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SAMLA welcomes broad participation in planning, chairing, and presenting as part of sessions for its next conference, SAMLA 92, taking place in Jacksonville, Florida, at the Hyatt Regency Jacksonville Riverfront, on 13–15 November 2020.
Each Session Chair writes their own Call for Papers (CFP) and submits it to SAMLA for approval and posting. Paper abstracts should then be directed to each individual Chair, who selects and notifies their panelists accordingly.
Please read the instructions below for further details and links.
Instructions for Prospective Chairs
For prospective Session Chairs for SAMLA 92, the first step in the process is to decide on the type and format of the Session:
- Session Types include Regular Sessions, Affiliated Group Sessions, and Special Sessions. For your convenience, we have defined these session types here. Unless you are representing an existing Affiliated Group or Regular Session, your CFP will be classified as a Special Session. If you represent an organization looking to become an Affiliated Group, or if you are unsure if your session is a recurring Regular Session, please email Dan Abitz at [email protected].
- Session Formats include Traditional Sessions, Roundtables, Workshops, Readings, and more. We have described the most common of these session formats here. SAMLA welcomes other session formats when applicable.
Next, prospective session chairs should prepare their CFP language and submit a CFP form for SAMLA's approval. A CFP form should be submitted for each session, even if the session already has a full list of presenters. SAMLA will post all approved CFPs below to encourage scholars to submit abstracts to Session Chairs for approval and, ultimately, inclusion in the conference program. Chairs may also choose to widen their selection process by posting their CFPs on other databases.
Calls for Papers received by 1 March 2020 will be printed in the digital newsletter, SAMLA News, in addition to being posted on this page. CFPs submitted after 1 March will not be included in the newsletter but will be posted on this page. The final deadline to submit a CFP is 1 June 2020.
Instructions for Prospective Presenters
Scholars interested in presenting at SAMLA 92 should review the approved Calls for Papers (CFPs) below and follow any submission instructions set by the individual Session Chairs.
Should you not find a session that fits your interests, please note that SAMLA will begin accepting individual abstracts via our General Call for Papers in April / May 2020.
NOTE: You can jump to a specific subject by selecting a category from the list below, or you can hit Control-F or Command-F to enter a search term (Chair name, keyword, etc).
Approved CFPs by Category
African / African American Studies
THE HARLEM RENAISSANCE AT 100
AFRICAN AMERICAN LITERATURE
The year 2020 marks the centennial of the Harlem Renaissance, the flowering of African American arts and letters that occurred during the 1920s and 1930s. Over the past century, the Harlem Renaissance has proven to be a foundational yet ever-evolving cultural category, as each successive generation of writers and scholars has engaged with the period in new and different ways. As a result, the canon has continually shifted and expanded through a legacy of rediscoveries. The most prominent rediscovery being the reevaluation of Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God during the 1970s, and the continued publications of her previously lost works. In just the last decade, more than a dozen new Harlem Renaissance works have been published. Therefore, 2020 presents an ideal opportunity to take stock of what the Harlem Renaissance now means, especially in an era when we understand identity in increasingly complex ways and have unprecedented access to Harlem Renaissance works and scholarship via the Internet. We invite paper proposals on any aspect of the Harlem Renaissance. Topics might include, but are not limited to:
- The expansive Harlem Renaissance canon
- The publication history of Harlem Renaissance works
- The current role of the Harlem Renaissance in African American literary and cultural studies
- Previously marginalized African American writers, texts, or genres from the 1920s and 1930s
- How the Harlem Renaissance has been remembered in films / documentaries, archives, and online
- How subsequent writers have re-written or engaged with the Harlem Renaissance
- The state of Harlem Renaissance scholarship and its recent trends
- The Harlem Renaissance and feminism
- The Harlem Renaissance and gender and / or sexuality
- The Harlem Renaissance and the Black Arts Movement
- The Harlem Renaissance and Hip-Hop
- The Harlem Renaissance and Black Lives Matter
- The Harlem Renaissance and digital humanities
- The Harlem Renaissance and performance studies
- The Harlem Renaissance and interracial / Critical Mixed-Race studies
- The Harlem Renaissance and passing / identity politics
- Teaching the Harlem Renaissance to 21st century students
- The Harlem Renaissance and geography / its global reach
- The Harlem Renaissance and class dynamics
- The Harlem Renaissance and the conference theme of scandal / provocation
- The Harlem Renaissance in the next century
Please send 250-word proposals, brief bios, and A/V requests to Donavan L. Ramon at [email protected] and Clark Barwick at [email protected] by June 1, 2020.
