​“[Writing is] where my imagination is fecund and I am really at my best.” -Toni Morrison
The broad field of English studies has a proud and rich history. Although our discipline is regularly undervalued and even disregarded by some individuals outside of the humanities, we continue to contribute a great deal to the progress of education, scholarship, and society as a whole. While some commentators have suggested that technology can do the things we do, others seem to point to the uncompromising necessity of what we teach. Most famously, Anthropic co-founder and English B.A. Daniela Amodei recently claimed, “The ability to have critical thinking skills will be more important in the future, rather than less.”
This call asks you to probe and ponder the following questions: What are the things only we as human beings, scholars, and educators can do? What makes us genuinely unique?
The 2026 ICEA Conference invites proposals that explore what unique qualities we (folks in  English studies and the humanities writ large) use to impact our communities, institutions, and the world. Potential scholarship areas include:

• Historical perspectives on the impact of English
• The reach of English inside the academy
• The reach of English outside the academy
• English’s impact on human psychology
• The danger of supposing AI can duplicate or replace human impact
• Literary analysis and/or textual criticism
• Cross-disciplinary or interdisciplinary work
• Linguistics or language studies
• Rhetoric and composition
• Professional and technical writing/communication
• Pedagogy
• Writing across the curriculum (WAC) 
• Writing in the disciplines (WID)
• Teaching English to speakers of other languages (TESOL/TEFL/TELL, etc.)
• Cross-disciplinary or interdisciplinary work
• Creative submissions (readings of original poetry, fiction, etc.)
• . . . while we invite papers specifically related to this year’s focus, all papers of post-secondary English studies are welcome.

 
Please send a 200-word proposal along with your name, position, and affiliation to
[email protected] by August 15, 2026. If proposing a full panel, send a single
proposal with individual presentation titles and information for all speakers. Graduate
students are welcome to submit, and undergraduate students with faculty
sponsors/support will be considered. If your proposal is accepted, you will be required to
join ICEA to present. We are an affiliate of the College English Association (CEA), and
successful ICEA proposals can also be submitted for the 2027 CEA Conference.