Tag: Conference

Categories
CFP

Borders, Athens 2026

[From Vassia (Vassiliki) Markidou; President of HASE, Board Member of ESSE]

Dear friends and colleagues,

I am delighted to be sharing with you the news of the forthcoming
international interdisciplinary conference “Borders: Literary, Cultural
and Political Dialogues”, which is co-organized by the Department of English Language & Literature (NKUA) and the Hellenic Association for the Study of English (HASE). The conference takes place in Athens on 18-21 May 2026.

Please follow the link for more information and to sign up.

Categories
CFP

CFP: ASANOR 2026

ASANOR 2026 | American Studies Association of Norway
Constituting the US in the 21st Century
June 4–6, 2026 | University of Agder, Kristiansand

The 2026 American Studies Association of Norway Conference looks back to its early years for inspiration. The very first themed ASANOR seminar was titled “The Bicentennial of the US Constitution.” Many years later we return to this document, not only to revisit its cultural and historical significance but also to ask what it means to invoke the Constitution now, in a time of intensifying democratic crisis and rising illiberalism.

From the expansion of executive power to attacks on voting rights, judicial independence, and press freedoms, many of the traditional pillars of U.S. liberal democracy are under threat. However, illiberalism is not new to the American experience. Slavery, settler colonialism, voter suppression, censorship, and patriarchal legal structures all point to a long and uneven history of constitutional struggle.

This conference invites scholars of American literature, history, politics, culture, and the arts to reflect on how the United States has been—and continues to be—constituted: legally, politically, imaginatively, and culturally. How have people in and beyond the U.S. interpreted, challenged, reimagined, or resisted the idea of America as defined by its Constitution?

We welcome papers addressing topics such as (but not limited to):
▪ Literary, historical, or artistic responses to constitutional principles, such as freedom of speech, equal protection, or separation of powers, across different eras
▪ The role of American literature and culture in both supporting and resisting liberal democracy
▪ Longstanding traditions of illiberalism in American life and their relevance for understanding the present
▪ The global reception of American constitutional ideals: how have they have inspired, disappointed, or been critiqued from abroad
▪ Feminist, queer, and trans critiques of the Constitution, especially around gender equality and bodily autonomy
▪ Indigenous responses to constitutional frameworks, especially concerning sovereignty and land rights
▪ Post-liberal visions in U.S. fiction, political thought, or speculative media: dystopian, utopian, or otherwise
▪ The Constitution as a cultural text: its poetics, rhetoric, and symbolic power
▪ The challenges posed by new technologies (AI, biotech, surveillance) to constitutional understandings of privacy, agency, or citizenship
▪ Reconsiderations of U.S. citizenship, inclusion, and belonging in changing legal and cultural contexts

This is an open call to scholars across disciplines, as well as to educators, artists, activists, and public intellectuals. We encourage proposals that consider the role of American Studies abroad and the transnational implications of current political shifts in the United States.

Submit abstracts of roughly 300 words plus a bio note to Stephen Dougherty (stephen.d.dougherty@uia.no). The deadline for submitting abstracts for conference presentations is Oct. 15, 2025. More information about the conference will be coming soon.

Categories
CFP

FILLM 2026

The 2026 congress for the International Federation for Modern Languages and Literatures (FILLM) will take place in Melbourne, Australia.

Visit the congress web site for more information.

Categories
CFP News

ESSE 2026

The Department of English and German Philology at the
University of Santiago de Compostela has the pleasure of
welcoming you to the 18th ESSE Conference, which will take place from
31st August to 4th September 2026.

As is tradition, the conference will consist of a combination of plenary
lectures, parallel lectures, roundtables, seminars, posters, and the
Doctoral Symposium. Details of each format and how to participate can
be found on the ESSE website.

The conference will encompass plenary lectures, parallel lectures, seminars, roundtables, posters and a doctoral symposium. The deadline for submitting topic suggestions for parallel lectures, seminars and roundtables is May 1, 2025. The deadline for individual papers and posters is January 31, 2026.