American Studies
ELIZABETH MADOX ROBERTS: A WRITER OF SOCIAL AGITATION?
ELIZABETH MADOX ROBERTS SOCIETY
This panel responds to an assertion made by Allen Tate that the works of Elizabeth Madox Roberts reject the expectation of social agitation, asking the question: but do they? In conversation with the theme of SAMLA 92, Scandal! Literature and Provocation: Breaking Rules, Making Texts, this panel requests papers that analyze the ways in which Elizabeth Madox Roberts' prose works and poetry represent the plight of women, both poor and not, and showcase the societal ills of misogyny, racism, and other forms of oppression. Possible topics include: representation of domestic violence and sexual assault; the silencing of women in both rural and aristocratic communities in early 20th C. Kentucky; the strength and agency of women; etc. Papers should be no more than 15 minutes in oral presentation. Please email titles and abstracts of 250 words and professional bios of 50-100 words to Eleanor Hough (Dept. of English, Binghamton University, [email protected]) no later than June 15, 2020.
HEMINGWAY'S SHORT STORY CYCLES
THE HEMINGWAY SOCIETY
The Hemingway Society Session for the 2020 SAMLA Conference in Jacksonville solicits papers on Hemingway’s short story cycles. With attention focused on In Our Time, Men Without Women, and Winner Take Nothing, this panel will explore themes that unify and resonate among individual stories within each book. Please send a 200-word abstract with a brief CV by May 25, 2020, to Steve Florczyk, Hampden-Sydney College, [email protected].
STUDIES IN THE WORKS AND LIFE OF TRUMAN CAPOTE
TRUMAN CAPOTE LITERARY SOCIETY
This panel welcomes proposals treating the life and works of Truman Capote. By June 3rd, please send a 300-word abstract, brief bio, and A/V requirements to Dr. Stuart Noel, Georgia State University, at [email protected].
French Studies
FRENCH AND FRANCOPHONE WOMEN WRITERS WHO BREAK THE RULES AND CHANGE THE WORLD
WOMEN IN FRENCH
This panel welcomes papers focused on explorations of rule-breaking in French and Francophone women’s writing, film, and other art forms. How do these women initiate and navigate change, shift social order, and contest inequities? Examinations of the liminal spaces between tradition and new order and the ways in which these texts challenge limitations of nationality, class, race, sex, and language are particularly welcome. Papers may be in French or English and may not exceed 20 minutes. Please send a 250-word abstract, brief bio and A/V requests to Susan Crampton-Frenchik, [email protected], by May 15, 2020.
MAKING ART, BREAKING RULES: GENDER-BENDING, "GENRE-BENDING," BY FRENCH AND FRANCOPHONE WOMEN WRITERS
WOMEN IN FRENCH
In French and Francophone societies, where men have historically dominated the arts, a woman daring to assert her own voice is already in itself an act of rebellion. On the one hand, by entering the literary and artistic landscape, women writers and artists transgress society’s expectations of their roles in the domestic sphere as only mothers, wives, and obedient daughters. On the other hand, by taking up the pen, women directly challenge artistic traditions dominated by men, or enter into forbidden territories. This panel will examine how French and Francophone women authors play with gender-bending and “genre-bending” in their works, in their lives, and in their critique of society and the artistic traditions they choose to write in or write back at. Among the questions one may ask are: How do women creators confront the “scandal” of their role as artists? How do they negotiate scandal and censorship? How do they bend or break the rules of the genres they take on? How do politics inform and influence their works and their identities as women authors? Proposals on French and Francophone literatures, films, and other art forms are welcome. Papers may be in English or French. Please send 250-word proposals in English or French to Cathy Leung ([email protected]) by May 15, 2020, along with presenter’s academic affiliation, contact information, and A/V requirements.
