Organizers: Rhema Hokama (Univerisity of Washington) and Jonathan Koch (Pepperdine University)

This is a call for submissions for a guaranteed session in English Literature sponsored by the Renaissance Society of America for the 2026 RSA conference in San Francisco (February 19–21, 2026).

This panel invites papers that explore the themes of toleration and cosmopolitanism in early modern English literature and its transnational connections. Tolerationist and cosmopolitan ideals, while often aspirational, also reveal tensions between universal humanism and local or national allegiances.

We welcome contributions that examine how literary texts represent, imagine, or resist toleration in cross-cultural, transnational, or intra-national encounters. Papers might consider, for example, the circulation of cosmopolitan or tolerant ideals across Reformation and post-Reformation Europe, or how English authors engaged with classical, humanist, Protestant, or Catholic traditions to imagine and realize approaches to coexistence, civility, or natural law.

Possible topics may include:

• Toleration in the English literary imagination across European Christian contexts
• Arguments for transnational toleration in response to European heresy wars and wars of religion
• Literary forms of religious or political toleration in England and its European neighbors
• Humanist or classical frameworks for cosmopolitan ethics
• Representations of interfaith contact, conversion, or resistance
• Literary descriptions of toleration as an “art of endurance” over time and space

Please submit the following materials to Rhema Hokama at rhema@uw.edu by July 15, 2025:

• Paper title (15-word maximum)
• Paper abstract (200-word maximum)
• CV
• PhD or other terminal degree completion year (past or expected)
• Full name, current affiliation, and email address

Accepted presenters will be notified by July 30, 2025.