Abstracts are invited for a proposed series of sessions on the body and spiritual experience in Europe 1500-1700, intended for the next Renaissance Society of America meeting (30 March–1 April 2017, Chicago). Possible questions might include: In what ways does biblical reading shape understanding of the relationship between physical and spiritual matter?  Which body parts or material processes are implicated in spiritual experience?

After Dickens
Keynote Speakers: Professor Kamilla Elliott (Lancaster University) and Professor Juliet John (Royal Holloway)

With a performance of ‘Fagin’s Last Hour’ by James Hyland and post-show talk.

G. K. Chesterton’s seminal study of Charles Dickens, published in 1906, ends with ‘A Note on the Future of Dickens’. Chesterton closes this chapter with the enigmatic promise of meeting Dickens – and his characters – in “the tavern at the end of the world”. At a threshold moment for Dickens studies, Chesterton is not only looking back to find Dickens, he is also looking forward.

Preliminary Call for Participation
2017 Appalachian Studies Association Conference
EXTREME Appalachia!
March 9-12, 2017, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia

Studies In Control Societies is seeking submissions for the Fall 2016 issue.

We invite submissions that explore the technologies and transformations in state power, political economy, and subjectivity that control societies engender. Some suggested topics include:

The Piety and Politics of Women’s Food Practices in a Changing South Asia

This book will explore issues related to gender, religion, work and identity in South Asia through the lens of food practices. Food has powerful discursive and ritual value across South Asian cultures and of course occupies an important place in the everyday lives of women across the class spectrum. It therefore offers a unique window into issues of gender difference, religious power, cultural identity, and social change in all South Asian communities and religious traditions—Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, Sikhism, and others.

This panel seeks to address how questions of faith have shaped cultural meanings in American literary history.  In particular, it welcomes papers that examine the relationship between secularity and literary development in the United States.  Some of the questions we will consider are: How did the growth in secularity influence the way American writers conceptualized faith and experienced transcendence?  How did it influence the way they responded to suffering? How did they express the tension of living within a secular age? What are the expressions of transcendence within secular culture? 

The proposal deadline is June 10, 2016.  Please submit your proposal by going to the PAMLA website:  pamla.org

The Projector is developing a special issue on texts and audience responses to/interventions in representations of gender, race, and sexuality in film, television, comics, graphic novels, video games, and streaming media on various platforms.

The issue will feature research that illuminates the cultural, aesthetic, and/or material aspects of contemporary media, which is created, interpreted, and recreated in an environment marked by interactivity and ongoing cultural/media developments that signal new developments in progressive politics as well as the continuing mobilization of bigotry, sexism, and xenophobia.