SCANDALOUS SILENCE: RECOVERING THE REBELLIOUS VOICES OF GISLE PINEAU’S OEUVRE
WOMEN IN FRENCH
For nearly three decades, Gisle Pineau’s writing project has spanned genres, using children’s stories, hybrid visual and narrative texts, fiction, and autofiction to address longstanding questions about Antillean women’s subjectivity, memory, racism in contemporary France, and the protean ramifications of the history of slavery. Despite the sustained and valuable scholarly interest in Pineau’s work, many of her texts have received surprisingly little critical attention. Indeed, Pineau has penned more than a dozen full-length works since the publication of her famous 1996 auto-fictional Exil selon Julia; yet, these texts have not garnered the scholarship they warrant. This panel therefore seeks to foreground lesser-known works by Pineau in the aim of generating a more comprehensive understanding of the richness of her writing career and the breadth of her inquiry into enduring issues of gender, race, history, and Antillean identity. Revised and expanded conference proceedings will be considered for a potential edited volume on Pineau. Please send 250-300 word abstracts in English or French to Lisa Connell and Delphine Gras at [email protected] and [email protected] by May 15, 2020.
WOMEN, LIFE WRITING, AND SCANDALS OF SELF-REVELATION
WOMEN IN FRENCH
As life writing exposes purported truths about personal experience and identity, self-revelations in these accounts position these texts as potential objects of controversy as authors test the limits of telling all. Many authors have turned to life-writing practices to speak about intimate loss, family secrets, stolen childhoods, and physical, psychological, or historical trauma. In this way, autobiography, autofiction, and memoir, remain potentially perilous terrains especially regarding the implications of others on which such self-accounts unavoidably depend. This panel seeks to explore the scandals behind or beyond such self-revelation. How has scandal served as impetus for textual creation? In what ways has the publication of “scandalous” texts implicated others whether in accusation, in solidarity, or by engaging in broader controversies or social discontent? How have such texts responded to scandal? What role do legal proceedings play in (self)censoring self-accounts? Proposals on examples of women engaged with or implicated in scandalous self-revelations in literature, film, theatre, and other modes of representation from all time periods and all areas of Francophone literature are welcome. Please send 250-word proposals in English or French along with presenter’s name, academic affiliation, and email to Adrienne Angelo ([email protected]) by May 15, 2020.
Gender & Sexuality Studies
FEMINISM AND SELF-CARE
FEMINIST LITERATURE AND THEORY
In her article, “Audre Lorde Thought of Self-Care as an ‘Act of Political Warfare,’” author and journalist Sarah Mirk writes, “Self-care can be such a buzzword these days, but what’s often not discussed are the race, gender, and class dynamics behind the concept.” This panel seeks proposals that examine self-care and intersectional feminism. How has the public discourse surrounding self-care changed since Audre Lorde wrote in A Burst of Light that “caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare”? This panel welcomes submissions from a range of perspectives, including proposals that focus on depictions of self-care in popular culture and literature, in politics, and in the context of motherhood and social justice movements. Proposals for creative works that address this topic and proposals focused on pedagogy are also welcome. Please submit an abstract of no longer than 250 words, A/V requirements, and a brief bio by June 1, 2020, to Laura Beasley at [email protected].
INTERROGATING QUEER REBELLIOUSNESS: WHO, WHAT, WHERE, WHEN, WHY, AND HOW?
