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Underground Imaginaries 2025: Spaces In Between (3-5/04/2025)

  International ConferenceUnderground Imaginaries 2025:Spaces In Between3-5 April 2025 Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Filosofici di Napoli Parthenope University of Naples Call for Papers The Vertical Turn in the Humanities and Social Sciences has prompted an epistemological shift, advocating for the examination of spaces in terms of thickness and volume, as opposed to the horizontality typically depicted in most cartographies. In line with this paradigm, a critical understanding of underground infrastructure becomes essential. This conference builds on this shift to delve deeper into below-ground perspectives within literary, cultural and language studies. A critical understanding of the underground examines how spaces are socially constructed, inhabited and aesthetically portrayed. This analytical endeavour entails engaging with the dual structures that shape the above-below relationship (for example, light-dark; good-bad; allowed-forbidden). Our conference aims to move beyond these dichotomies and adopt a dynamic framework in the analysis of literary and cultural works. In this context, we envision the underground as a constellation of interlinked realms. From transitional mythical and metaphorical spaces to liminal rites bridging worlds, from present-day metro passages to meeting points between the living and the deceased, the conference will particularly focus on threshold spaces and narratives of descent, encounters, and metamorphosis. As Rachel Falconer writes in Hell in Contemporary Literature, “there are as many routes through hell, as there are minds to imagine them” (2019: 6). Hence, we seek to explore these access points, passages, gateways, liminal creatures, communication systems, networks and other epistemologies of transience, suspension and connection within the underground. Topics of interest include but are not limited to literary and cultural studies in the following areas: Please note that abstracts should be submitted with a short bionote to naplesunderground2025@gmail.com and must not exceed 300 words in length. Deadlines Keynote Speakers Iain Chambers Writers and indipendent researcher, former Full Professor of Cultural and Postcolonial Studies (University of Naples “L’Orientale”) Sandro Dionisio Musician, Playwright, Screenplayer and Director, Professor (Academy of Fine Arts in Florence, IT):  “Bellezza e degrado nella città porosa” Rita Lucarelli Associate Professor of Egyptology (University of California “Berkeley”, USA): “Doorscapes Of The Netherworld: A Humanist Geographical Perspective Towards The Ancient Egyptian Underground Imaginaries” Eleonora Rao Associate Professor of English Literature (University of Salerno, IT): “Thinking about Liminal Space in Literary Studies” Guests Scientific Committee Organizing Committee Contact naplesunderground2025@gmail.com Venues Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Filosofici di Napoli (IT)Palazzo Serra di Cassano, Via Monte di Dio 14, 80132 – Napoli (I)https://www.iisf.it Parthenope University of NaplesVia Ammiraglio Ferdinando Acton, 38, 80133 Napoli NA (IT)https://www.uniparthenope.it Accommodation:

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Call For Papers: From Art Nouveau to Green Design: Fashion, Décor, Fashion Writing

Call For Papers: From Art Nouveau to Green Design: Fashion, Décor, Fashion Writing Volume 15 n. 1, 2025 Editor: Carmen Concilio (Università di Torino)ZoneModa Journal invites you to present proposals for a monographic issue on From Art Nouveau to Green Design: Fashion, Décor, Fashion Writing. The aesthetic of Art Nouveau relied on shapes of flowers and plants, its heydays begin the fin de siècle and the beginning of the twentieth century. Wrought iron was a must material in decoration of railings, balcony parapets, window frames and main entrance doors; wrought iron was mass produced and malleable enough to be made to imitate vegetable life. Nowadays figures of flowers and vegetation have become fashionable again in woven materials for clothes, wall paper and upholstery. The turn green movement is now dominant in the world of fashion and the consumer society in all sorts of design contexts; it deals with, and boosts, the recycling of garments and a large variety of fabrics and objects, the so-called “vintage” fashion, which somehow includes the re-use of “biological” leftovers and “waste”- to a degree in imitation of the artistic movement akin to “arte povera” – in the manufacture of furniture, housewares, garden tools. Examples can be the reuse of orange skin to make compostable, biodegradable tools – through 3D printers – and of nut shells to manufacture items of furniture. This issue of the Journal investigates the role of green aesthetics in fashion, design, and in fashion literature and writing, in the specialized fashion media and in the new media: Submissions Abstracts of no more than 1000 words + 5 bibliographical references (word*.docx format), written either in Italian or English, must be sent to: zmj@unibo.it; carmen.concilio@unito.it. Abstract acceptance does not guarantee publication of the article, which will be submitted to a double-blind peer-review process. Key deadlines ZMJ Vol. 15 N.1 is scheduled to be published by July 2025. https://zmj.unibo.it/announcement/view/657

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European Journal of English Studies (EJES) – Call for proposals for special issues

