Call for Book Chapters: "Kate Chopin in the Classroom"

Vernon Press invites abstracts for a forthcoming edited volume on "Kate Chopin in the Classroom", edited by Heather Ostman and Quinn Moyer.

This volume aims to bring together essays that address an aspect of or strategy for teaching the fiction, poetry, nonfiction, or life of nineteenth-century American author Kate Chopin in the contemporary classroom. What are effective strategies for high school and/or college-level students? How have you incorporated technology into your teaching of Chopin? What changes have you seen in the reception of your students over the years? For example, do they praise or condemn Edna Pontellier? What might this say about students today? We are especially interested in reflections that consider current cultural or political contexts, interdisciplinary approaches, multimodal teaching methods, and how evolving pedagogical environments—both digital and in-person—shape students’ engagement with Chopin’s work.

Possible topics

The volume seeks contributions from diverse institutional, geographical, and disciplinary perspectives. Proposals may address—but are not limited to—the following topics:

• Teaching Chopin in the post-COVID classroom

• Teaching through technology (multimodality, infographics, podcasts, AI, etc.)

• Teaching with social media (TikTok, Instagram, Reddit, etc.)

• Chopin and race, gender, or class

• Chopin and queer theory

• Historical contexts

• Leveraging social media

• Online gaming lessons

• In-class games, group activities, and other interactive strategies

• Pairing Chopin with other writers

• Preferred textual versions of The Awakening and how they are used in the classroom

• Teaching Chopin in the writing classroom

• Consumerism

• Pregnancy

• Teaching in today’s political/educational climate

• Teaching Chopin in high school, college, or graduate school

• Future of Chopin studies in the classroom

Submission details

Completed chapters should be between 5,000 and 7,000 words, including references and endnotes. The final manuscript will be approximately 300 pages in length.

Please send abstracts of no more than 250 words (including title, your name, and affiliation) as a Word attachment to Heather Ostman at Heather.Ostman@sunywcc.edu and Quinn Moyer at moyerq@duq.edu no later than Monday, September 30, 2025. Acceptance of abstracts will be communicated within 4–6 weeks, along with a writing and submission schedule for accepted chapters. Inquiries are welcome.