QUEER STUDIES
This year's SAMLA theme, Scandal! Literature and Provocation: Breaking Rules, Making Texts, asks us to consider how cultural texts challenge the establishment. From Aristophanes’s inclusive view of same-sex attraction in Plato's Symposium to the seventeenth-century memoirs of the transgender Spanish convent girlcum-conquistador Catalina de Erauso and the coming out narrative of the 2018 film Love, Simon, discussions about queer identities have long been provocative. This year’s Queer Studies panel(s) welcomes submissions on research projects that explore how and why queer identities are seen as radical, rebellious, and revolutionary. How do queer characters in literature, film, and video games serve as a lifeline for readers, viewers, and gamers? How does queerness threaten the capitalist elite and reproductive futurity? Why are discussions of queer identity censored by schools and public libraries? How is the public realm threatened by the inclusion of queer individuals and groups? How does heterosexual identity fit into the queer spectrum? What language do historians, teachers, and governments use to discuss the queer identity of historic figures such as President James Buchanan, Walt Whitman, Willa Cather, Langston Hughes, Bayard Rustin, Sylvia Rivera, etc. in biographies, textbooks, lesson plans, websites, and signage at libraries, museum, historic sites, and public monuments? The Queer Studies group at SAMLA employs the term “queer” as an inclusive noun, adjective, and verb that highlights intersections between sexuality, gender, race, religion, ethnicity, education, economic background, political affiliation, and temporal and spatial realities. Please send an abstract 200-300 words in length along with a one-paragraph academic bio and A/V requests to [email protected] by June 15.
Hispanic Studies
FROM IDEALISM TO SCANDALOUS SCOUNDRELS
SPANISH I (PENINSULAR: RENAISSANCE TO 1700)
This session welcomes submissions on any aspect of Spanish Peninsular literature from the Renaissance to 1700. Abstracts referencing the conference theme, Scandal! Literature and Provocation: Breaking Rules, Making Texts, are especially welcome, given the abundance of scandalous texts written during the Golden Age of Spanish literature. Please send an abstract of 250 words to Dr. Charmaine McMahon, Chair of the Spanish I Peninsular: Renaissance to 1700 session, at [email protected] by May 1, 2020.
MEXICAN LITERATURE, CULTURE, AND FILM
MEXICAN LITERATURE AND CULTURE
You are invited to present an aspect of Mexican literature, film and culture; for example, you can compare and contrast a specific literary work, which has been taken to cinema. You can also choose a Mexican film and make a presentation on its importance on various aspects of Spanish language, literature, history and culture. By May 15, please send a 200 word-abstract to Jose A. Cortes-Caballero, Georgia State University – Perimeter College, at [email protected].
SCANDAL!! BREAKING RULES, MAKING TEXTS, BREAKING RULES, BEING CREATIVE
This session is open to papers in English and/or Spanish that deal with the process of creation as the result of a scandal, the breaking of a rule, or any drastic change that brings forward creativity. Please contact Ruth Sanchez Imizco at [email protected] with submissions by June 1, 2020.
THEMES OF BOUNDARIES, RULES, LIMITS, AND CULTURAL REGULATIONS IN THE WORKS OF MIGUEL DE CERVANTES
CERVANTES SOCIETY OF AMERICA
Cervantes lived within a cultural environment characterized by social, political, and religious norms that were regularly respected, challenged, or transgressed throughout Spanish early modernity. His works often represented a commentary on the motivations, enforcement, and consequences of these societal rules and have inspired a wide variety of research on his approximations to themes like power, identity, culture, class, race, and other elements regulated in Golden Age Spain. Thanks to his writing about these boundaries during his lifetime, Cervantes’s works present themes that transcend chronologies and are as resonant today as they were at their conception.
In the face of regulatory authorities such as the Inquisition, societal rules governed by the code of honor, and a class hierarchy that rigidly demarcated nobility from the rest of the population, how did Cervantes engage with the religious, social, and political boundaries of seventeenth-century Spanish society? How did he utilize, manipulate, hide, or define societal rules to acknowledge, respect, and/or test the resilience of these limits? How do his works represent a commentary, defense, or critique as a recognition of, compliance with, or as a provocation of seventeenth-century Spain’s regulatory frameworks?
The Cervantes Society of America at SAMLA 92 welcomes papers that examine ways in which Miguel de Cervantes’s works engage with the religious, social, and political boundaries of seventeenth-century Spanish society by pushing cultural norms to their limits.
