CFP: MLA 2026 Convention – Roundtable on "Bad Adaptations"

The Adaptation Studies Forum invites submissions for a roundtable discussion at the 2026 MLA Convention in Toronto (January 8-11, 2026). In collaboration with the Screen Arts and Culture Group, this roundtable will engage in a critical exploration of what constitutes a “bad” adaptation and how these works can be understood and assessed both aesthetically and pedagogically.

Title: Bad Adaptations

The maternal figure has long been central to literary imaginings of the nation-state, shaping narratives of belonging, exile, and inheritance. As both metaphor and material reality, motherhood is entwined with national reproduction, kinship structures, and the regulation of bodies, often reinforcing but sometimes resisting dominant ideologies. At the same time, motherhood is a site of labor—both reproductive and economic—raising questions about care work, migration, and the feminization of labor within and across borders. Maternal grief, loss, and displacement further complicate the imagined continuity between mother and motherland, exposing fractures in nationalist and colonial narratives.