Call for Article Submissions
The open access online journal entitled Literature is calling for papers for a special issue on Realpolitik in Renaissance and Early Modern British Literature.
The collection of essays will offer innovative readings of British literature of the Renaissance and early modern period that reflect the influence of realpolitik, especially as embodied in Machiavelli’s writings, and The Prince in particular. Topics of interest for this volume may include (but are not limited to) the following: the depiction of major Machiavellian tenets; the contrasting of the traditional concept of the divine right of kings with the secular view of power; the portrayal of women as astute Machiavels; the concealment of secret plotting through literal and figurative disguises, with the characters who are most adept at dissembling being the most challenging to detect as political strategists; the appearance of Machiavellian strategies in literary works that are not overtly political in nature; the subversiveness of literary texts that explore early modern politics; and the literary depiction of conspiracies and planned invasions, like those occurring in early modern England. The deadline for the submission of essays is April 30, 2024, and the recommended minimum word count is 4,000 words, with no maximum word count limitation. Send a 400 to 600 words abstract to Dr. Carolyn Brown, guest editor, at brownc@usfca.edu.
Submission Deadline: April 30, 2024
For more information, consult this link: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/literature/special_issues/313AC1CI2D
CFP: Titanic Optimism: Shakespeare in Tempestuous Times
Editors: Craig Dionne, Tim Francisco, and Sharon O’Dair
Seeking essays for an edited collection
In December 2021, a kerfuffle played out across the pages of The New York Times, The New Yorker, and The Chronicle of Higher Education. The topic: two books that defend “Great Books” courses taught by generalists. Especially piqued was Louis Menand in The New Yorker who, according to Leonard Cassuto in the Chronicle, “lost his cool” by insisting on the superior importance of specialist research and pedagogy for these works. Academics badly need a conversation about this topic, says Cassuto: we face uncertain, possibly grim futures.
But, as is too often the case, debates about the current and future states of academia circulate among elite professors, far from the majority working in higher education. What the conversation so far lacks areperspectives of those teaching at regional publics, small liberal arts colleges, HBCUs and community colleges, the institutions that educate the majority of students. These perspectives, and the challenges they address, are important, as James Shapiro wrote in 2019, because they “are likely to be visited soon upon those who teach at research universities,” and evidence suggests that they already are, in states like Florida and Nebraska…
In contrast to the situation at elite institutions, where the generalist is under fire, at many institutions, the specialist is under fire. These colleagues, often trained at elite institutions, are becoming generalists, or even do not teach literature at all; the “GreatBooks” are long gone and so, too, are many single-author or even survey courses in our field.
Titanic Optimism: we mean the double-entendre of titanic/Titanic for faculty at the many institutions who struggle with the goals of the discipline in what feels like the final hour. Forced to make difficult decisions about what sections of creative writing or literature or technical writing to cut given stretched budgets and declining admissions, we do not get to choose, if you will, our place on the deck—arranging chairs, as the adage goes. We don’t have the luxury of choice. This the hand we are dealt, which we must play whether we acknowledge it, see it as a double bind, or choose to ignore it altogether.
On the Titanic, the small orchestra played familiar but upbeat pieces as the ship went down, trying to prevent panic among the passengers. Heroic, true, but what this collection will explore is whether preventing panic by reciting what's familiar is the answer we need.
Most of us face enrollment declines—which equals funding declines for state-supported institutions—which the continuing pursuit and promotion of STEM and other “practical” subjects, and legislative backlash to CRT and DEI.
Countless opinion pieces have appeared on how we got here with no shortage of antagonists or culprits, so we seek papers that do not finger-point. That said, analyses of root causes, surprising connections between the material, the political, and the pedagogical, and radical strategies for intervention are welcome—and encouraged.
We seek papers that assess the situation, either broadly across institutions or on the ground of one’s home institution: what is changing, what has changed, what do colleagues do in response, what do you do in response? How is your institution representative of broader trends and issues—or not? What, ultimately, do we envision as the future of the discipline, of disciplinary study writ large, and what strategies exist to survive—or even thrive—in tempestuous times?
Abstracts of no more than 300 words due 1 June 2024.
Completed drafts 1 January 2025.
Call for Conference Talks
RSA 2025: Sidney Society
The Sidney Circle
The International Sidney Society welcomes abstracts related to members of the Sidney circle, including Philip Sidney, Mary Sidney, Mary Wroth, Robert Sidney, William Herbert, Fulke Greville, Walter Raleigh, and Penelope Rich.
Women of the Sidney Family
We welcome papers on works especially by Mary Sidney Herbert and Mary Wroth.
