The eighth annual Crossroads Conference, organized by the Program in Comparative Literature at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, will be held April 10–11, 2026.
This year’s theme, “Alterity and the Comparative Imagination,” invites participants to reflect on the ethics and aesthetics of engaging with “others” through comparative literary study. The conference seeks to explore how difference, plurality, and relation shape both our methodology of study and our readings of texts.
Dr. Leela Gandhi, John Hawkes Professor of Humanities and English at Brown University, will be the keynote speaker of the conference.
We invite graduate and undergraduate students to submit abstracts (250 words maximum) that engage with questions of alterity, comparison, and textual practice. Abstracts are due by December 23, 2025. Please send submissions to [email protected]. Use the following link to find our full CFP: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2025/10/26/crossroads-viii-alterity-and-the-comparative-imagination-graduate-conference
