CFP: The 12th Biennial Symbiosis Conference, 11-14 July 2019, University of Dundee, Scotland. The 12th Biennial Symbiosis Conference will take place at the University of Dundee, Scotland, 11-14 July 2019. As ever, we welcome paper and panel proposals on all areas of Transatlantic literary exchange. In addition to the general call for papers, there will be three special themes: •    Transatlantic Bicentenaries: George Eliot and Herman Melville amongst others •    Transatlantic Crime Fiction •    Transatlantic Comics You can find more information on the conference website. Please send proposals to Dr. Aliki Varvogli (a.varvogli@dundee.ac.uk), using ‘Symbiosis 2019’ as your subject. Deadline for proposals: 30 January 2019.

Call for Papers: American Literature Association 30th Annual Conference, May 23-26, 2019 Westin Copley Place 10 Huntington Avenue Boston, MA 02116 Conference Director:  Olivia Carr Edenfield Georgia Southern University Conference Fee:  For those who pre-register before April 15, 2019:  $100 ($75 for Graduate Students, Independent Scholars, and Retired Faculty). After April 15, the fees are $125 and $100. Deadline for Proposals:  January 30, 2019 The ALA website contains details and instructions for submitting proposals as well as important information for representatives of participating author societies. Proposals from individuals and program information from author societies should be sent to Professor Olivia Carr Edenfield via email (carr@georgiasouthern.edu) by January 30, 2019, following the instructions on the website: www.americanliterature.org

CFP: 3rd Sexual Cultures Conference: PLAY University of Turku 28-29 May, 2019 Confirmed keynote speakers: Tom Apperley (University of Tampere), Kane Race (University of Sydney) & Katrin Tiidenberg (Tallinn University) The 3rd Sexual Cultures Conference focuses on the notion of play, understood as autotelic practices of pleasure where the enchantment of the activity is an end in itself. As the game studies scholar Miquel Sicart nevertheless notes, the pleasures of play can be ambivalent indeed: “Play is not necessarily fun. It is pleasurable, but the pleasures it creates are not always submissive to enjoyment, happiness, or positive traits. Play can be pleasurable when it hurts, offends, challenges us and teases us, and even when we are not playing. Let’s not talk about play as fun but as pleasurable, opening us to the immense variations of pleasure in this world.” Building on this understanding of play, as well as sex, as […]

Interventions: New Perspectives on Politics, Freedom, and Democracy May 10, 2019 – Leicester, UK.  Keynote address from Professor Robert Eaglestone, Royal Holloway. Deadline for abstracts and panel proposals: February 1st, 2019.  Please send all submissions to interventions2019@gmail.com. Interventions 2019 aims to critically explore pertinent socio-political issues and their cultural representations. Papers of twenty minutes might include, but are not limited to: •    Post-truth politics •    Neoliberalism and freedom •    Democratic participation •    Class and austerity politics •    Globalisation, migration, and citizenship •    Censorship, offense, and free speech •    Autonomy and marginalised identities •    Resistance and activism in the arts and humanities •    Theoretical interventions with regard to freedom and democracy •    Cultural responses to political events •    Social media and social movements •    Politics and the academe •    Corporations, governments, and accountability •    Politics and mental health •    Technologies and democracy •    Anti-semitism and Islamophobia

Queer Celebrity Conference University of Portsmouth 6th-7th June 2019 Keynote Speakers: Professor Richard Dyer (King’s College, London) Professor Jack Halberstam (Columbia University) Dr Michèle Mendelssohn (University of Oxford)   The focus of celebrity studies on the cultural mediation and function of a diverse range of public personalities has foregrounded an ever-growing archive of queer celebrities. This conference aims to explore how the entry of queer figures into the public imagination, in different historical periods and geographical locations, has had a transnational, even global, impact, changing perceptions, attitudes and the way individuals live their lives. LGBTQ figures, for example, have risen to public prominence and become positive role models, while negotiating their fame alongside cultural associations of homosexuality with crime, scandal and blackmail. The refusal of closeted celebrities to come out underlines the detrimental effects of homophobia on popularity, but also celebrity culture’s preoccupation with the open secret. ‘Straight’ celebrities have […]

CALL FOR PAPERS: DIGITAL⇌CULTURE 2019 A one-day conference hosted by the Digital Culture Research Network, and supported by the Midlands3Cities DTP (M3C) Cohort Development Fund   Date: Friday 10th May 2019 Venue: University of Nottingham Abstract Submission Deadline: Friday 15th February 2019 The Digital Culture Research Network is pleased to open the call for papers for our second annual conference – ‘Digital⇌Culture 2019’. This year’s theme of ‘ACCESS’ seeks to respond to the continued ways in which digital technologies are profoundly impacting social, cultural, and institutional interactions with content, data, and platforms. Rapidly changing modes of knowledge and value production, means of accessibility, and concerns around privacy and censorship have given rise to increased scrutiny of the current digital landscape and our interactions with(in) it. Submission For this one-day conference we invite researchers, particularly early career researchers, from diverse disciplinary backgrounds to present theoretical and empirical research related, but not limited, […]