The European Journal of English Studies is inviting proposals for special issues in volume 30 (2026). EJES takes an interest in topics that investigate the borders and intersections between different research fields in English studies, including, but not limited to, literary analysis, linguistics, critical and cultural theory, and gender and sexuality studies. This expansive focus allows the journal to encompass the plurality of English studies in Europe, a reflection of its affiliation with the European Society for the Study of English (ESSE). Topics of special issues feature high-level scholarship as well as a reflection on the argumentative strategies behind ongoing work and emerging directions in the study of Anglophone language and culture. Guest editing teams should consist of two or three scholars who work in different locations within Europe and who have some previous editorial experience. In some cases, EJES publishes issues that have grown out of a conference or a conference panel. Such issues can be considered if the resulting CFP also appeals to scholars who did not participate in the original event. All submissions undergo a double-blind peer-review process. Proposals for topics for volume 30 (2026) should be sent to the editors before 30 November 2024: Isabel Carrera Suárez (University of Oviedo): icarrera@uniovi.es Katerina Kitsi-Mitakou (Artistotle University of Thessaloniki): katkit@enl.auth.gr Frederik Van Dam (Radboud University, Nijmegen): frederik.vandam@ru.nl Procedure 1. Aspiring guest editors submit a CFP of 300-500 words to the general editors. This document includes a list of leading questions (for examples, see the current CFPs on the ESSE website), and brief biographies of the guest editors. 2. The general editors select new topics for the issues before the end of 2024. The chosen CFPs are edited to cohere with EJES’s aims. 3. During the following calendar year, the resulting CFPs are distributed widely. Abstracts for potential submissions are collected in the spring of 2025 and are reviewed by the guest editors and general editors. 4. Selected authors are then invited to submit full-length essays of between 6,000 and 8,000 words by November 2025. These essays are peer-reviewed and appear in the EJES issues scheduled for 2026.

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CfP:  Studi irlandesi. A Journal of Irish Studies, “Portable Ireland. Imaginaries of travel in, out, and about Ireland”, edited by Samuele Grassi, Fiorenzo Fantaccini

CALL FOR PAPERS:  Studi irlandesi. A Journal of Irish Studies, “Portable Ireland. Imaginaries of travel in, out, and about Ireland”, edited by Samuele Grassi, Fiorenzo Fantaccini    “Studi irlandesi. A Journal of Irish Studies”https://oajournals.fupress.net/index.php/bsfm-sijis/index Estimated publication date: July 2025 The fifteenth number of Studi irlandesi. A Journal of Irish Studies focuses on cultural, social, and political imaginaries of Ireland and its relationship to travel. Contributions are welcome from within the humanities and social sciences, as well as from other disciplines, as the journal seeks to expand its reach beyond the soft sciences. Historically, cultural, religious, and intellectual exchanges historically have been central to interactions between Ireland and other countries in Europe and beyond. The relationships between the Irish people and travel have witnessed watershed moments in modern and contemporary Western history – including, the Great Famine in the 1800s, economic migration to the UK in the twentieth century, and beyond – that have shaped national and collective imaginaries both within and outside the country. But what is the current mood of Irish travel? By focusing on “mood”, rather than simply on processes and representations, we hint at the affective dimensions of travel, which manifest in remembrances of the past and imaginings of what the future may hold. The tourist gaze has framed Ireland into an imagined landscape of quaint villages, green hills, and cultural festivals, producing a host of representations that are both cherished and challenged by its residents. In recent years, the country has embraced sustainable tourism, inviting visitors to experience its natural beauty while considering environmental impacts. However, the drive towards eco-conscious travel also raises important questions about how today’s Ireland negotiates its image in an increasingly globalised world.  How does this stand in opposition to, for example, the cultural and linguistic peripherality of Gaelic-speaking Ireland, extending to its classed, genders, sexual, and racialised others? This area has only recently begun to receive scholarly attention and must be taken seriously when examining how certain images of Ireland travel, are commodified, and are refigured for neoliberal consumption. As we consider the intersections of travel, translation, and national identity, with this monographic section of Studi irlandesi we are also going to reflect on the broader implications of these exchanges. How have travel accounts, both historical and contemporary, influenced processes of othering in Irish and other national consciousnesses? What role has translation played in shaping cultural diplomacy and intellectual exchange between Ireland and other nations? By addressing these questions and exploring under-researched aspects of these relations, we wish to contribute to a deeper understanding of the transnational dialogues that have long connected Ireland and the Irish to other cultural spheres. Abstract proposals are sought for full-length essays or experimental pieces dealing one or more of the following themes:               historical colonial language appropriation and incorporation into English-speaking rule              Irish travel and migration              intersectional approaches to Irish travel literature              queer transfeminist perspectives on Irish travel              cultural and creative industries working within, on, and around the concept of Aiteach (Irish Gaelic queer-ness)              the politics and economics of tourism in Ireland              critical approaches to sustainable tourism in Ireland              eco-feminist and eco-critical approaches to literary and cultural texts              revisions of traditional travel imaginaries in Irish storytelling and oral histories              current and future scenarios of Irish travel in (post) Covid-19 times              post-Brexit futures and Irish travel              historical routes, crossroads, and narratives, including cultural exchanges between Italy and Ireland              political activism and travel: activists engaged in anti-tourist campaigns and critiques of overtourism   Articles are subject to full double-blind peer review. Please send abstracts of 250 to 400 words, outlines and expressions of interest for papers of 8,000 to 10,000 words, as well as biographic information of 50 to 100 words by 30 November 2024 to the Guest Editors Samuele Grassi (<samuele.grassi@unifi.it>) and Fiorenzo Fantaccini (<fiorenzo.fantaccini@unifi.it>). Successful candidates will be informed by 10 December 2024. The deadline for submission of manuscripts is 30 March 2024. Please note that the editors welcome the opportunity to discuss non-standard papers and formats, including digital non-academic contributions. From 2011, the interdisciplinary Italy-based journal, Studi irlandesi. A Journal of Irish Studies, focuses on research pertaining to every aspect of Irish culture, literary studies, history, cultural perspectives and linguistic inquiry, from the Romantic Era to the present age. The journal publishes previously unpublished works, both in the original language and Italian translation, as well as interviews, reviews, reports and bibliographies of interest for Irish culture scholars. Research in progress rather than consolidated theories and hypotheses and openings rather than conclusions is particularly encouraged, as is the work of early career and precarious scholars.

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