Organizers: Rhema Hokama (University of Washington) and Tom Clayton (Colgate 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 focuses on how early modern English and European literature navigates themes of cosmopolitanism and toleration within global contexts, including interactions with Asia, the Americas, Africa, and the Islamic world. As European writers encountered or imagined the wider world through trade, exploration, colonization, diplomacy, and maritime travel they confronted unfamiliar cultures, religions, and political systems that challenged or affirmed their own assumptions.

We invite papers that explore the literary negotiations of cultural difference, global ethics, or aesthetic forms that register the complexities of early modern global entanglements. How did English and European texts engage with global modes of tolerance and coexistence? In what ways did literature contribute to or critique emergent forms of imperial governance or cosmopolitanism? And how do concepts of religious, cultural, and political tolerance—and their limits—intersect with early modern English and European engagements with foreignness, otherness, and the global?

Possible topics may include:

• Travel writing and the aims of global encounter
• English literary engagements with non-European forms of toleration
• Literary representations of global trade, diplomacy, or religious encounter
• Early modern writing on Islamic, Asian, African, or Indigenous religions and cultures
• The politics of translation and cross-cultural interpretation
• Cosmopolitan or anti-cosmopolitan aesthetics in global frameworks

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.