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.

Deadline for submissions: September 1, 2017
Full name/name of organization: Katlyn Williams/The University of Iowa
Contact email: katlyn-e-williams@uiowa.edu
Over the past few years, a loosely defined group that has since come to be referred to as “the alt-right” began to receive increased attention and scrutiny in the American media. The group presents itself to the public as an alternative to the mainstream conservatism of the contemporary Republican Party, and is an amorphous mass of people, largely associated with Internet social media platforms. The alt-right appears to be motivated by white nationalism, antigovernment conspiracy theory, xenophobia, and an opposition to identity politics. Its existence is linked with news sites like Breitbart News, the white supremacist site American Renaissance, and the neo-Nazi site Daily Stormer (among others), and with movements like the Men’s Rights, neo-Nazi and anti-immigrant movements. In 2017, Donald Trump’s presidential election has arguably legitimized and further publicized alt-right figures and ideologies, most clearly demonstrated by the rise of Trump Aid Steve Bannon, former Breitbart chairman, to the White House. In this cultural moment, it is essential that scholars and thinkers of the contemporary begin critical explorations of the formation, influences and attitudes that comprise a cultural understanding of the alt-right and niche internet groups as a political and social phenomenon. Intrinsic to this study is the interrogation of various modes of toxic masculinities associated with these internet platforms and their popularization of both fascist and nihilistic political and social paradigms. This volume calls for full-length essays that will contribute to this interrogation. I plan to approach university presses with this volume, which will pioneer the serious study of the alt-right within the academy. This collection is the first of its kind.

Topics may include but are not limited to:

• Alt-right leaders and their treatment in the media
• The relationship between alt-right and nihilism
• The alt-right and fascist iconography and influences
• The alt-right and its growing antithesis, an emerging “alt-left”
• The emergence of the alt-right and its forebears/predecessors
• Media focus on figures like Milo Yiannapoulos/Richard Spencer
• Literary/critical/philosophical influences on the alt-right
• The alt-right and popular genres, specifically science fiction and fantasy
• The alt-right and configurations of toxic masculinities
• Artist pushback against alt-right groups/anti-fascist art installations and output
• Street art (both alt-right & anti-fascist)
• Commercial/mainstream response to alt-right ideologies

This collection will be interdisciplinary, and is open to scholars in Media Studies, Film Studies, Literary and Historical Studies, Women’s Studies, Queer Studies, Gender Studies, Philosophy, Cultural Studies, and beyond.

Please send an abstract (450-700 words) and a short bio to Katlyn Williams (katlyn-e-williams@uiowa.edu) by September 1st, 2017.

This volume will call for completed essays of 5,000-7,000 words by March 1st, 2018.

Deadline for submissions: June 13, 2017
Full name/name of organization: Melissa M. Bender, University Writing Program, University of California, Davis; Klara Stephanie Szlezák, American Studies, University of Passau, Germany
Contact email: preservingushistory@gmail.com
Conflicts over (mis)representations of historical events have long been a concern of scholars in multiple disciplines. However, the recent shift in the U.S. political climate—most notably, the shift from the Obama to the Trump administration—warrants fresh approaches to the ways in which historical preservation is practiced. To this end, we seek proposals for essays to be included in an edited volume exploring the manner in which U.S. history is preserved, sanitized, or contested through monuments, memorial sites, museums, and print or audio-visual texts.

The recent conflict over the City of New Orleans’ endeavor to remove Confederate monuments serves as an illustrative example of the issues this volume seeks to explore. With the support of the city council and the local landmarks commission, New Orleans mayor Mitch Landrieu has led the effort to remove the monuments–which were erected during the post-war Reconstruction Era–arguing that they glorify a partial and racist chapter of the city’s history and do not represent the values or the diversity of the city at present. The city plans to preserve and store the monuments until they can be placed in a museum, where they can be contextualized. Opponents argue that the removal is an attempt to erase a part of the city’s history, and violent protests have erupted at sites where the removal is underway. Another example comes from the Texas Board of Education, which has headlined the news several times in recent years for its controversial moves to control the content of textbooks. Among other content changes, several dishonorable events and eras in U.S. history have been rearticulated in these textbooks in a manner that conceals the destruction of lives and livelihoods. For instance, one textbook currently in circulation refers to slaves as “workers from Africa” and rationalizes McCarthyism.

Essays included in this volume will explore efforts to preserve and memorialize the more egregious moments of U.S. history or interrogate particular instances of historical sanitization at the expense of less partial representations that would include other perspectives on the same moments or related, less egregious moments. Examples may be drawn from educational efforts, public campaigns, print publications, or visual representations, including such media/sites as photography, political cartoons, museums, and monuments. Proposals will be selected based on their strengths and with an eye toward variety in the published volume.

