Doris Lessing Society CFPs for MLA 2020
The Doris Lessing Society’s calls for papers for MLA 2020 in Seattle (deadline 17 March 2019):
Migrants, Refugees, and Exiles in the Work of Doris Lessing
Lessing’s portrayals and thematizations of the displacement or movement of peoples: during and after colonialism and the nation-state; in connection with political and environmental crisis; from transnational or planetary perspectives. 300-word abstract, brief bio.
The Question of the Human in Doris Lessing
Humanity as considered in the work of Doris Lessing: as a value, a species, a problem. 300-word abstract; brief bio.
Follow links above for submission details.
CFPs for MLA 2019
The Doris Lessing Society’s calls for papers for the 2019 MLA Convention in Chicago are now posted! We are looking for contributors to two sessions.
The first is “Celebrating Doris Lessing’s Centennial” — our first recognition of the upcoming year as the 100th anniversary of Lessing’s birth! Submission deadline and contact details are here.
The second is “Doris Lessing and Other Writers: Doris’s Daughters,” where we hope to evaluate Lessing’s impact on literature since 1950 by considering her relation to those writers she promoted, overtly influenced, or otherwise assisted, such as Margaret Drabble, Jenny Diski, Anna Kavan, Brian Aldiss, Clancy Sigal, Idries Shah, and others. Submission deadline and contact details are here.
Looking forward to your proposals — feel free to contact the Society with any questions.
the Doris Lessing Society at the 2018 MLA Convention
Full details for the Doris Lessing Society’s panel session and annual general meeting at the 2018 MLA Convention in New York City are now posted on this site’s current MLA page. We hope you will join us for either or both events!
calls for papers, MLA 2018
Now posted: the Doris Lessing Society’s calls for papers for the 2018 MLA Annual Convention in New York City!
The topic of the Society’s guaranteed session is “Alternative Domesticities in the Works of Doris Lessing.” Following Jenny Diski’s 2016 memoir, In Gratitude, we invite new readings of Lessing’s portrayals of non-biological families, non-normative modes of affiliation and dependence, and unconventional households and genealogies. Deadline and contact details can be viewed here.
The topic of the special session the Society will propose is “Doris Lessing and Planetary Insecurity.” We seek accounts of Lessing’s early and long engagement with the present, global state of crisis and of her insistence on the role of literature, particularly fiction, in apprehending it. The MLA President’s theme for next year’s convention is “#States of Insecurity”: where mankind’s history of “events as varied as war, plague, famine, conquest, and enslavement” have led to today’s climate of “political volatility, fluctuating financial markets, fear-mongering media, and increasingly hateful acts and rhetoric that contribute to a general sense of malaise.” In what ways does Lessing’s prophetic and pioneering work offer a space for “critical and historical reflection, inquiry, and intervention” on these dire and urgent conditions? Deadline and contact details can be viewed here.
Doris Lessing Society 