For more, go to: https://www.esse2026.com/

Categories
CFP News

ESSE Conference

The Department of English and German Philology at the
University of Santiago de Compostela has the pleasure of
welcoming you to the 18th ESSE Conference, which will take place from
31st August to 4th September 2026.

As is tradition, the conference will consist of a combination of plenary
lectures, parallel lectures, roundtables, seminars, posters, and the
Doctoral Symposium. Details of each format and how to participate can
be found below.

  1. PLENARY LECTURES
    A select group of renowned experts, representing the key disciplines of
    English Language, Literatures in English, and Cultural and Area
    Studies, will be invited by the Organising Committee to deliver plenary
    lectures. Each of these speakers has been chosen for their significant
    contributions to their respective fields.
  2. PARALLEL LECTURES
    In addition to the plenary lectures, approximately 12 parallel
    lectures will be featured during the conference. These lectures will be
    delivered by members of ESSE, nominated by their respective national
    associations as explained below. Each presentation will be 45 minutes
    in duration and those selected to present will receive a full waiver of
    conference registration fees.

    We invite National Associations to propose candidates for the parallel
    lecture sessions. A maximum of two nominations per association will be accepted to ensure a diverse and balanced selection process. National Associations should submit a description of their nominees’ lecture topic along with a concise CV. Nominations should be submitted through the national association’s President or designated representative and forwarded to the Academic Programme Committee (APC) by 1st May 2025 at esse2026@usc.es

    Depending on the number of proposals received, the APC may implement a selection process. Key criteria will include the proposal’s relevance and appeal to a broad academic audience, as well as its potential to engage with recent advances or fresh perspectives in English Studies. The APC will also prioritise achieving a balanced representation of key disciplines—English Language, Literatures in English, and Cultural and Area Studies—and striving for equitable representation of national associations wherever possible.
  3. SEMINARS
    Proposals for seminars related to the three fields mentioned above must be jointly submitted by two ESSE members from different national associations. In some cases, the APC may permit one of the convenors to be a non-ESSE member (for example, if they are based outside Europe), provided their involvement is deemed especially valuable for the seminar. Each seminar proposal must include the convenors’ names, affiliations, email addresses, and a 300-word description of the seminar’s topic (excluding bibliographical references). Please send your proposals via email to esse2026@usc.es by 1st May 2025.

    The APC will consider the proposal’s international appeal and its potential to engage with recent advances in English Studies as key selection criteria, while also striving for a balanced representation across key disciplines—English Language, Literatures in English, and Cultural and Area Studies— wherever possible.

    Unlike roundtables, seminars are not pre-arranged sessions and will be featured in the APC’s upcoming call for papers. However, convenors are encouraged to actively recruit potential contributors. The seminar format aims to promote interactive participation from both presenters and the audience. To foster engagement, presentations should be
    delivered orally rather than read from a script. Further guidelines will be included in the corresponding call for papers.

    Individual Seminar Contributions
    The call for seminar contributions will be launched in September 2025, once the list of accepted seminars is finalised. Those wishing to submit a proposal must send a 300-word abstract (excluding bibliographical references) to the convenors of their chosen seminar by 31st January 2026. Information regarding the organisation of seminar sessions, including the number of papers per session, will be made available on the ESSE 2026 website in September 2025, along with the full list of seminars and contact details for the convenors.

    Seminars will feature a range of academic papers and discussions. Each presentation should last 20 minutes, followed by a 10-minute discussion. Exceptionally, convenors may need to request shorter presentations to accommodate more participants in their sessions.
    Participants at ESSE 2026 are limited to presenting a single paper during the conference, whether it is a sole-authored or co-authored contribution.
  4. ROUNDTABLES
    The aim of roundtables is to present topics and problems currently seen as shaping the nature of the discipline. At a roundtable, a pre-constituted panel discusses issues of fairly general scholarly or professional interest in front of, and subsequently with, an audience. In other words, roundtables are not sequences of papers but should rather be approached as debate sessions. Proposals should include a 500-word description of the topic (excluding bibliographical references) and the names and affiliations of at least three participants (including the convenor), who must be drawn from more than one national association. The maximum number of speakers will be five.

