The presidential theme of MLA 2027 is ‘Emancipatory Narratives’. Drawn from deep scholarship in African American culture, the theme invites scholars in other fields to engage with, mediate, translate, and quarrel with the idea of emancipations. What does or can this work mean in Irish contexts? Does the word ‘emancipation’ carry over with a difference into Irish culture or is it a form of appropriation to think with it? Topics may include slavery and its contexts; American stories and their aftermaths in Irish cultures; Douglass and Ireland; gender, sexuality, and reproductive freedom; migrations and movement; activism and social change, etc.

We invite proposals of 150 words for a roundtable discussion at MLA 2027. Submit proposals and queries by March 6, 2025 to ACIS Literature Representative Cóilín Parsons, [email protected].