Please submit by e-mail a 200-word abstract, brief bio, one-page CV, and A/V requirements by June 1st to the chair, Daniel Holcombe ([email protected]) and to the secretary, Xabier Granja ([email protected]).
TRANSATLANTIC, TRANSCULTURAL, AND TRANSNATIONAL DIALOGUES ON IDENTITY, CULTURE, AND MIGRATION IN LATIN AMERICAN AND IBERIAN CULTURES
This session welcomes submissions on any aspect of transatlantic, transcultural, and transnational dialogues on identity, culture, and migration in Latin America, the Hispanic Caribbean, and Spain through a literary or cultural studies analysis. The purpose of this panel is to illustrate the shared diasporic experience of migrants across the Atlantic through a transatlantic, transcultural, and transnational lens. By May 10, please submit an abstract of 250 words, a brief bio, and any A/V requests to Sonja Stephenson Watson, University of Texas at Arlington at [email protected].
Interdisciplinary Studies
EVOLUTIONARY AND COGNITIVE APPROACHES TO LITERATURE: NEW DEVELOPMENTS IN INTERDISCIPLINARY STUDY
During the past quarter-century an explosion of new knowledge in evolutionary psychology and cognitive science has transformed our understanding of human nature, reshaping theory and research in numerous academic disciplines. A major purpose of this regular SAMLA session is to provide a forum for the presentation and exchange of ideas flowing from this emergent body of knowledge, as it bears upon the interpretation of literature. Proposals are invited for papers that explore literary texts (of any genre, nationality, or historical period) from a well-defined evolutionary or cognitive perspective, such as the following:
- Exploration of evolutionary concepts, including evolved adaptations, in literary texts, e.g., kin selection, parental investment, sibling rivalry, inter- and intra-sexual competition, reciprocal altruism, sexual selection.
- Investigations of inter-relationships between literary art and the human mind, e.g., Machiavellian intelligence, strategic self-deception, theory of mind, personal narrative, status, reputation.
- Theoretical approaches, e.g., the adaptive function of storytelling.
- Evolutionary ecology, e.g., inter-relationships between humans and their physical environments, including biophilia and biophobia.
Proposals from scholars in the sciences and social sciences are welcome. Send proposals (200-250 words) and condensed CV by May 25 to Session Chair Jeff Turpin ([email protected]) and to Session Secretary Judith Saunders ([email protected]).
LIFE WRITING
Memoirists are often “breaking rules” and “making texts,” whether their works intend to or not. The production of identities and subjectivities across narrative spheres and histories—from genres like captivity narratives, slave narratives, and commonplace books, to contemporary iterations in memoir, blogs, social media, and reality television—challenge expectations for how lives can be documented and shared. Life writing crucially expands the bounds of what lives—and literatures—can look like, demanding that readers attend to histories, lives, languages, and experiences that are often unfamiliar or different from their own. This panel welcomes presentations on any aspect of life writing, and those projects that are related to the conference theme, Scandal! Literature and Provocation: Breaking Rules, Making Texts, are especially welcome. By June 1, please submit an abstract of 250 words, along with presenter’s academic affiliation, contact information, and A/V requirements, to Nicole Stamant, Agnes Scott College, at [email protected].
NEOLIBERALISM IN LITERATURE AND MEDIA STUDIES
Over the past seventy years, neoliberal thinkers have strategically reinvented classical liberal ideals in order to privilege a sense of personal freedom over the perceived overreach of government intervention. Once considered a fringe movement, neoliberalism has steadily become the central tenet of American life. It is now nearly impossible, for example, to imagine any mainstream voice espousing tax hikes or championing the sorts of policies enacted under Franklin Delano Roosevelt or Lyndon Johnson. Promises of privatization today trump collective action in virtually every aspect of life. This epistemic shift can be felt far and wide, from politicians to postmodern theorists. Given the focus of the SAMLA conference in 2020, we have a special interest in papers that explore how neoliberalism breaks the rules, or how it creates new rules to be broken. The panel will investigate symptoms of/responses to this ideological shift, particularly in the areas of literature and media studies. Please submit a 300-word abstract, brief bio, and A/V requirements to Michael Blouin, Milligan College, at [email protected]by no later than June 1, 2020.
