NeMLA 56th Annual Convention

Philadelphia, PA, 6-9 March 2025

Primary Area / Secondary Area:

French and Francophone / Cultural Studies and Media Studies 

Chair:

Atim Mackin (Harvard University)

New Forms of Revolution in the Francophone World

 Revolutions have always been pivotal moments in the history of societies, but the forms they take are constantly evolving. This panel aims to explore the new forms of revolution within French and Francophone contexts. We seek contributions that question, analyze, and discuss the following aspects (among others):

Special Issue Call for Papers: Fictions of the Pandemic

Guest Editors: Roanne Kantor (Stanford) and Ragini Tharoor Srinivasan (Rice) Extended Deadline for Submissions: 1 August 2024

Despite the increased prominence of the Far North in the political and environmental crises of the twenty-first century, this space remains largely absent from Global South studies, an omission that unwittingly reproduces outdated notions of the Arctic as a kind of terra nullius, a region outside both the Global North and the Global South, devoid of people and history. As the effects of climate change continue to undermine perceptions of the Arctic as a region isolated from the modern world, this panel seeks to explore the relationship between the Far North and the Global South, as depicted in popular culture. How might concepts of the Global South prove generative in relation to the histories of the Far North?

Crossed Borders, Changed Lives: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Twenty-First Century Young Adult Immigrant & Refugee Literature seeks scholarly articles by scholars and advanced PhD candidates for publication in a collection on depictions of images of immigrants and refugees by:

• American authors
• Young Adult (YA) novels
• published after 2001 (9/11).

 CONTENT & CONTRIBUTERS:

The collection will address themes such as inclusion / exclusion (racism), equity/ inequity, identity construction, transnationalism / emotional transnationalism, social justice, and empathy.

Why Shakespeare? Why now? Why here? These important questions come up time and again in academic and performance discussions of the Bard as we grapple with the inherent tensions of studying and producing Shakespeare today. Even the encyclopedia Britannica participates in the ongoing dialogue with an entry—albeit a short one—defending “why is Shakespeare still important today?” In the midst of an ongoing (r)evolution, this roundtable seeks to address the pressing why-now-here questions as they apply to considerations of Shakespeare in all forms with a focus on adaptation, performance, and pedagogy.

Literary works, video games, comics, TV shows, films, and podcasts that adapt or retell Classical mythology remain popular. Yet, recent attention on these contemporary stories has focused largely on women and women’s perspectives, while Classical queer identities have been decidedly underexplored or even excluded from feminist scholarship. Works such as Xena: Warrior Princess, BBC/Netflix’s Troy: Fall of a City, Madeline Miller’s The Song of Achilles, Steven Sherrill’s The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break, and Supergiant Games’ Hades and Hades II demonstrate a sustained interest in centering queer bodies and voices within the Classical tradition.