Deadline for submissions: June 2, 2017
Full name/name of organization: Andrea Krafft
Contact email: akrafft3@gatech.edu
This CFP invites papers dealing with fictional representations of outer space, intergalactic travel, and other worlds. This panel is particularly interested in discussing why some texts about outer space remain central within scholarly and popular discourse while others fade into obscurity. Does the value of intergalactic fiction derive from its scientific and technological realism and its ability to, according to Hugo Gernsback, inspire “scientific fact and prophetic vision”? Or, does the staying power of these speculative fictions come from their complex worldmaking and engagement with empire and colonization (as in Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series)? What determines whether we return to someone’s vision of life beyond the boundaries of Earth? We will consider space travel narratives from various decades and types of media including novels, short fiction, film, television, games, and music. By June 2, please submit a 250-word abstract, brief bio, and AV requirements to Andrea Krafft, Georgia Institute of Technology, at akrafft3@gatech.edu.

The SAMLA 2017 Conference will be held at the Westin Peachtree Plaza in Atlanta, Georgia from Friday, November 3 to Sunday, November 5. More information on the conference may be found at https://samla.memberclicks.net/.

Deadline for submissions: June 10, 2017
Full name/name of organization: American Literature Association
Contact email: skosiba@troy.edu

Call for Papers

American Literature Association Symposium

“Regionalism and Place in American Literature”

September 7-9, 2017

Hotel Monteleone, New Orleans, Louisiana

American regional writing, as a literary movement, often has a limited association with a few decades during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. At times, many writers have cringed at being described as “regional,” fearing limiting or marginalizing classification. Other writers have embraced the term. However, more recent research has often argued for a renewed importance in regional scholarship or the scholarship of place and has redefined how we look at canonical definitions of regionalism and place. This symposium seeks to deepen our understanding of the importance of regionalism and place in past and present American literature by continuing to question spatial boundaries and definitions. Are regions confined to big patches of landscape or can cities and neighborhoods be regional? How do we address or define more recent regional concepts like the “Postsouthern” or “Postwestern”? What does regionalism look like in the 21st century and how does it define (or fail to define) our sense of place? What is it to publish or write “regionally”? We welcome paper proposals, panels and roundtable discussions on all aspects of regionalism and place within American literature and particularly encourage interdisciplinary papers and projects.

Keynote Speaker: Dr. Michael Steiner, Emeritus Professor of American Studies, California State University, Fullerton

One page proposals or panel suggestions can be sent to program director Dr. Sara Kosiba at skosiba@troy.edu by June 10th, 2017.

Deadline for submissions: May 15, 2018
Full name/name of organization: Timothy Robbins / Rebus Community
Contact email: timothy.robbins@graceland.edu
We are currently seeking writers, editors, and contributors of all kinds to The Open Anthology of Earlier American Literature, an Open Educational Resource (OER) textbook under development with the Rebus Community. Rebus is a non-profit organization that works with faculty, librarians, students, and staff to build tools and resources in support of free and open textbook publishing.

Expanding on Robin DeRosa’s pioneering work at Plymouth State University, where the anthology began as a collaborative project to save her American literature students some money, several instructors have since worked with their own students to collect and edit public domain texts and to create accompanying introductions and other materials. This model of a shared and open pedagogy formed the beginnings of what we hope will become the definitive OER anthology of Early American Literature.

Our ultimate aim is to create a genuine alternative to costly traditional anthologies and a resource that will allow faculty and students the freedom to engage with Early American literature in new and dynamic ways. Now that we have generated a prospective table of contents for the anthology, we need more contributors to help curate texts, write introductions, and, finally, get the “book” looking good and ready to meet the needs of Early Americanist students and instructors.

To all of you working or teaching in the field, we welcome your energy and expertise! If interested, feel free to peruse the following spreadsheet, which lays out our needs in terms of authors and texts, and digitally pencil in your name along with any thoughts or suggestions. All contributions are accredited. If you have questions or comments about the project, please email me at timothy.robbins@graceland.edu or reply to the project post in the Rebus Community forum. I am eager to talk and work with you to get this exciting project off of the ground!

Sincerely,

Timothy D. Robbins, Assistant Professor of English

Graceland University, 1 University Place, Lamoni, IA 50140
timothy.robbins@graceland.eduhttps://timothydrobbins.net/.

