In a later preface to Bend Sinister (1947), Vladimir Nabokov claims, "the influence of my epoch on my present book is as negligible as the influence of my books, or at least of this book, on my epoch." The conventional reading of Nabokov as an aesthete who is insistent upon sharp divisions between fictional and political worlds has its principal source in the author's stylization of his own career. Yet this way of reading Nabokov has been complicated through such recent studies as Andrea Pitzer's The Secret History of Vladimir Nabokov.

Papers sought for a planned special session at the 2016 MLA Convention (Austin, TX; 7-10 January 2016). Entitled "Writing the World Fair" this special session proposes to examine literary accounts of nineteenth-century world expositions, from the London Great Exhibition of 1851 to the Paris Exposition Universelle of 1900. Submissions adopting a transnational framework and/or focusing on works outside the Anglo-American tradition are particularly encouraged.

Possible topics may include:

-writers' accounts of visits to world fairs
-world fairs in nineteenth-century fiction
-poetry at/on the world fairs
-relationship between world fairs and world literature

Conference Title: Shifting Tides, Anxious Borders: A Graduate Student Conference in Transnational American Studies (6th Annual)

Theme: "Partitions and/of Empire"

Keynote: John Carlos Rowe, University of Southern California

Date: April 18, 2015

Location: Binghamton University, Binghamton, NY

Deadline for Proposal Submission: March 2, 2015

Identity and Materialism: Reading the Space between Persons and Things

University of Alabama in Huntsville Graduate Student Conference

April 10-11, 2015

Keynote speaker: Dr. Priscilla Wald (Professor of English and Women's Studies at Duke University, editor of American Literature)

The English Graduate Organization at Indiana University of Pennsylvania is pleased to announce our annual interdisciplinary conference exploring the subject of Borders, Boundaries, and Frontiers to take place on Saturday, March 28, 2015 at the Kovalchick Convention and Athletic Complex in Indiana, PA.

The Journal of Pan African Studies (www.jpanafrican.com) seeks papers and multi-media content for a special edition on author, educator, poet, publisher, and institution builder Haki R. Madhubuti.

Papers should explore (but are not limited to):

Given the difficulty of distinguishing between literary and religious texts in early periods, how do literary scholars differ in their approaches to early texts from scholars of religious studies? We invite papers on religious literature from the sixth to the seventeenth centuries, from a range of literary disciplines and languages (Old English, Scandinavian, Hebrew, Spanish, Arabic, etc.), exploring questions of approach and practice. Panel sponsored by MLA Forum on Religion and Literature. Abstract/CV by 15 March 2015 to Adrienne Williams Boyarin, aboyarin@uvic.ca