    Please send your proposals to esse2026@usc.es by 1st May 2025.
  5. POSTERS
    Posters will be devoted to research-in-progress and project presentations. The aim is to provide additional opportunities for feedback and personal contacts. Further details will appear on the conference website in September 2025. Proposals of not more than 300 words (excluding bibliographical references) must be sent to esse2026@usc.es by 31st January 2026.
  6. DOCTORAL SYMPOSIUM
    A key feature of the ESSE Conference is the Doctoral Symposium, which upholds a tradition established in 2012. This event offers young scholars the opportunity to present their research and receive valuable feedback.

    Information regarding the Doctoral Symposium will be announced in due time.

    DEADLINES
    Submission of proposals for parallel lectures from national associations to esse2026@usc.es
    1st May 2025

    Submission of proposals for seminars and roundtables from prospective convenors to esse2026@usc.es
    1st May 2025

    Submission of individual papers for seminars to seminar convenors
    31st January 2026

    Submissions of individual posters to esse2026@usc.es
    31st January 2026

    Registration will begin on 1st March 2026

    Please check the conference website for further updates at
    https://www.esse2026.com/
Categories
CFP

TYRSM CFA

Trondheim Young Researcher Symposium on Multilingualism (TYRSM), Trondheim, Norway, May 26-27, 2025

Call for Abstracts

Nine years after the very successful Young Researchers Symposium on Multilingualism (DISM) in Donostia in 2016, and its equally successful follow-ups in Szczyrk (2017) and Morella (2023), the next edition will take place in Trondheim, Norway’s first capital (from the Viking Age until 1217). Trondheim is the third largest city in Norway and home to the country’s largest university: The Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). 

The Trondheim Young Researchers Symposium on Multilingualism (TYRSM) will bring together early career researchers (i.e., MA, PhD, and Postdoc students) who work on multilingualism from different perspectives, be it cognitive, linguistic, sociolinguistic, or educational. Senior scholars can also attend the symposium as co-authors of the work presented by young researchers. 

We are inviting submissions for posters with short oral presentations. Abstracts of no more than 300 words (excluding the references) should be submitted to iamsymposium2025@gmail.com  by January 31, 2025.

TYRSM will also include two sessions in which experienced researchers will give advice on academic career trajectories, work-life balance, research methodology, mentoring, paper reviewing processes, among other issues that may be of interest to early career researchers.

The symposium fee is €50 for early birds and €70 for late registration. The International Association of Multilingualism will fund 10 grants (€400 each) for selected graduate students to attend the symposium. Further information about applications for funding will be communicated to authors in the acceptance letter.

The symposium is organized by:

The International Association of Multilingualism (IAM)

Scientific committee:

Freya Gastmann, LMU Munich, Germany & University of Groningen, The Netherlands

Romana Kopeckova, University of Münster, Germany

Anna Krulatz, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway

Eliane Lorenz, University of Giessen, Germany

Pernelle Lorette, University of Mannheim, Germany

Richard Nightingale, University Jaume I de Castelló, Spain

Simone Pfenninger, University of Zurich, Switzerland

Greg Poarch, University of Groningen, The Netherlands

Magdalena Wrembel, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poland

Organizing committee:

Anna Krulatz

Georgios Neokleous

Eivind Torgersen

Sercan Uztosun

Burcu Uzunoner Aydin

Important dates

Abstract deadline: January 31, 2025

Notification of acceptance: February 17, 2025

Applications for funding: February 28, 2025

Early registration deadline: March 15

Regular registration deadline: April 15

Contact email: iamsymposium2025@gmail.com

Categories
Uncategorized

CFP:

NAES 2025: “Attending to the Islands: Archipelagic Perspectives on Anglophonia”

Nordic Association for English Studies Triennial ConferenceÅbo / Turku Finland, 8–10 May 2025