Sex and the Sidneys
The Sidney circle engages with sexuality, gender, and desire. Regardless of form or genre, their works show their constant interest in these subjects of central human concern. We invite proposals on any aspect of sex in the Sidney circle and their works. Topics might include, but are not limited to,
- The sexuality of the blazoned body
- Threatening sexual desire
- Allusion, mythology, and sexuality
- Sex, procreation, and creativity
- Pleasure and desire
- Disguised sexualities
- Sex and humor
- Sex and power
- Class and sexuality
- Landscape, the body, and desire
- Desire and morality
- "Passionate sonnets," form, and desire
The Political Sidneys
This topic presents a rich mine of possibilities, as shown by the following events. The Sidney family, from its rise with Sir William Sidney the close friend of King Edward VI to the execution of Algernon Sidney, was rarely non-political. Of its literary members, Sir Philip Sidney was a favoured courtier, involved in settling the New World, Ambassador to the Holy Roman Empire, and the second-in-command of the English forces in the Netherlands; Robert Sidney was a Member of Parliament, Governor of Flushing, and an influential courtier of King James I; Mary Sidney’s first major literary work was Antonius, a translation of Robert Garnier’s highly political play about Antony and Cleopatra; Mary Wroth was a member of Queen Anne’s intimate circle and later helped her lover become Lord Chamberlain; and Algernon was the most political Sidney of them all – soldier, anti-Cromwellian republican, envoy, exile, dissident and perhaps insurrectionist, as well as writing the Discourses Concerning Government and Court Maxims.
Pedagogy: A Workshop
This workshop addresses challenges experienced in teaching Philip Sidney’s Arcadia, the translation of the Psalms by Philip Sidney and Mary Sidney Herbert, Mary Wroth’s poems, or other works by the Sidney family and their circle. We welcome thoughts on digital opportunities, inventive syllabi, and classroom anecdotes. Panelists for this workshop will be chosen from submitted abstracts.
RSA 2025: Scientific Poetry and Poetics in Britain and Germany
We invite proposals for a series of panels that stems from an ongoing AHRC and DFG-funded project, ‘Scientific Poetry and Poetics in Britain and Germany, from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment’ (https://scientificpoetry.org/). The project explores a mass of largely-unknown scientific poetry – and a corresponding poetics of science – that reveals a vibrant facet of Renaissance, Restoration, and Enlightenment culture: the production not only of ideas, but of new, technical vocabularies, all forged in the particular demands of poetic form. The project’s reformulation of the era’s poetic ideas - its cosmopoetics, its theopoetics and its physico-theology - bears on how we understand emergent aesthetics in this most tumultuous period for the vernaculars of both England and Germany. It also reveals the compositional and referential density of both scientific knowledge and poetic forms, writing that came to be valued precisely because of its discursive volatility and its kaleidoscopic capacity. Moreover, we seek to unearth and analyze a body of work by women, much of it in manuscript, that deploys scientific ideas to dazzling effect, as well as neo-Latin verse on topics ranging from blood transfusion to flight theory.
We welcome paper proposals on any aspect of the intersections between poetry, poetics and natural philosophy in early modern vernacular and neo-Latin writings, including (but not limited to) the following:
- early modern poetry/poetics that engages with geology and sea-science, botany and natural history, astronomy and cosmology, atomic thought and a range of emergent sciences,
- relations in scientific-poetic writing between early modern vernaculars and neo-Latin,
- how scientific ideas filter into other frameworks of poetic writing, such as the theological, political and domestic,
- the impact of different poetic forms on the creation and communication of scientific ideas,
- the poetics of scientific practice and theory and the contribution of scientific thought to poetics,
- scientific poetry within the European early Enlightenment.
Please send a 200-300 word abstract of your paper and your contact information (name; affiliation; email address) tocassie.gorman@aru.ac.uk. Your submission should include a paper title (15-word maximum), relevant keywords, and a short CV. The deadline for submissions is 26 July 2024; notification of acceptance will be made by 09 August 2024.
Nature and Science in Premodern Literature at PAMLA in Palm Springs, CA
This panel is open to papers that focus on the relationship between the natural sciences and ancient, medieval, and early modern literature (before roughly 1700 CE) from all parts of the globe. This panel explores the ways in which pre- and early modern literature works with and against contemporary scientific theories, methods, and discourses. Papers may engage any element of the natural sciences, from philosophy, theology, and theory, to inventions and practical technologies. Scientific fields may include astronomy and cosmology, biology and medicine, mathematics, physics and chemistry, and many more.
Deadline: April 30
All abstracts should be submitted via the PAMLA website.
This year's Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association (PAMLA) will be held November 6-10 in Palm Springs, CA. More conference information can be found here.
Please feel free to send any questions to summer.lizer@cgu.edu
Medieval Literature at PAMLA in Palm Springs, CA
Abstract: Medieval Literature will study multiple aspects of medieval literature, with special consideration for work that engages with the conference theme, "Translation in Action." This panel welcomes a broad interpretation of the theme as it relates to Medieval literature as well as the field of medieval studies itself. We also welcome work that considers translation and other similar frameworks.
Description: While Medieval Literature will consider a variety of papers, we welcome proposals that engage with the conference theme, "Translation in Action." This panel welcomes work on any aspect of Medieval literature, but work that considers translation from a broad range of perspectives in terms of the Medieval is particularly welcome. Some questions to ponder include, but are not limited to: what happens when texts move from one space to another? How does the movement between different spaces affect a character? What are the ways in which medievalists can make their work legible and accessible to those outside of the field? In what ways can translation be a metaphor? What is the relationship between an original and a translated copy? What are the limits to translation, and how do we deal with them? What dictates the ability for some things to carry over from one context into another? How might translation forge connections?
Deadline: April 30, 2024.
Please submit paper proposals through PAMLA's online system: https://pamla.ballastacademic.com/Home/S/19227