THE SCANDAL OF ADAPTATION
ASSOCIATION OF ADAPTATION STUDIES
Taking its cue from Lawrence Venuti's work on the scandal of translation, the ways that translations of texts originally produced in other languages carry the power to affront the norms and assumptions of both source and target languages and cultures, this roundtable welcomes submissions on either particularly scandalous adaptations or the scandal of adaptation generally. Since most of the panel's time will be reserved for discussion, prospective participants are invited to submit abstracts for presentations from 5 to 10 minutes long, along with a brief biography and any A/V requests, to Thomas Leitch, University of Delaware, at [email protected] by 25 May 2020.
THE SCANDAL OF THE CROSS: CHRISTIANITY, LITERATURE, AND PROVOCATION
SOUTHEAST CONFERENCE ON CHRISTIANITY AND LITERATURE
In Romans and other epistles, Paul uses the Greek skandalon to capture the radical nature of the Christian Gospel. Emergent first-century Christianity was itself scandalous. Yet, centuries down the line, Christianity, and religion in general, is typically conceived of as anything but scandalous. Or, if it is, it’s because of corrupt leaders, coercive rhetoric, and fearful parochialism. This panel hopes to revisit the fecund, galvanizing relationship between Christianity and scandal. We welcome papers from any critical perspective on literary works that provocatively, even scandalously, engage with Christianity (or religion broadly). Papers might consider one or more of the following:
- The relationship between blasphemy or heresy and religious vitality
- How “scandalous” (transgressive, rebellious, heretical, etc.) texts serve to revitalize and/or recontextualize mainstream religious traditions
- The nature and definition of prophetic literature (or literary depictions of prophet characters)
- The question of authenticity in religious literature
- Ways that literary texts reflect and/or respond to debates within and/or between religious traditions
- The conventions and techniques of religious literature and their evolution over time
- How religious writers turn to other religious traditions for resources by which to challenge their own
- The relationship between scandal and the visibility/optics of religion
- Pedagogical approaches to religious literature
- Creative writing submissions addressing the panel theme are also welcome
Please send a 250-word proposal, a CV, and any A/V requests to Jordan Carson at [email protected] or Joshua Privett at [email protected]. For creative writing submissions, please submit the full work to be read and not an abstract. All abstracts or creative writing submissions are due May 31.
Rhetoric & Composition
TEACHING WRITING IN COLLEGE
Teaching writing has always existed in the intersection of language and activism. Writing instructors encourage their students to attend to style, voice, and other aesthetic elements of their text. Writing instructors also encourage their students to think of their work as socially situated and able to effect change in the “real world” outside of the classroom. The "Teaching Writing in College" session welcomes all submissions but is particularly interested in those that consider writing instruction in relation to language, identity, power and relationships in and outside the writing classroom. Possible topics include but are not limited to:
- Presentations that draw on student texts or amplify student voices;
- Pedagogic using a civic engagement / service-learning approach;
- Pedagogic foregrounding the role of social justice in writing;
- Writing projects and/or assignments which address creative uses of language, voice, and identity;
- Projects examining the creativity and/or voices of student writing;
- Examinations of language difference;
- Activist / alternative approaches to writing assessment; etc.
The session encourages presentations that draw on student work as a primary text as well as interactive presentations that engage audience members. Please send all abstracts to Lisa Diehl at [email protected] by July 1.
Slavic Studies
Papers may treat the literary works of Slavic writers in any genre and from any literary period, tradition or theoretical perspective. Comparative literary approaches are also welcome, as are papers on grammar, film, or language teaching methodology.
Please send abstracts of no more than 350 words, a brief bio, and any A/V requests by May 1 to Marya Zeigler, US Department of Defense, at [email protected]. Presenters must have updated membership in SAMLA.
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