In an ever bustling, ever hurrying world, the concept of attention has become increasingly important. As Jonathan Crary observed in Suspensions of Perception: Attention, Spectacle, and Modern Culture, the “contemporary experience […] requires that we effectively cancel out or exclude from consciousness much of our immediate environment”.[1] At the same time, contemporary society has been significantly impacted by seemingly conflicting forces and paradoxical processes of attention and distraction in various institutional, cultural, and technological contexts. The focus of this conference will be on any of the many ways in which the field of English Studies – and disciplinary perspectives from literature, culture, and history to linguistics and education – addresses and is shaped by various aspects of attention. These range from tensions between mediated experience and phenomenal perception to how political and cultural narratives direct our attention to some aspects of society while creating blind spots elsewhere. In addition to abstracts exploring this theme, the NAES are glad to invite panel suggestions on administrative issues as well as proposals for papers on other areas of interest related to Nordic English Studies.

Themes for discussion include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Attending to the Islands: Archipelagic Perspectives on English Studies
  • Surveillance, control, and the politics of attention
  • Technology and the media: forms of attention and inattention
  • Borders, surveys, and mappings
  • Nordic English Studies and attention in education
  • Local, global, and transnational attention – place, mobility, and migration
  • Hotspots and blind spots: geography and the environment
  • Attention, crisis, and catastrophe: personal and social perspectives
  • Attention and the phenomenology of perception
  • The aesthetics and poetics of attention in literature and the arts; authorship, narrative, perspective
  • Generational and societal changes in attention
  • Religion, politics, and social groups
  • Ageing and attention
  • Attending to language: linguistics, translation, and the multilingual society
  • Diachronic and/or synchronic approaches and methods

Proposals for individual 20-minute presentations or panels/roundtables (3 speakers) should be sent by email to info-naes@abo.fi by 16 December 2024.

Proposals should include: name(s), institutional affiliation(s), paper title(s), a 250-word abstract  and a brief biographical note of up to 50 words for each participant. (Three speaker panels may allow 200 words for the overall proposal, 200 words for each speaker’s abstract, and 50 words for each individual biography.) Panel/roundtable proposals should also identify the contact person for the entire session. Prospective speakers will be notified of a decision by 30 January 2025. At the time of the conference, accepted speakers will have 20 minutes at their disposal (with an extra 10 minutes set aside for discussion), and should be fully paid-up members of the NAES.

Hosted by Åbo Akademi University and the University of Turku, the conference is organized in collaboration with the European Federation of Associations and Centres of Irish Studies (EFACIS) whose concurrent annual conference in Åbo / Turku is titled “Attending to Ireland”.

Conference Web page: https://blogs2.abo.fi/naes-efacis2025/ 

Åbo / Turku (the former capital of Finland) is usually very pleasant at the beginning of May. And as the city is situated on the edge of the Finnish archipelago, we envisage that the conference programme will include an optional boat trip through the islands, a visit to Turku Castle, poetry readings, a musical entertainment, and more …

–  KEYNOTE SPEAKERS –

Fiona Farr

Lorna Hutson

Christopher Morash

Andrew Newby

Invited Poet: Desmond Egan

[1] Jonathan Crary, Suspensions of Perception: Attention, Spectacle, and Modern Culture (The MIT Press, 1999), p. 1.

Categories
Uncategorized

CFP:

EFACIS 2025: “Attending to Ireland”

European Federation of Associations and Centres of Irish Studies ConferenceÅbo / Turku, Finland, 8–11 May 2025

In an ever bustling, ever hurrying world, the concept of “attention” has become increasingly important. As Jonathan Crary observed in Suspensions of Perception: Attention, Spectacle, and Modern Culture, the “contemporary experience […] requires that we effectively cancel out or exclude from consciousness much of our immediate environment”.[1] At the same time, the contemporary society, in Ireland and elsewhere, has been shaped by seemingly conflicting forces and paradoxical processes of attention and distraction in various institutional, cultural, and technological contexts. The focus of this conference will be on any of the many ways in which the field of Irish Studies – and disciplinary perspectives from literature, culture, and history to linguistics and education – addresses and is shaped by various aspects of attention. These range from tensions between mediated experience and phenomenal perception to how political and cultural narratives direct our attention to some aspects of society while creating blind spots elsewhere.

