CFP: Lydia Maria Child Society

American Literature Association Conference in Boston, MA
21–24 May 2025 at the Westin Copley Place

Social Justice Pedagogy Roundtable

The Lydia Maria Child Society seeks participants for a roundtable on pedagogy, social justice, and American literature. Considering contemporary social justice concerns ranging from the global rise of white supremacism to persistent gender and racial inequities accentuated by COVID-19’s disproportionate impact on Black, Hispanic, and Native American and Alaska Native people, and by various state- and community-based oppositions to, and banning of, K–12 books and public-school curricula about race or gender, the Child Society feels strongly that many of the issues for which Child fought so passionately remain deeply relevant today. To honor her lifelong commitment to both education and writing as ways to attain social change, we ask that our selected panelists prepare brief presentations (approximately 10 minutes) on how they address the above issues and/or others within the literature classroom, before engaging in what we hope will be a fruitful and wide-ranging open discussion on social justice pedagogies and American literature. What texts and social issues have proved particularly pertinent to your students’ lived experiences of activism, marginalization, etc.? How do you productively draw parallels between the concerns of the literary works you teach and those we are facing in the world outside the classroom? What specific lesson plans, textual pairings/groupings, and/or other pedagogical approaches might you recommend to colleagues striving to make their syllabi and classrooms more socially conscious and engaged?

Please send 200-word abstracts of your proposed presentation, as Word documents, to lydiamariachildsociety@gmail.com by January 25, 2025.  Note that while we, of course, welcome proposals that engage with Child’s work, Child need not be included for your proposal to be considered.