Pleasure Regained: Having Fun with Milton (RSA2026)

deadline for submissions: 
July 1, 2025
full name / name of organization: 
Milton Society of America

As readers of Milton know, Milton’s writings are often humorous, titillating, outrageous – extra in today’s colloquial parlance. Of course, they are also challenging, but this too can be pleasurable. Studying Milton involves, simply put, serious fun. How might we rethink our affective approaches to Milton’s poetry and prose to spotlight not only their difficulty but also their recreation? What is at stake for Milton and for us in the pleasures derived from, for example, an over-the-top invective or a sarcastic God? What are sustaining and enlivening potentials in critical and creative practices, such as speculation, auto-criticism, and parody? And how might we mobilize these potentials in our writing and teaching to engage new audiences? For the Renaissance Society of America Annual Meeting to be held in San Francisco, CA, on February 19-21, 2026, the Milton Society of America invites proposals for a roundtable on fun, broadly interpreted, in and with the works of John Milton. To propose a brief paper for this roundtable, send a title (15-word maximum), 200-word abstract, and resume (.pdf or .doc) to MSA Secretary, Marissa Greenberg, at MiltonSocietySec@gmail.com no later than July 1, 2025.