Themes for discussion include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Attending to Ireland as/and island(s): culture, geography, and the state
  • Surveillance, control, and the politics of attention
  • Technology and the media: forms of attention and inattention
  • Borders, surveys, and mappings and the 100th anniversary of The Irish Boundary Commission
  • Irish Studies and attention in education
  • Local, global, and transnational attention – place, mobility, and migration
  • Hotspots and blind spots: geography and the environment
  • Attention, crisis, and catastrophe: personal and social perspectives
  • Attention and the phenomenology of perception
  • The aesthetics and poetics of attention in literature and the arts; authorship, narrative, perspective
  • Generational and societal changes in attention
  • Religion, politics, and social groups
  • Ageing and attention in Ireland
  • Attending to language: linguistics, translation, and the multilingual society
  • Diachronic and/or synchronic approaches and methods

Proposals for individual 20-minute presentations or panels/roundtables (3 speakers) should be sent by email to info-efacis@abo.fi by 16 December 2024.

Proposals should include: name(s), institutional affiliation(s), paper title(s), a 250-word abstract  and a brief biographical note of up to 50 words for each participant. (Three speaker panels may allow 200 words for the overall proposal, 200 words for each speaker’s abstract, and 50 words for each individual biography.) Panel/roundtable proposals should also identify the contact person for the entire session. Speakers should be fully paid-up members of EFACIS.

The organisers accept proposals and papers in either the Irish or English language./ Cuirtear fáilte roimh pháipéir i nGaeilge nó i mBéarla.

Hosted by Åbo Akademi University and the University of Turku, the conference is organized in collaboration with the Nordic Association for English Studies (NAES) whose concurrent annual conference in Åbo / Turku is titled “Attending to the Islands: Archipelagic Perspectives on Anglophonia”.

Conference Web page: https://blogs2.abo.fi/naes-efacis2025/

Åbo / Turku (the former capital of Finland) is usually very pleasant at the beginning of May. And as the city is situated on the edge of the Finnish archipelago, we envisage that the conference programme will include an optional boat trip through the islands, a visit to Turku Castle, poetry readings, a musical entertainment, and more …

– KEYNOTE SPEAKERS –

Fiona Farr

Christopher Morash

Lorna Hutson

Andrew Newby

Invited Poet: Desmond Egan

Information on Werner Huber grants for EFACIS PhD students may be found at: https://www.efacis.eu/content/werner-huber-grants.

[1] Jonathan Crary, Suspensions of Perception: Attention, Spectacle, and Modern Culture (The MIT Press, 1999), p. 1.

Categories
News

Lausanne ESSE summary

Our mother organisation, the ESSE, convened in Lausanne in August, for a board meeting and a conference. From NORSES, Knut Øystein Høvik and Stephanie Hazel Vold both gave papers in the seminar Critical Issues in English Language Teacher Education (which was the session with most participants). Høvik also chaired Charley Armstrong’s parallell lecture (the level below keynote) entitled The Wanderings of the Modern Myths: Exemplarity, Adaptation, and Spatiality.

As leader of NORSES, Høvik also serves on the ESSE board, which supplied the following list of their most important decicions this year:

