We seek panelists for Northeast MLA 2026, "The Name of the Witch." 

Conference Details

57th NeMLA Annual Convention, March 5 - 8, 2026, Pittsburgh, PA. Visit https://www.nemla.org/convention/future.html for more details about the conference. 

Modality 

Panel / In Person Only: The session will be held fully in person at the hotel. No remote presentations will be included.

Submissions and Deadline

Interested panelists must submit their abstract and required biographical information via the NeMLA portal; submissions not accepted via email. See link at bottom of page to submit. Submissions must be received by September 30, 2025. 

Please visit https://www.nemla.org/convention/policies.html to view guidelines for presenters. 

Panel Details

Witchcraft has long existed at the margins where the practice is both feared and suppressed, celebrated and reclaimed. Amid ecological crisis, political upheaval, and decolonial movements, witchcraft is resurging not only as a spiritual or magical practice, but as a site of resistance, healing, and social transformation. As with most movements, however, progress and regeneration comes with the threat of danger. As witnessed in recent “witch hunts” in the American South and a purposeful infiltration of peaceful Pagan spaces by extremists, the power of witchcraft endures across culture, socio-historic contexts, religious practice, ecological movements, art, communication, and politics.

We invite submissions for a paper panel themed “The Name of the Witch” – an exploration of witchcraft as liberation, cultural memory, and regeneration. Submissions are welcome from interdisciplinary thinkers across humanities disciplines that might examine, but are not limited to:

• Cultural Legacy and Stewardship: How does both historic and contemporary witchcraft inform contemporary scholarship and narratives? How are these traditions being remembered, revived, or reconstructed?
• Power and Appropriation: Who gets to be a witch? How do race, class, gender, and colonial histories shape access to witchcraft knowledge?
• Resistance: How has / is witchcraft wielded against power structures?
• Regeneration: How is witchcraft used to further work of regeneration for historically marginalized groups, the environment, trauma, or collective memory?
• Revolutionary witchcraft in the arts and media: How are the ways in which witchcraft is portrayed in literature, film, music, social media, art, exhibits, etc. representative of dominant power structures or the disruption of stereotypes?

Let us conjure a collaborative, interdisciplinary space where witchcraft meets resistance, renewal, and regeneration.

Visit https://cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/21689 to submit your abstract (submissions not accepted via email).