MLA 2025 GS Nonfiction Prose Forum 

Outside the Frame: Reframing Ways of Knowing in Nonfiction Prose

MLA 2025, New Orleans (January 9-12)

Deadline for Submission: March 20, 2024

The difference between fiction and nonfiction is, as we tell our students, that nonfiction is based on real people, real events—it is “true.” And yet this categorization exists in tension with the unavoidable truth that nonfiction inevitably omits: it is bounded—framed—by the perspective of its author, its geopolitical context, its historical moment. Everything outside the bounds of any specific work of nonfiction is rendered invisible but not, importantly, fictitious—it just has yet be illuminated. It is the work of scholars and practitioners of nonfiction prose to read and write outside of the frame, to peer into archival lacunae, to contemplate (and sometimes trouble) the conventions of the genre. 

In keeping with the Convention’s theme, “Visibility,” the MLA Nonfiction Prose Forum invites proposals considering works of nonfiction that “re-frame” or “re-write” established histories, epistemologies, narratives, or methodologies. Topics might include, but are not limited to:

•     The use of archival materials in nonfiction—as objects themselves, or writing with, in, or around archival absences 

•     Nonfiction prose that meaningfully rewrites existing narratives of a place, an historical event, or historical figure 

•     Texts that reframe epistemologies limited by the perspective of its author, its geopolitical context, or its historical moment

•     Nonfiction prose that actively interrogates or challenges the conventions and/or limitations of the genre

Please submit a 250-word abstract and 100-word bio to Anish Dave (Anish.Dave@GSW.edu)  and Jenny Cookson (cooksonj@colorado.edu) by March 20, 2024.