CFP Uncharted Medievalisms: Medieval Borrowings in Games (NeMLA Session 21633) (Hybrid) (9/30/2025; Pittsburgh 3/5-8/2026)

Uncharted Medievalisms: Medieval Borrowings in Games (NeMLA Session 21633)

deadline for submissions:

September 30, 2025


full name / name of organization:

57th Northeast Modern Language Association Conference


contact email:

cscarlsell@gmail.com


source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2025/06/27/uncharted-medievalisms-medieval-borrowings-in-games-nemla-session-21633

Games have long used medievalist or medieval-adjacent settings to engage with audiences. Scholars have noted the various connections to be made between popular perceptions of the medieval in games and historical and textual realities of the medieval world. While games may not always make it a priority to accurately portray medieval (or pseudo-medieval) life, there are still important parallels and intertextual references that games use to harken back to the medieval world—whatever version of that that reality they choose to use as a basis, at least. Just like games construct a faux reality for their players, so too have the popular conceptions of the medieval world been carefully constructed through literature and popular culture. Games, as a result, often use borrowed or shared narrative references and storylines to shape this perception and the connection between these texts. For example, in Larian’s incredibly popular game Baldur’s Gate 3, players enter the Underdark and are presented with a sword in a stone that only the correct rolls or actions can release. The blade itself, Phalar Aluve, is a magic weapon from which certain classes and races can achieve great benefits, and this only serves to link it in imagination with the famous sword of King Arthur. This session seeks to explore these constructs and medieval allusions in popular gaming worlds, showcasing their importance to the culturally constructed medieval world and their connections to medieval texts that have shaped our understanding of the past. Possible textual topics include Warhammer, World of Warcraft, Dungeons & Dragons, Baldur’s Gate 3, Assassin’s Creed, Pendragon, Kingdom Come: Deliverance, Mount & Blade, Final Fantasy, and other medievalist games. Abstracts that explore explicit connections between games and medieval texts/narratives will be given preference, but all explorations of gaming and the medieval world are welcome.



Hybrid Session.


Please use the NeMLA Abstract Submission Portal at https://cfplist.com/nemla/Home/CFP and submit to session 21633


NeMLA's deadline is September 30, 2026.

CFP Twainian Regeneration: Adaptations of the Works, Life, and Legacy of Mark Twain (NeMLA Session 21918) (Hybrid) (9/30/2025; Pittsburgh 3/5-8/2026)

Twainian Regeneration: Adaptations of the Works, Life, and Legacy of Mark Twain (NeMLA Session 21918)

deadline for submissions:

September 30, 2025


full name / name of organization:

57th Northeast Modern Language Association Conference


contact email:

cscarlsell@gmail.com


source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2025/06/27/twainian-regeneration-adaptations-of-the-works-life-and-legacy-of-mark-twain-nemla

This session is sponsored by the Mark Twain Circle of America.



American author Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1935-1910) achieved lasting fame as Mark Twain, an identity that served as both his pen name and the persona he cultivated for the public. Twain’s writings and his distinctive character have dispersed across time and space, and the resulting Twainian tradition incorporates these elements in many ways.


Importantly, his works and iconography have long been the focus of adaptation. This process begins with the illustrations commissioned for the initial publication of his texts, Twain’s own attempts to rework and expand his stories, and contemporary caricatures of his person, and it continues with retellings of Twain’s stories, linked texts (such as prequels, midquels, and sequels) connected to his work, recastings and restagings of his tales, and new adventures for Twain himself. These adaptations, appropriations, and transformations of Twain appear in diverse forms and formats including anime series, artworks, cartoons, comics, films, games, historical fiction texts, home video releases, graphic novels, illustrations, memorials, musical theater productions, mysteries, performances, plays, radio broadcasts, science fiction works, sculptures, song lyrics, stamps, television programming, theme park attractions, and tourist sites.


Each adaptation regenerates aspects of Twain for new audiences revealing fresh insights into the reception of his works, life, and legacy. They also highlight both the timelessness of Twain as well as his timeliness for the present of each new text that his writings and his person have inspired.


Resource Guide: https://tinyurl.com/TwainianRegenerationRG.


Hybrid Session.


Please use the NeMLA submission portal at https://cfplist.com/nemla/Home/CFP and look for session 21918.


NeMLA's submission deadline is September 30, 2025.

Recent Book - Fantasy Aesthetics - Open-Access

transcript Verlag has recently published the open-access collection Fantasy Aesthetics: Visualizing Myth and Middle Ages, 1880-2020. Full details and access link at https://www.transcript-publishing.com/978-3-8376-7058-5/fantasy-aesthetics/.

Fantasy Aesthetics: Visualizing Myth and Middle Ages, 1880-2020

Hans Rudolf Velten / Joseph Imorde (Eds.)

4 July 2024, 264 pages

ISBN: 978-3-8376-7058-5

Fantasy novels are products of popular culture. They owe their popularity also to the visualization of medievalist artifacts on book covers and designs, illustrations, maps, and marketing: Castles on towering cliffs, cathedral-like architecture, armored heroes and enchanting fairies, fierce dragons and mages follow mythical archetypes and develop pictorial aesthetics of fantasy, completed by gothic fonts, maps and page layout that refer to medieval manuscripts and chronicles. The contributors to this volume explore the patterns and paradigms of a specific medievalist iconography and book design of fantasy which can be traced from the 19th century to the present.