1.
The Board of ESSE elected a new President, Professor Lieven Buysee from Belgium for a three-year period. His term of office will begin on 1st January 2025 when he will replace the current president, Professor Andreas H. Jucker. The Board expressed their gratitude to the current president for his services to ESSE during two terms of office from 2019 to 2024.
2.
The Board of ESSE appointed a nominations committee for the election of the ESSE Treasurer and the ESSE Secretary. The call for applications will be published on the ESSE website in October 2024. The deadline for the submission of applications is 30th April 2025. The term of office for both posts will begin on 1st January 2026.
3.
The Board of ESSE agreed to discontinue the reduction of annual fees from €9.00 to €7.00. In 2025, the fees return to €9.00.
4.
The Board of ESSE strongly reaffirmed its commitment to promote research and to support activities aimed to help both young and established researchers. The Board decided to:
• continue with the Bursaries and appointed a Bursary committee for 2025. The Board also decided to continue with bursaries for Gender Studies within English studies for 2025.
• continue with the Book and Resources grants.
• continue with the Doctoral Symposium in both conference and non-conference years and, for the non-conference year 2025, to offer funding to help eligible doctoral students in need of support to participate in the Doctoral Symposium that will be held together with the Board Meeting in Malta.
• continue with a special research support scheme for national associations with tight resources to invite plenary speakers from other national associations to their own national conferences and to cover their travel expenses.
• discontinue the Collaborative Project Workshop Scheme.
5.
The Board of ESSE delegated four members to represent ESSE in the Academic Programme Committee for the ESSE-18 conference in 2026 in Santiago de Compostela, Spain, together with the APC members from the host association.
6.
The Board of ESSE accepted the bid of Manchester Metropolitan University, United Kingdom, as the venue of the ESSE–19 conference in 2028.
7.
The Board of ESSE unanimously nominated a new co-editor of the European Journal of English Studies. This is Dr. Frederik Van Dam from Radboud University, Nijmegen, who is going to replace the current co-editor, Professor Greta Olson, as of 1 January 2025. The Board of ESSE expressed their gratitude to Prof. Greta Olson for her long
and dedicated service to EJES.
8.
The Board of ESSE agreed to adhere to the rule established back at the Board meeting in 2019 to have only one date for membership updates per calendar year. Fees will be collected according to the membership lists sent to the ESSE Treasurer by 15th November of the current year. Members whose names are included in these lists will be able to apply for ESSE privileges the following year, such as ESSE Bursaries, ESSE Book grants, ESSE Book awards, conference fee waivers and the Collaborative Project Workshop Schemes. The only exception continues to be the ESSE Doctoral Symposium, for which different rules apply as specified in the Symposium announcement.

Categories
Uncategorized

ASANOR conference

In 2025, Norway will observe the bicentennial commemoration of the first planned direct emigration from Norway to the Americas. In the wake of this first party of emigrants, nearly one million emigrants left Norway for various destinations, 800,000-900,000 to the United States alone. As migration has increasingly also taken on the character of re-migration and work migration, with communities and identities assuming diasporic and transnational markers, processes and manifestations of the transcultural do their work in sending as well as host countries. The development moreover reminds us that Norwegians and other emigrants to the Americas were also once immigrants. In the lead-up to the bicentennial commemoration of Norwegian emigration in 2025 the theme of the 2024 American Studies Association of Norway (ASANOR) biannual conference will therefore focus on the multifaceted dimensions of migration and how migration currents and mentalities for centuries have affected both North America and sending countries in entangled fashions.

We welcome contributions from all disciplines that examine ties and networks created by emigration and expatriation in addition to immigrants’ lives. We further invite papers that explore how emigrants, expatriates, and travelers in America have reflected upon their lives and experiences in receiving societies in the Americas and how these expressions circulated among populations in the sending societies Specifically, entanglements between expatriate communities and their communities of origin, and how these shaped and were shaped by transatlantic public spheres that differed over time and according to context and power—will be of particular interest. Besides, the racialization of ethnic minorities in constructed hierarchies based on whiteness as well as immigrants’ exchanges with other ethnicities and indigenous peoples play into these experiences as they were expressed both in the USA and in the sending countries.

Themes to be addressed at the conference include but are not limited to:

– immigration/emigration epistemologies

– the creation of utopian communities

– travel writing

– life writing

– implications/effects of settler colonialism

– religious dimensions of emigration/immigration

– border studies

– immigrant regions/regionalisms

– translocal, transnational, and transcultural exchanges

– interethnic/-cultural exchanges

– gender studies

– aesthetic representations of the transcultural and transnational

The 2024 ASANOR Conference will be hosted by the Norwegian Emigrant Museum, Ottestad and Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences, Hamar from October 3rd to October 5th, 2024. We invite contributions from a wide range of fields including but not limited to literature, history, political science, linguistics, religion, media, the arts, and cultural studies that explore the theme of migration, connections, and the creation of transcultural spheres.

To apply, please send a 300-word abstract and a 100-word biography to asanor2024@gmail.com by June 1, 2024.

More here: 2024 Conference – American Studies Association of Norway (asanor.org)