The first conference by Language Acts and Worldmaking will be held at Bush House, London from the 13th to the 14th of June 2018. This conference, called “Languages Memory”, will be devoted to exploring the ways in which languages are experienced, taught, and researched. The call for papers is now open and can be found here. The deadline for the call for papers is 15 December 2017.

Here are some key themes and ideas for proposals:

• Worldmaking and languages
• History, legacy and future of UK, EU and international languages policies and comparative perspectives
• Language ideologies and pedagogies
• Languages in moments of crisis
• New ecologies of memory
• Digital methods and memory practices in relation to Modern Languages
• Technologies of language learning across time
• Languages and coloniality; the postcolonial and the transnational
• Languages and the archive; mnemonics and memory palaces
• Lost languages, linguicide, and future languages
• Remembering language as play
• Diasporic communities and language memory

The American Literature Association will offer a roundtable session on “The Newness of Little Women” in celebration of the novel’s 150th anniversary in 2018. The conference will take place in San Francisco, CA, from May 24-27 2018.  Some of the questions to be explored include In what ways did Alcott’s book revolutionize the novel as a genre or form? In what ways did Alcott’s slangy diction transform the language of American literary realism? What are Little Women’s most distinctive contributions to the development of literary or popular culture? How did the novel change the ways writers could represent young people, mothers and families, art and ambition? How does Little Women represent in unique or ephemeral ways its own moment in history? Interested participants are encouraged to send in 300-word abstracts by email to Gregory Eiselein eiselei@ksu.edu and Anne K. Phillips annek@ksu.edu . The deadline for proposals is Friday, January 19, 2018. Early submissions welcome. The call for papers can be found here.

From the 29^th to the 30^th of June 2018, Bishop Grosseteste University (Lincoln, UK) will be holding a two-day conference celebrating the inception and reception of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein in celebration of 200th anniversary of this literary classic.  Confirmed Speakers include Angela Wright (Professor in English Literature, University of Sheffield), and Marc Hanheide (Reader in Computer Science, University of Lincoln). The Monster Conference will allow attendees to explore the intersection of this classic work with popular culture, and focus upon the pertinent theoretical and methodological challenges relating to how monstrosity and the monstrous get taught at universities and in schools.

The call for papers can be found here. Proposals for papers (20 minutes) and panels (three 20-minute papers) as well as teaching workshops (30 minutes) from a range of disciplines are welcome in the form of 300 word abstracts and a 100 word biographical note by the 31^st of January 2018.  Send submission to to sibylle.erle@bishopg.ac.uk  All proposals will be anonymously peer-reviewed.

From the 17^th to the 21^st of July 2018, Euralex, an international conference on lexicography and dictionaries will be held in Ljubljana, Slovenia.  One theme of the scholarly event is “Queer(ing) Lexicography: Towards truly inclusive dictionary-making?”.  The purpose of this panel is to examine the role that dictionaries play in reinforcing and challenging societal notions of gender, sex, and sexual orientation.  Interested presenters are asked to submit abstracts (max. 300 words) for possible acceptance by the 26^th of November 2017 to one of the following contacts: (e.nossem@mx.uni-saarland.de) and Łukasz Pakuła (l.pakula@gmail.com). Questions about the conference and submission requirements can be also be directed to these contacts as well. You can review the call for papers here.

The third Poznań Conference of Celtic Studies (PCCS3) will be held from the 9th to the 10th of July 2018 in Poznań, Poland. The conference will be hosted by the Centre for Celtic Studies at the Faculty of English, Adam Mickiewicz University. Interested researchers are encouraged to submit abstracts for thematic sessions or general session papers (max. 300-350 words plus bibliography) for talks of 20 minutes plus ten minutes of discussion; the call for papers can be found here. The deadline for submissions is 31st March 2018. Also invited are thematic sessions proposals of of 3-9 presentations.

Selected papers will be published in the second volume of Studies Celtica Posnaniensia and Celtic Studies journal launched by the Center for Celtic Studies and published by deGruyter.

California State University, Long Beach will be hosting the 46th annual meeting of the North Atlantic Conference on Afroasiatic Linguistics (NACAL 46) from the 1st to the 3rd of June 2018. NACAL is a annual meeting which focusses on linguistic topics relevant to the languages of the Afroasiatic phylum (Berber, Chadic, Cushitic, Egyptian, Omotic, and Semitic). Topics related to phonological, morphological, syntactic, and epigraphic aspects of Afroasiatic languages are welcome. Comparative and sociolinguistic approaches are also encouraged. Interested researchers are asked to send anonymized abstract proposals for presentations and/or posters by January 15, 2018. The call for papers can be found here.

From the 17th to the 21st of July 2018, the 18th Euralex International Congress will be held in Ljubljana, Slovenia. This international conference brings together lexicographers, publishers, researchers, software developers and others interested in dictionaries of all types. The scientific theme for this year’s conference is “Lexicography in Global Contexts”. Researchers who are interested in presenting a scientific paper at this event are encouraged to submit extended abstract proposals with a maximum of 800 words (excluding references, tables and figures) by the 1st of December 2017. The call for papers can be found here.