Deadline for submissions: June 15, 2017
Full name/name of organization: American Conference for Irish Studies–western region
Contact email: donnal.potts@gmail.com
Ireland, Irish America, and Work is the theme of the 33rd annual meeting of the American Conference for Irish Studies-Western Regional [ACIS-West] for Oct. 19-22, 2017 at the Davenport Hotel in Spokane, Washington. Many prominent members of the American Labor Movement were Irish and Irish-American. Jim Larkin and James Connolly worked for the I.W.W in both Ireland and the United States, where, in 1917, the I.W.W. began to face vicious repression. By July 1917, federal troops began to be used to suppress industrial conflicts, to raid I.W.W. halls, to break up meetings, and to arrest Wobblies. In Spokane, Irish I.W.W. leader James Rowan was arrested and sent to Leavenworth.

Featuring

*Moya Cannon, author of Carrying the Songs (Carcanet 2007);

*David Brundage, Professor, University of California, Santa Cruz, and author of Irish Nationalists in America: The Politics of Exile, 1798-1998 (Oxford University Press, 2016)

*Erin Wecker, University of Montana, author of “Reclaiming Magdalenism or Washing Away Sin: Magdalen Laundries and the Rhetorics of Feminine Silence”

This is an interdisciplinary conference that welcomes papers from all disciplines, including literature, theatre, film, dance, history, economics, sociology, music, religion, politics, language, culture, diaspora, conflict and border studies, the material and visual arts, and comparative studies. Particularly welcome are papers that deal with:

Irish Labor in the United States, Irish/Irish-Americans in the labor movement, Representations of work and the refusal of work, The Unpaid Labor of Women, The Magdalen Laundries, The writer or artist as worker, Irish/Irish-American Literature and work, Work and play, Gender and class related aspects of work, New professions and professionalization, Intellectual vs. physical labor, The Empire at work, Disability and work, American Capitalism and the Irish Economy

The annual meeting of ACIS-West will also feature the Donald E. Jordan, Jr. – Willard C. Potts, Jr. Award, which recognizes exceptional work by emerging scholars in Irish Studies. It is awarded annually to the ACIS-West member judged the most meritorious emerging scholar (current graduate students and scholars within three years of having received a PhD). The recipient is chosen by a committee of ACIS- West members appointed by the President, and the award will be presented at the conference’s closing banquet. The award is accompanied by a $500 honorarium. For more information about the award and the generous donors who have made it possible, see https://aciswest.wordpress.com/awards/.

Please submit your proposal by June 1 to http://acisweb.org/regionals/western/submissions/. Individual paper and panel submissions (3-4 participants) are welcome, as are proposals for live performances, dramatic readings, poster presentations, or exhibits. Individual proposals should be 250- 500 words in length and include a brief biographical statement for the submitter (50 words). In the case of panel proposals, live performances, dramatic readings, posters, or exhibits, please submit a rationale (250-500 words), as well as biographical statements for each of the presenters. To recognize undergraduate research in Irish Studies, we will also organize a special undergraduate panel at the conference, and we encourage exceptional undergraduate students to submit individual paper proposals.

Deadline for submissions: June 5, 2017
Full name/name of organization: Carson McCullers Society
Contact email: alison.bertolini@ndsu.edu
CFP

SAMLA 89th Annual Conference:

High Art / Low Art: Borders and Boundaries in Popular Culture

Westin Peachtree Plaza, Atlanta GA

November 3-5, 2017

Panel Title: Carson McCullers’ High/Low Artistic Influences and Successors

The Carson McCullers Center for Writers and Musicians (Columbus State University) in conjunction with The Carson McCullers Society invite papers relating to the work of Carson McCullers and the theme of High/Low Art: Borders and Boundaries in Popular Culture. Although we welcome papers that interpret the theme broadly, we especially encourage papers that focus on where, when, and how Carson McCullers references aspects of “high” or “low” art in her writing; or alternately, how contemporary writers and artists have transformed or elaborated on the ideas of Carson McCullers.

Presentations about McCullers and her work that are not directly related to the conference theme are also welcome.

By June 5, 2017, please submit a 300-word abstract, brief bio, and A/V requirements to Alison Bertolini, Assistant Professor of English Literature, North Dakota State University, at

alison.bertolini@ndsu.edu.

