colonial studies contribute to our study of comparative literature, both within and beyond Anglophone settler spaces.

This proposed panel seeks to continue the conversation begun at the "Shirley Jackson: Beyond the Gothic" panel at the American Literature Association Conference in May 2014 in Washington, DC. With so much renewed attention in Jackson's work (a collection of previously unpublished works is set to be released by Random House in 2015), this panel is interested in readings of Jackson's work that go beyond the gothic or horror. The range of possible topics is broad, but of particular interest are essays that address her lesser known essays, short stories, or novels, speak to her influence on contemporary or current authors, or use emergent theoretical reading practices (i.e.

Despite the substantial reconceptualization of the field of American literature in recent decades, century-based constructs typically remain in place throughout the field, particularly in relation to "nineteenth-century American literature" versus "twentieth-century American literature." Courses are taught, textbooks sold, and academic jobs are constructed around such distinctions. Such logic particularly limits scholarship on the turn into the twentieth century, often characterized as a midpoint on a teleological trajectory culminating in literary modernism.