At a time when some are attempting to rewrite the Humanities, it might be questioned as to how archives can not only be preserved but also utilized to fight for the future. Children’s and Young Adult Literature and Culture are deeply shaped by questions of memory, authority, and cultural transmission. Contributors are encouraged to consider the archive as an ever-evolving site of power that governs inclusion, exclusion, and interpretation. One might posit questions such as How do archival practices shape the stories available to young readers, and how might authors, educators, and scholars work against inherited silences and erasures? We welcome papers that explore alternative archives, speculative memory practices, recovery of marginalized voices, and critical approaches to canon formation, pedagogy, and publishing. What does it mean to create, study, or teach Children’s and Young Adult Literature in ways that challenge archival authority and imagine more expansive futures for storytelling and cultural memory?

Concepts of the archive might also be up for consideration as societal and cultural upheavals continue. Yet such disruptions can be cause for growth, hope, change, and (r)evolution. Changes and challenges to global, national, and local communities can be difficult to understand and handle as they often transform that with which we are familiar. Such topics have long been addressed in Children’s and Young Adult Literature and Culture, which impacts not only adolescence but also adulthood. Adults often reflect on their adolescent experiences with text, in its varying forms, as they situate themselves within adult spheres. Engaging critically with the idea that the archive is structured as much by absence as by presence, contributors might explore how power operates through the curation of text(s) in all its forms for young readers, how narratives are mediated by institutional and cultural gatekeeping, and/or how alternative, resistant, or speculative practices can reimagine storytelling beyond inherited frameworks. What possibilities emerge when creators and scholars challenge archival authority, recover marginalized voices, or invent new forms of memory-making that reshape how children and young adults encounter the past and imagine the future?

We seek papers that explore all aspects of Children’s and Young Adult Literature, as well as those addressing the conference theme of “After the Archive.” Considerations may be given to varying concepts of the “archive” across themes as it pertains to deportation, immigration, play, community, the environment, audience, war, race, technologies, body image, sexualities, disabilities, politics, literacies, socioeconomics, rural/urban spaces, post/humanism, regionalism, and any other critical issues in children’s and young adult literature from any period and genre. Panel proposals are also welcome. 

The MMLA conference will take place in Chicago, IL November 12-14th, 2026. Inquiries and/or abstracts of 250-300 words should be sent to Amberyl Malkovich at amalkovich@concord.edu by May 1st, 2026. Please include your name, institutional affiliation, e-mail address, and paper title in your abstract.