We welcome proposals from scholars in multiple, related disciplines, including American Studies, Cultural Studies, Museum/Tourism Studies, Visual Studies, Media Studies, Rhetorical Studies, Communication Studies, and others. Completed essays of 6,000-7,500 words (excluding reference list) are due to the editors by September 1, 2017. Proposals of approximately 500 words, along with a brief biographical note of approximately 200 words, are due to the editors by June 13, 2017.

Proposals should be sent to preservingushistory@gmail.com.

Melissa M. Bender, University Writing Program, University of California, Davis.

Klara Stephanie Szlezák, American Studies, University of Passau, Germany.

Deadline for submissions: June 15, 2017
Full name/name of organization: Mark Niemeyer / Université de Bourgogne (Dijon, France)
Contact email: mark.niemeyer@u-bourgogne.fr
“‘Literary Offenses’ and Other Contentious Matter”

A one-day conference on Literary Controversy

in Great Britain and the United States (1800-1900)

Centre Interlangues : Texte, Image, Langages

University of Burgundy

Dijon, France

Friday, 22 September 2017

This one-day conference will address the subject of controversial or polemical texts such as reviews, essays, letters, prefaces and/or postfaces published between 1800 and 1900 in Britain and the United States. It seeks to open fresh approaches to controversies or polemics by focusing on literature and the literary aspects of these questions. Indeed, if controversy can be defined as a debate between two or more parties with different viewpoints before an audience, studies have mainly come from the fields of social sciences and science studies, with some interest in rhetoric and/or argumentation. However, literary controversies are as important as scientific ones for the constitution of the public, democratic debate as it was shaped in Britain and in the U.S. in the nineteenth century. Controversies and polemics contributed to legitimizing some literary genres; they gave publicity to new or avant-garde authors; they redefined the content and contours of the public debate.

Surprisingly, most controversies or polemics have elicited scant attention from literary or cultural scholars: no single history of controversy either in the U.S. or Britain exists, and partial histories or studies of more limited controversies are rare. This one-day conference seeks to address such neglect and to bring together scholars in literature, history, cultural studies or rhetoric interested in various quarrels, scandals, polemics and debates of the nineteenth century. Transatlantic perspectives are especially encouraged.

If we envisage controversy as a means of reconfiguring both the literary field and the public debate, perspectives could include:

• reasons for controversies and polemics in literature
• issues of nationhood and/or ethnic/sexual/religious identity
• personal/group legitimacy and authorship
• the meaning and value of agreements and disagreements and their consequences on the public debate
• participants, institutional positions, and degrees of involvement in controversies
• the different media used in controversies (which periodicals? which formats?)
• the discursive conditions of debate, and the constraints at work in literary controversies
• the issue of explicit or implicit limits, and transgression: when does a polemic morph into a full-fledged controversy?
• the beginning, development, and ending of controversies: is there a pattern for nineteenth-century literary controversies?
• the importance of literary controversy as opposed to other controversies for re-shaping both literature and the public debate
• the place of literary controversy/polemic in literary history

Proposals can address, but are not limited to, controversies such as ‘the fleshly school of poetry’, the definition of ‘modern culture’, literary realism vs romance, obscenity in fiction, literary nationalism (including British attacks on American literature & American defences—and criticisms—of American literature), the “republican” novel with its civic utility vs the “liberal” novel with its greater emphasis on aesthetics and individualism, “masculine” vs “feminine” writing, James Fenimore Cooper’s quarrel with America, Hawthorne and Melville’s rumoured estrangement, Mark Twain’s attacks on Cooper and the many negative, if not savage, contemporary reviews of works now considered classics.

Send 250-300 word abstracts with a short bio-bibliographical notice to Bénédicte Coste (benedicte.coste@u-bourgogne.fr) AND Mark Niemeyer (mark.niemeyer@u-bourgogne.fr) by June 15 2017.

Deadline for submissions: June 2, 2017
Full name/name of organization: SAMLA / South Atlantic Modern Language Association
Contact email: dstjohn1@gsu.edu
Extended Deadline: The Popular and Polarizing Works of Leonard Cohen

November 7, 2017 will mark the first anniversary of the death of Leonard Cohen. Known predominantly for his music, Cohen’s artistic contributions extend into the genres of poetry, fiction, and visual art. This year’s SAMLA conference theme, “High Art/ Low Art: Borders and Boundaries in Popular Culture,” presents a timely and appropriate venue for an examination and celebration of the artist’s life and work. This panel discusses Cohen’s legacy as a pioneering force in both modern poetry and popular music. This panel seeks papers that provide new insight into Cohen’s published material, including but not limited to his earliest published poetry, his polarizing novel Beautiful Losers, his successful mainstream music, and his final album You Want it Darker. By June 2, please send a 250-word proposal, a brief CV, and any A/V requirements to D.E. St. John, Georgia State University, dstjohn1@gsu.edu, for SAMLA 89, Nov. 3-5, in Atlanta, GA.

