In the past two decades, scholars of environmental literature have begun expanding the Euro-American canons and contexts that have long dominated ecocriticism and publication, teaching, and reading practices in the West. The perspectives on humans’ relationship with the nonhuman world that emerge from alternate global sites often complicate and even challenge the values and priorities of Western environmental scholarship and activism.

This special session invites papers and other forms of critical attention to the wide range of literary and critical works from and about these “underdeveloped,” ruined, or otherwise peripheral regions of the world – and their literary responses to environmental crisis, natural ecologies, environmental ethics, and other forms of relation in the aftermath of colonialism, neocolonialism, and capitalist globalization. It welcomes scholarly approaches that cross theoretical or disciplinary boundaries or specific fields: the intersection of these “postcolonial” environmental perspectives with, for example, science- and speculative fiction, the Gothic and other genres, disability studies, queer and gender studies, indigenous literatures, pedagogy studies, animal studies, and many more.

Questions or other contact before submission is most welcome!

The PAMLA 2025 Conference will be held at the elegant InterContinental San Francisco in San Francisco, California. The conference will begin on Thursday, November 20, and continue through November 23, 2025.

The 2025 PAMLA Conference is being held entirely in-person at the InterContinental. There will be no virtual or hybrid sessions or papers–the entire conference is being held in-person.

Our 2025 Conference Theme is “Palimpsests: Memory and Oblivion.” Note: special sessions proposals are welcome, both on and off this theme!

And our CFP portal is now open: paper proposals are due May 15!

The Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association (PAMLA), the west coast affiliate of the MLA, is a warm, welcoming, inclusive Humanities and Arts association dedicated to the creation, advancement, and diffusion of the aesthetic practices and knowledge of ancient & modern languages, literatures, cultures, and the arts. Approximately 800 to 1,000 faculty, students, writers, and interested independent scholars and members of the community attend our annual PAMLA conference, which offers scholars and writers the opportunity to share research and creative artistic works in a friendly, stimulating atmosphere.

PAMLA, founded as the Philological Association of the Pacific Coast in 1899, and the western affiliate of the Modern Language Association, is dedicated to the creation, advancement, and diffusion of the aesthetic practices and knowledge of ancient and modern languages, literatures, cultures, and the arts.

Please email Craig Svonkin if you have any questions about PAMLA or the PAMLA conference: director@pamla.org.