The Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association (PAMLA) invites special session proposals for its 2026 annual conference in Seattle, WA, both on and off the conference theme:
Our Ruling Classes: Culture, Power, Conflict
For those who wish to engage the theme, PAMLA welcomes creative and scholarly proposals that examine questions of power, leadership, hierarchy, and conflict across literature, culture, and media. Topics may include ruling elites and social hierarchies, revolutionary or resistant movements, colonization and anti-colonial resistance, corporate and transnational power, class stratification, gendered or racialized systems of authority, celebrity and cultural elites, heroes and epic traditions, and other formations of power and conflict.
Importantly, special session proposals beyond the conference theme are strongly encouraged. PAMLA welcomes sessions on a broad range of topics across literary studies, media studies, cultural studies, creative work, linguistics, and language pedagogy, particularly where proposals address areas of interest not already covered by general sessions:
21st-Century Literature; Adaptation Studies; African American Literature; American Literature before 1865; American Literature 1865-1945; American Literature after 1945; Ancient-Modern Relations; Anime and Manga; Architecture and Space; Asian American Literature; Asian Film and Media; Asian Literature; Austrian Studies; Autobiography; Beyond Binaries; Bible and Literature; British Literature and Culture: To 1700; British Literature and Culture: Long Eighteenth Century; British Literature and Culture: Long Nineteenth Century; British Literature and Culture: 20th and 21st Century; Canadian Literature and Culture; Children’s Literature; Classics (Greek); Classics (Latin); Comics and Graphic Narratives; Comparative American Ethnic Literature; Comparative Literature; Comparative Media; Composition and Rhetoric; Creative Writing: Brief Prose; Creative Writing: Poetry; Crime and Mystery; Critical Theory; Cultural History; Digital Humanities & Creative Praxis; Digital Studies; Disability Studies; Disney Culture; Drama and Society; East-West Literary Relations; Family and Metafamily; Fantasy and the Fantastic; Feminisms; Film and Literature; Film Studies; Folklore and Mythology; Food Representation in the Spanish-Speaking World; Food Studies; French; Gay, Lesbian and Transgender Literature; Germanic Studies; Gothic; Hip Hop Aesthetics and Spoken Word Poetics; Holocaust in Literature, Film, and Popular Culture; Horror and the Supernatural; Indigenous Literatures and Cultures; Italian; Italian Cinema; Italian Ecocriticism; Jewish Literature and Culture; Language, Culture, and Linguistics; Latin American Cinema; Latina/o Literature and Culture; Literature & the Other Arts; Literature and Religion; Medieval Literature; Middle English Literature, including Chaucer; New Italians; Oceanic Literatures and Cultures; Old English Literature, including Beowulf; Poetry and Poetics; Postcolonial Literature; Prison Studies; Religion in American Literature; Rhetorical Approaches to Literature; Rhetorical Theory; Romanticism; Science Fiction; Shakespeare and the Early Moderns; Spain, Portugal, and Latin America: Jewish Culture & Literature in Trans-Iberia; Spanish and Portuguese (Latin American); Spanish and Portuguese (Peninsular); Teaching with Media and Technology; Teaching Writing Across the Disciplines; Television Studies; Translation Studies; Travel and Literature; Un camino difícil/A difficult Journey: Cultural Products about “(Il)legal” (Im)migration; Veterans Studies; Video Game Studies; Women in Literature; Young Adult Literature and Culture.
Additionally, special sessions offer an opportunity to shape focused scholarly conversations and to bring together participants working in shared or emerging areas of inquiry. While organizing and chairing a special session can be professionally rewarding, it also requires significant planning and coordination. Prospective session organizers are strongly encouraged to review PAMLA’s expectations and responsibilities before submitting a proposal.
About Special Sessions
Special sessions provide an opportunity to shape focused scholarly conversations and to bring together participants working in shared or emerging areas of inquiry. While planning, overseeing, and chairing a special session can be deeply rewarding, it is also a significant professional commitment. Prospective session organizers are strongly encouraged to review PAMLA’s expectations and responsibilities before submitting a proposal.
Special Session Guidelines:
https://www.pamla.org/conference/guidelines/
The 2026 special session proposal deadline is March 1, 2026. To submit a session proposal, log into pamla.ballastacademic.com (you will need to create an account there if you’ve never done so before), click on the Propose Session button, and follow the directions from there.