Deadline for submissions: May 20, 2017
Full name/name of organization: Sorina Georgescu/ Hyperion University, Bucharest
Contact email: sorinamaria21@gmail.com
The Hypercultura Journal – peer-reviewed, biannual publication of the Hyperion University, Department of Letters and Foreign Languages – is looking for reviewers for a volume called “Re-reading/writing Myths and the Beginning of the 21st Century”. Areas needed – Canadian Studies/Literature (Margaret Atwood), British Literature (Mary Shelley, ted Hughes ), Indian studies (Draupadi, Ramayana, Shakshigopal-Bhagavad-Purana, Sudama and Krishna), American Literature (Don Delillo).

Please submit your CV to sorinamaria21@gmail.com until May 20, 2017!

Looking forward to receiving your CVs!

Deadline for submissions: September 1, 2017
Full name/name of organization: American Studies Program, University of Bucharest
Contact email: mihaelaprecup@lls.unibuc.ro
Call for Papers

[Inter]sections is an annual double-blind peer reviewed American studies journal. It is indexed in the MLA Directory of Periodicals, Ulrichsweb, DOAJ, and CEEOL. Oour next deadline for submissions is September 1st, 2017. All submissions will be subjected to a double-blind peer review process. All accepted submissions will be included in [Inter]sections No. 20 (2017).

We publish academic papers, as well as relevant reviews and interviews. The language of the journal is English (US), so please edit your submission accordingly. Papers should be between 3,000 and 8,000 words (for book reviews, the suggested length is between 1,000 and 3,000 words), and written in accordance with the 7th edition of the MLA citation style. All submissions should also include an 100-word abstract and a list of 5-7 keywords, a short bio, and an abstract. Alternately, you may wish to fill in the following submission form:

Name:

Affiliation:

Bio (no more than 100 words):

E-mail address:

Title of Submission:

Abstract (no more than 300 words):

Keywords (5-7):

Please e-mail all submissions, queries, and comments to intersections@americanstudies.ro or to the editor-in-chief at mihaelaprecup@lls.unibuc.ro.

For more information, as well as access to our past issues, please see www.intersections-journal.com.

Deadline for submissions: August 1, 2017
Full name/name of organization: Donavan Ramon, Kentucky State University
Contact email: donavanramon@gmail.com
Nella Larsen’s Passing at Ninety

Guest Editor: Donavan L. Ramon, PhD

Assistant Professor of Liberal Studies, Kentucky State University

When Nella Larsen published her second novel Passing in April 1929, the critical reception was mixed. Writing for local papers in New York, some critics found the novel’s conclusion abrupt, ambiguous, and unconvincing. However, Alice Dunbar-Nelson noted that the novel “delights,” while W.E.B. DuBois praised it as a novel “of great moral import.” In his review, DuBois hoped that Passing would one day emerge as a “a petty, silly matter of no real importance which another generation will comprehend with great difficulty.”

In the ninety years since the publication of Larsen’s most famous work, Passing is still of “importance” – both as a concept and as a novel. The term “passing” is now used to categorize anyone who jumps social boundaries, which proves that those boundaries were not as rigid as they originally appeared to be. For instance, many critics derided Rachel Dolezal over her claim to be a black woman even though she was born white. Moreover, Colson Whitehead employed this concept in The Underground Railroad, his critically acclaimed novel from 2016. The main characters pass as free during their extended escape from enslavement. Perhaps it is only fitting that “passing” now has a more expansive definition; Nella Larsen’s Passing is not just about race, since the main characters also pass via class and sexuality. As a result, Passing has influenced a variety of scholarly areas since its first publication; most notably, queer theorist Judith Butler referenced it in her examination of intersectionality.

This special edition of SAMLA’s Journal – South Atlantic Review – will commemorate the ninetieth anniversary of Larsen’s Passing by examining the influence it has had over a variety of areas, including American Literature, African American Literature, pop culture, and queer theory. Moreover, it will examine the relevance of the novel today, in light of a post-Obama America. Potential topics can include (but not limited to):

• How has Passing influenced the ways in which we discuss the phenomenon of “passing?”
• How has Passing influenced global literary traditions (I.E. World literatures, American Literature, African-American Literature, Literature by women?)
• How is this novel still relevant today (I.E. in literature, culture and/or the media?)
• How do critical theories employ this novel (I.E. queer theorists, critical race theorists, psychoanalytic theorists, social class theorists, etc…?)
• How can we teach this text and make it relevant for twenty-first century students?
• What new analyses can we make of this novel, which has been well tilled but still elicits generative conversation?

Please email me ASAP at donavanramon@gmail.com if you are interested. Put “Larsen” in the subject line. Right now, I’ll just need your name, affiliation, and potential topic.

I’ll ask for abstracts by August 1st 2017, and our goal is have this published in 2019.