The ANS panel at the Modern Language Association (MLA) Convention #mla26
8-11 January 2026, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

ONOMASTIC RHETORIC: ACTS OF NAMING IN REAL AND/OR IMAGINED WORLDS

Acts of naming people, places, and things are acts of power, whether for good or ill and whether in the real world or in imagined worlds. Sometimes names change, through other acts of power. Does it necessarily follow that accepting a given name is an act of weakness? What acts of naming occur in the liminal space between the real and the imagined? In this panel, we will consider acts of naming people (anthroponyms), characters (charactonyms), places (toponyms), theonyms (divine beings), events, and more in the real world and/or in imagined worlds from any era, from any place, as recorded or found in any media. Useful resources include, the archives of NAMES: A Journal of Onomastics (https://ans-names.pitt.edu/ans/issue/archive), the
ANS list of terminology (https://ans-names.pitt.edu/ans/keywords), Dorothy Dodge Robbins’ edited collection Literary Onomastics (2023), Star Medzerian Vanguri’s edited collection Rhetorics of Names and Naming (2016), and the Oxford Handbook of Names and Naming (2018).

Proposal Submission Process:
1. Email Dr. Anne W. Anderson (awanderson.editing@gmail.com) as follows:
a. Subject Line: Use “MLA 2026 proposal” in the subject line.
b. Email body: In the email body include the title and first line of the abstract, the
full name(s) of the author(s), their affiliation(s), and their email address(es).
c. Proposal: Attach a PDF file that includes the proposal title, an abstract of up to
350 words, and a list of works cited. Do NOT include author identification in the
PDF.

2. DEADLINE: Proposals must be received by 11:59 pm EST on Monday, 17 March 2025.
Authors will be notified about the results of the blind review on or by 27 March 2025.
3. Contributors selected for the thematic panel must be members of both MLA and ANS in order to present their papers; MLA membership must be obtained by 7 April 2024.
4. Questions? Please contact Dr. Anne W. Anderson (awanderson.editing@gmail.com).

Call for Papers:

Canadian Society for the Study of Names (CSSN)

59th Annual Meeting, held virtually and in-person in conjunction with the Congress of the Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences (FHSS) of Canada George Brown College, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

May 31stto June 2nd, 2025

The general theme of the 2025 FHSS Congress is: “Reframing togetherness”, and CSSN’s related theme is: “Renaming in our changing World”. Papers on any onomastic or toponymic topic will be welcome, from any discipline or field of research. Authors are encouraged to present their subject matter with clear research methods and outcomes. Presentations are allotted 20 minutes, with 10 minutes added for questions and discussion.

Please submit by January 31st an abstract of 150-250 words, in French or English (language of the presentation, which may even be bilingual), including the title of your paper, the full name and affiliation of each author (first one will present), along with a current email address for each. You may also indicate a preferred day or time period, a general theme under which to group your communication in the programme, or if you wish to present online.

Presenters need not be a current CSSN member to submit an abstract. After acceptance of their paper, in French or in English, they must become a member by paying fees for registering for the Congress. Those from abroad who cannot attend in person have opportunity to present online, under condition of sending their presentation file in advance by the middle of May (details to come in March, after registration to Congress 2025). More information about membership is available on the CSSN membership webpage.

Invite your graduate students enrolled in Canadian postsecondary institution to submit an abstract if their research involves an onomastic theme. The Federation offers the Society the opportunity to award a $500 merit prize for one graduate student presenting in-person at Congress 2025. If you also plan to present your research topic to another association participating in Congress 2025, please mention this as it would be possible to arrange a joint presentation or session and to register for more than one association at once.

For further information about the range of topics you might present on, please see the full-length call for papers on the webpage of the 2025 CSSN annual meeting. Please email your abstract, written in English or in French, to the Programme Committee
members Yaïves Ferland, M.Sc., at yaives.ferland@scg.ulaval.ca, and Marie (Aurélie)
Thériault, Ph.D., at marie.theriault@umontreal.ca, by January 31st, 2025, 11:59pm ET.