Romantic Disenchantment: Wordsworth-Coleridge Association at MLA 2027 CFP
As we all get excited for the upcoming MLA in Toronto this coming January (8-11 2026), we have exciting news to share for the year that will follow! The Wordsworth-Coleridge Association invites proposals for the MLA Convention in Los Angeles, January 7-10, 2027.
Romantic Disenchantment
For years Romanticists have been celebrating Romantic bicentennials—first births, then notable publications, then deaths. Now we pass once again into the season of Romanticism's own posthumous existence, a bleak scene clearly on Mary Shelley's mind when she published The Last Man in 1826. In this abrupt and untimely vacancy, the radical aesthetic and political possibilities explored by so many Romantic writers were in limbo. Wordsworth's refrain from another disenchanted moment must have resonated: "Whither is fled the visionary gleam? / Where is it now, the glory and the dream?" But if disenchantment was omnipresent, it was also a prelude for renewed Romantic possibilities, for as E.P. Thompson once noted, "There is nothing in disenchantment inimical to art."
The Wordsworth-Coleridge Association invites proposals for papers that examine disenchantment, disillusionment, and disappointment in British and European Romanticism. Panelists may wish to address representations of disenchantment in the poetry and prose of Romantic-era writers, or the profound sense of despondency that emerged in the aftermath of Romantic exuberance, following such events as the downfall of the French Revolution and the untimely demise of Keats, Shelley, and Byron. Panelists may also examine the shrinking institutional profile of Romantic Studies at a moment when disenchantment seems culturally ascendant. What does it mean to live in the wake of Romanticism—in 1826 or 2026?
Submission Guidelines
Please submit abstracts (maximum 300 words) by March 15, 2026, to James McKusick at mckusickj@umkc.edu. The MLA requires a brief biographical statement (approximately 300 words), written in the third person, including the presenter's name, title, affiliation, final degree institution and date, scholarly interests and publications. Particularly relevant are scholarship and publications that directly relate to the proposed session topic. Please include persuasive points about the importance, significance, and contribution of the proposed presentation and any previous work you have done relating to the session topic.
As this is an MLA panel, all MLA program participants must be members of the Modern Language Association by April 1, 2026. Become part of the MLA and join here: https://www.mla.org/Membership/About-Membership
All subscribers to The Wordsworth Circle are members of the Wordsworth-Coleridge Association. Essays selected for presentation at MLA will be considered for publication in The Wordsworth Circle.
Please share this CFP with your colleague!
For questions about this Call for Papers, please contact James McKusick. We hope you will consider submitting a proposal!
