Academic Conference - Call for Submissions - Deadline Sept. 5, 2025

Entering the Zoraverse: People, Places, and Spaces
37th Annual Zora Neale Hurston Festival™ of the Arts and Humanities (ZORA!™ Festival)
Historic Eatonville, Florida
January 29-30, 2026

For nearly 100 years, Zora Neale Hurston’s writings have influenced and changed the fabric of American literary culture. Texts like Jonah’s Gourd Vine (1934) and Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937) expanded readers’ and scholars’ view of Black characters and Black life in American fiction. Texts like Mules and Men (1935) and Tell My Horse (1938) contributed to our understanding of what counted as cultural research and debunked flawed anthropological accounts of Black people, Black life, and Black language. Dust Tracks on a Road (1942), as well as the many critical essays published during and after Hurston’s lifetime, demonstrate her unabashed willingness to share commentary on herself, her people, and their lived experiences. Her short fiction brought discovery and acclaim in her early career and led to funded opportunities for research, playwriting, and theatrical performances. Zora Neale Hurston’s work is multi-disciplinary, inter-disciplinary, and cross-disciplinary. It reaches deep, far, and wide, and even beyond her lifespan, as scholars have continued to posthumously resurrect her work. George Houston Bass and Henry Louis Gates edited and published the infamous play, co-written with Langston Hughes, Mule Bone: A Comedy of Negro Life (2008). Recently, Deborah G. Plant edited and published two lost Hurston manuscripts, Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo” (2018) and The Life of Herod the Great: A Novel (2025).

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS:
Each year, at the end of January, the Zora Neale Hurston Festival for the Arts and Humanities attracts thousands of people to Eatonville, Florida, Hurston’s hometown — the place that gave birth to her words, the spaces in which she molded her first characters. For this reason, the 2026 conference will focus on the theme of Hurston's work as it relates to, is connected to, or makes meaning of communal spaces and places. What is the essence of the continued appeal of Hurston’s work? Why are Hurston’s texts still so popular with readers? In what ways is Eatonville an embodiment of an African American Dream? What qualities from Eatonville help to define African American culture? What epistemological connections can be forged between Hurston’s work and geographic places and/or physical spaces? Are there ways in which Hurston’s work illuminates contemporary conversations about place and space?

We invite all kinds of scholarly endeavors and initiatives. We welcome not only individual presentations but also workshops, roundtables, panels, working groups, think tanks, storytelling, posters, and more. Those interested should submit an abstract of no more than 250 words for individuals, 500 words for full-panel submissions, using the portal provided here: https://zorafestival.org/call-for-submissions. Deadline for submissions is Friday, Sept. 5. Applicants will be notified by the end of September. 

Please note: The full two-day ZORA! Festival Academic Conference program is scheduled for Jan. 29-30, 2026, in Historic Eatonville, Florida. Concurrent 75-minute sessions will be held on Friday, Jan. 30, in historic St. Lawrence AME Church. All presenters are expected to attend in person. Wi-Fi is limited; therefore, we expect presenters to have all supplementary materials/media with them on site and not rely on internet access.

Contact Information

Scot French,  Ph.D., Chair, ZORA! Festival Academics Committee 
https://zorafestival.org/our-academics-committee/

Contact Emailzorafestivalacademics@gmail.com