Florida Hemingway Society Conference 2027:
Hemingway, A Sense of Place
CALL FOR PAPERS
Hemingway and a Sense of Place
Florida Hemingway Society Conference
Cedar Key, Florida | May 13–16, 2027
Place mattered deeply to Ernest Hemingway. From Michigan, Paris, Italy, and Spain to Africa, Key West, and Cuba, the landscapes Hemingway inhabited, remembered, and imagined became inseparable from his writing. His fiction is shaped not simply by where his characters are, but by the ways in which landscape, culture, community, movement, and memory influence their experiences.
The Florida Hemingway Society invites proposals for its 2027 conference, Hemingway and a Sense of Place, to be held in historic Cedar Key, Florida. Set on Florida's Gulf Coast, Cedar Key provides a fitting setting in which to consider the importance of place in Hemingway's life, work, and legacy.
We particularly welcome scholarship examining Hemingway's connections to Florida, Key West, Cuba, and the Caribbean, as well as work exploring the geographic, cultural, environmental, and imaginative relationships among these places.
Possible topics may include, but are not limited to:
Florida and the Florida Keys in Hemingway's works
Key West and/or Cuba as literary, cultural, or biographical spaces
Connections and crossings between Florida, Cuba, and the Caribbean
The sea, islands, coastlines, fishing, and maritime landscapes
Landscape, wilderness, and the natural environment
Place and identity, belonging, exile, home, or displacement
Travel, mobility, borders, and movement
Regional communities and cultures in Hemingway's works
The transformation of real places into fictional landscapes
Place, memory, nostalgia, and loss
War landscapes and the relationship between geography and trauma
Hemingway's representations of Michigan, Paris, Spain, Italy, Africa, and other significant places
Teaching Hemingway through place, geography, environment, or local history
Hemingway tourism, historic sites, preservation, and cultural memory
We welcome proposals from established and emerging scholars, graduate students, educators, independent scholars, and others engaged in Hemingway studies. Individual papers as well as complete panel proposals are welcome.
Individual paper proposals: Please submit a 250–300-word abstract and brief biographical statement.
Panel proposals: Please submit a brief panel description along with abstracts and biographical statements for each participant.
Proposal deadline: January 15, 2027
Notification of acceptance: February 1, 2027
Submission information: rjohnston19@valenciacollege.edu
Conference Schedule
The conference will open on Thursday evening, May 13, with a welcome reception at the Cedar Key History Museum.
Scholarly sessions and conference programming will take place Friday, May 14, and Saturday, May 15, with a closing Old Florida-style dinner Saturday evening.
Attendees may also choose to remain in Cedar Key on Sunday, May 16, for an optional boxed-lunch picnic on the water—a final opportunity to continue conversations, enjoy Cedar Key, and experience the landscape that inspired this year's conference theme.
Registration
Early Registration: $175
Regular Registration: $200
Conference registration includes:
Admission to all conference sessions and programming
Thursday evening opening reception at the Cedar Key Museum
Coffee, tea, and pastries Friday and Saturday mornings
Afternoon refreshments and snacks both days
Saturday evening Old Florida-style closing dinner
The optional Sunday boxed-lunch picnic will be offered separately.
Conference registration will open later this fall.
Additional information about accommodations, travel, the conference schedule, and activities in Cedar Key will be announced as plans are finalized.
We invite scholars and Hemingway enthusiasts to join us on Florida's Gulf Coast for a conference devoted not only to the places Hemingway wrote about, but to the ways that place itself shapes story, memory, identity, and literary imagination.