NeMLA 2026 will be held in Pittsburgh, PA from March 5-8.

In this panel, we explore the continuing significance of the question: what is the relationship between philosophy and literature? And what is it that distinguishes or relates them to each other? Investigating these questions might take many forms such as considering how it is that philosophy can function as/for literature or vice versa. Some of the most well-known works of philosophy are highly literary such as the allegory of Plato’s cave or the pseudonymous works of Kierkegaard or Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Similarly, many works of literature are interested in exploring philosophical questions such as the stories of Kafka or Borges or the fiction of Richard Powers. In this panel, the goal is to consider this relationship and what a thinking of these two fields with one another does that staying in one field cannot accomplish and, in line with the conference theme, how we might conceive of each one as helping to (re)generate the other through contact with it? Do philosophy and literature need one another to stop from becoming stale? In what sense is there a relationship of generation between them? And how does one achieve a philosophical goal more effectively in literature or vice versa.

Submit an abstract of up to 300 words and a short bio at: https://cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/21579