1. Making Modernity: French and Francophone Women Creators, 1900–1959
Women in French (WIF) invites submissions for a special session at the South Atlantic Modern Language Association (SAMLA) Annual Conference in Atlanta, Georgia, November 5-7. We welcome papers examining both canonical and lesser-known figures working in literature, film, journalism, theater, visual arts, music, fashion, intellectual history, and related cultural fields. Contributions may address individual creators, networks of women artists and intellectuals, historical movements, transnational exchanges, publishing and production contexts, feminist interventions, or questions of reception and legacy. In keeping with this year’s SAMLA theme of “Hospitality,” we also welcome proposals that explore the ways women creators negotiated inclusion, exclusion, hospitality, and cultural belonging within artistic, social, and political spheres.
Topics that might be considered include:
• French and Francophone women writers, filmmakers, artists, journalists, intellectuals, performers, and cultural producers active between 1900 and 1959.
• Women’s contributions to literary, artistic, cinematic, and cultural modernisms.
• Women and the avant-garde, surrealism, dadaism, symbolism, futurism, or related movements.
• Colonial, transcolonial, and diasporic perspectives in Francophone women's cultural production.
• Women’s publishing networks, salons, journals, and artistic communities.
• Questions of visibility, canon formation, recovery, and archival research.
• Intersections of literature, film, visual culture, theater, music, fashion, and performance.
• Representations of hospitality, welcome, exclusion, belonging, foreignness, or displacement in women's creative works.
• New theoretical or methodological approaches to understudied women creators and texts.
By September 1, 2026, please send abstracts of 250–500 words, along with a brief bio and any AV requests, to Mary McCullough(memccull@samford.edu) and Marylaura Papalas (papalasM@ecu.edu).
2. The Work of Art as Host: How does one work of art “host” another? What is at stake when a text makes room for another voice, in the same or differing media, either in collaboration or through ekphrasis, allusion, or even pastiche? Does the act of welcoming in another work of art create an economy of giving and receiving, such as in Hélène Cixous’s writing about painting? Or does the other work of art disturb and trouble the original, resisting interpretation, like the photography in Marie Ndiaye’s Autoportrait en vert? This panel invites papers that reflect on the possibility and/or impossibility of hospitality offered by women’s writing and artistic practice in the 20th and 21st centuries. Papers that examine textual/artistic hospitality as it relates to gender and sexuality, life writing and autofiction, intermediality, intertextuality, or adaptation are encouraged. This panel is organized by Women in French and presenters must be members of the organization. Women in French offers a complimentary one-year membership for first time members and competitive travel grants for graduate students (rolling applications). Please submit proposals of 250-500 words by September 1. For more information, contact Noelle Giguere at ngiguer@emory.edu.
3. Refreshments Provided: Language Departments and Hospitality
Food, music, culture: language departments in higher education often have the reputation of being places where students learn as much in class as they do outside of class, participating in activities such as conversation tables, cultural events, study abroad, and field trips. These activities can draw in students and generate interest; however, they can also sometimes detract from the academic and critical work of a department. Students might choose to study a foreign language, especially at the beginning level, because the classes are considered as extra-curricular and less rigorous. In a time when language enrollments are dropping and students are increasingly relying on AI for translation and knowledge, how can departments leverage their talent for hosting events to continue to attract students while also maintaining high expectations for academic rigor and serious work? What does/should/can hospitality look like in departments where in-person events are being replaced by digital communication? This roundtable is organized by Women in French, and presenters must be members of the organization. Women in French offers a complimentary one-year membership for first time members and competitive travel grants for graduate students (rolling applications). Please submit proposals of 250-500 words by September 1. For more information, contact Noelle Giguere at ngiguer@emory.edu.
Sessions sponsored by Women in French (WIF). Presenters must be members of Women in French by the time of the conference. Information about membership is available through the WIF organization.
