Call for Papers: Names That Reveal; Names That Conceal: Onomastic Sleight of Hand in Global Literature (MLA 2027)

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The American Name Society

Call for Papers

for the ANS virtual panel at the

Modern Language Association (MLA) Convention #mla27

7-10 January 2027, Los Angeles, California

Names That Reveal; Names That Conceal

Onomastic Sleight of Hand in Global Literature

Espionage novels and allegories often use names to conceal motives or plot twists or to reveal character or caricature. How have authors, poets, playwrights, screenwriters, lyricists and other wordsmiths used names of characters, places, corporations, institutions, movements, etc., to effect onomastic sleight of hand? And why? In this panel, we will consider names that reveal and names that conceal people groups (anthroponyms), characters (charactonyms), places (toponyms), theonyms (divine beings), events, and more in the real world and/or in imagined worlds from any era, from any place, as recorded or found in any media. Useful resources include, the archives of NAMES: A Journal of Onomastics (https://ans-names.pitt.edu/ans/issue/archive), the ANS list of terminology (https://ans-names.pitt.edu/ans/keywords), Dorothy Dodge Robbins’ edited collection Literary Onomastics (2023), Star Medzerian Vanguri’s edited collection Rhetorics of Names and Naming (2016), and the Oxford Handbook of Names and Naming(2018).

Proposal Submission Process:

  1. Email Dr. Anne W. Anderson (editing@gmail.com) as follows:
    1. Email Subject Line: Use “MLA 2027 proposal” in the subject line of the email.
    2. Email Body: In the email body include the title and first line of the abstract, the full name(s) of the author(s), their affiliation(s), and their email address(es).
    3. Proposal: Attach a PDF file that includes the proposal title, an abstract of up to 350-500 words, and a list of works cited. Do NOT include author identification in the PDF.
  2. DEADLINE: Proposals must be received by 11:59 pm EST on Monday, 16 March 2026. Authors will be notified about the results of the blind review on or by 27 March 2026.
  3. Contributors selected for the thematic panel must be members of both MLA and ANS in order to present their papers; both memberships must be obtained by 7 April 2026.
  4. Questions? Please contact Dr. Anne W. Anderson (editing@gmail.com).