[Edling] NeMLA 2027 CFP online panel: Stranger Materials: Using Overlooked Media and Artefacts in the Language Classroom

[Alessio Aletta via Edling]

Dear colleagues,

Please find below a final reminder for proposals for the virtual panel “Stranger Materials: Using Overlooked Media and Artefacts in the Language Classroom” at the 58th NeMLA Convention. Please feel free to circulate this CFP among interested colleagues and relevant networks.

DEADLINE: Wednesday, September 30, 2026
CONVENTION DATES: March 6–9, 2027
FORMAT: Online only

Stranger Materials: Using Overlooked Media and Artefacts in the Language Classroom

What counts as teaching material in a language classroom? Textbooks and syllabi usually privilege verbal texts, images, songs, and videos. This panel aims to move away from these more established forms, asking how instructors might work more systematically with materials that, while present, occupy the edges of practice, including comics, maps, digital interfaces, and ephemera. Such materials are often introduced as occasional supplements, but their distinctive structures and modes of communication can also shape sustained pedagogical practices.

This session particularly welcomes experiments with objects whose pedagogical status is less obvious, from conceptual art to domestic artefacts and other forms of material culture whose meanings emerge through use, design, circulation, or display.

Rather than celebrating novelty for its own sake, the session explores the benefits produced by different media. Through practical examples and methodological reflection, contributors will consider how material form can shape linguistic tasks, intercultural interpretation, and student participation across proficiency levels. The panel will also address the challenges involved in selecting, contextualising, and assessing such materials, with particular attention to accessibility and curricular coherence.

Presentations should be delivered in English, but the languages, cultures, and teaching contexts discussed are not limited to the Anglophone world. Proposals concerning any language or cultural context are welcome.

Participants whose papers are accepted will be required to hold NeMLA membership and register for the convention, including for virtual participation. Membership and registration are not required at the proposal-submission stage.

Abstracts should be submitted through the NeMLA website:
https://cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/22706

For further information, please contact Alessio Aletta at aaletta at ucc.ie.

Final deadline: Wednesday, September 30, 2026.

Best wishes,
Alessio Aletta

Alessio Aletta, PhD (he/him;lui)

Government of Ireland Postdoctoral Fellow, funded by Taighde Éireann – Research Ireland
Department of Italian Studies, University College Cork

My latest books, Italian Comics in the New Millennium voll. 1 and 2 (Vernon Press, 2025) are available at 30% discount until the end of February (using code SDLL30 on checkout): https://vernonpress.com/book/2376 ; https://vernonpress.com/book/2377
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