Deadline for submissions: December 31, 2017
Full name/name of organization: The Space Between: Literature and Culture 1914-1945
Contact email: janine.utell@gmail.com
Special Issue: Call for Essays

Dada and Surrealism: Transatlantic Aliens on American Shores, 1914 – 1945

Deadline for submissions: December 31, 2017

Please submit full essays of 6,000-7,500 words in Times New Roman 12 pt. font, with MLA citation style, to the guest-editor James W. McManus (jmcmanus@csuchico.edu) by December 31, 2017. Queries or proposed topics are welcomed and can be sent for feedback prior to that date.

This special issue will present new scholarship addressing diverse responses to and reactions against Dada and Surrealism in various regions across America during the period bookended by the two world wars. America became a foster home to both movements that were born in Europe and migrated to America. Transatlantic aliens, each gave shape to dialogical/dialectical exchanges between art and contemporary American culture. Expanding their presence across the continent, both movements, uprooted from their native cultures, found themselves absorbing and in turn being reshaped by the host culture, itself reflecting the diversity of regional characteristics.

Escaping the terrors of the Great War, the Dadaists came first, taking root in New York from 1915 with the arrival of the likes of Marcel Duchamp, Francis Picabia, The Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, Mina Loy and Edgard Varèse. Surrealism, which made its initial appearance in Paris in 1924, by the early 1930s began to insert itself into American culture through the influence of important figures like “Chick” Austin, Julien Levy, Alfred Barr, and Grace McCann Morley. By the late 1930s and early 1940s the destructive forces of World War II pushed artists, writers, and intellectuals out of Europe, scattering the likes of Maya Deren, Salvador Dali, Man Ray, Hannah Arendt, Jacqueline Lamba, Laurence Vail, Max Ernst, and Darius Milhaud across the American continent.

During these decades Dada and Surrealism had established a presence, through contributions from exiles/emigrés and their American counterparts. At times both movements were graciously accepted, as with Alfred Barr’s monumental 1936 exhibition Fantastic Art, Dada, Surrealism. At others they were grudgingly rejected, demonstrated by Clement Greenberg’s acerbic condemnations of Surrealism’s worth.

We are seeking studies that consider ways that Dada and Surrealism pushed up against and/or added to the social and political environment in America during the period bracketed by the two world wars; taking form through a number of lenses – among them the visual arts, architecture, photography, film, advertising, theatre, collectors, dealers, small magazines, journals. writing, poetry, criticism and critical theory.

NOTE: The journal is now published online. This gives authors the opportunity to accompany their essays with visual and audio material drawn from a variety of platforms.

Authors are responsible for securing permission to use images, including any costs. Authors need to submit documentation of permission being received at the time of acceptance.

Deadline for submissions: May 31, 2017
Full name/name of organization: SAMLA 89: South Atlantic Modern Language Association’s 2017 Conference
Contact email: SRountree.PhD@gmail.com
The Politics of Memory in Contemporary U.S. Visual Culture

South Atlantic Modern Language Association’s Annual Conference

Atlanta, GA

November 3-5, 2017

This special session investigates the function of memory in U.S. visual culture, tracing political significance of remembering particular historical events in a contemporary moment. Indeed, judging by recent examples—including Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Broadway sensation Hamilton, Theodore Melfi’s blockbuster Hidden Figures, and John Lewis’s graphic novel trilogy March; the representational backwards-gaze upon the national past seems to enact, at a minimum, influential political critique and, at a maximum potential, art-based activism. We welcome proposals for 15-minute papers that consider the political stakes of memory and remembrance in any visual artifact (broadly defined) that engages U.S. culture. “Contemporary” artifacts should originate in the 21st century, and the event(s) they recall can date from any time period. We welcome projects engaging the broader contours of national memory, individual experiences of personal memory, or any combination thereof. Uniting this panel comprised of an interdisciplinary archive will be the methodological question: What are the political stakes of remembering a specific event in national/individual history, through a particular artistic medium, at “this” specific moment in time? By May 31, 2017, please submit a 300-word abstract, brief bio, and A/V requirements to both Sascha Just, New York City College of Technology College, at saschafilm@aol.com and Stephanie Rountree, Georgia State University, at SRountree3@gsu.edu.