fan studies and fandom

Proposed ACLA Seminar-- Cursed Celebrity: Fame and Infamy in the Americas

updated: 
Wednesday, July 29, 2026 - 4:15pm
Jesse Rothbard and Alessandra Occhiolini
deadline for submissions: 
Friday, September 18, 2026

If American mass media is an ecosystem, we cast the press as predators, and the celebrity as their prey. We envision the reporters grouped in a posse, arranged for an ambush. Camera flashes crack as they capture their quarry. By now, these perceptions have become truisms that obscure our own role as consumers in a matrix of violence, spectatorship, and stardom. If we condemn the paparazzi for their alleged violence, we also continue to revise and revisit their heyday in the age of print media. This seminar seeks papers that explore how violent desire—of the spectator, the press, the star – shaped the profusion of tabloid and true crime print culture across the Americas.  

CALL FOR PAPERS: OBSCURA - INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON HORROR AND CONTEMPORARY MEDIA CULTURE (EXTENDED SUBMISSION DEADLINE NOW OPEN)

updated: 
Wednesday, July 29, 2026 - 12:30pm
LIGAINCOM (SEJ694) and University of Seville
deadline for submissions: 
Thursday, September 10, 2026

CALL FOR PAPERS: OBSCURA - INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON HORROR AND CONTEMPORARY MEDIA CULTURE (EXTENDED SUBMISSION DEADLINE NOW OPEN)Dear Colleagues,We are pleased to invite you to participate in Obscura: International Conference on Horror and Contemporary Media Culture, organized by the research group at the University of Seville.This conference aims to establish an international and interdisciplinary academic forum to analyze horror as a backbone of contemporary narrative (cinema, television, video games, and digital platforms), bridging academic theory with professional practice and the media industry.We are currently in the second submission period (extended deadline).

Trees and Environment in Literature and Cinema

updated: 
Tuesday, July 28, 2026 - 6:30am
Dr Kashyap Deepak, Assistant Professor, Mahatma Gandhi Central Univeristy, India
deadline for submissions: 
Wednesday, September 30, 2026

Bloomsbury Publishing

Call for Book Chapters

 

Chapters from scholars of Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, Maldives  will be given preferences

 

Trees and Environment in Literature and Cinema

“Feel the Force”: The first 50 years of Star Wars 4-5 May 2027

updated: 
Tuesday, July 28, 2026 - 1:45am
PopCRN - The Popular Culture Research Network
deadline for submissions: 
Thursday, December 31, 2026

“Feel the Force”: The first 50 years of Star Wars

A PopCRN Conference

Join us for a free virtual conference exploring the Star Wars universe and its enduring cultural impact to be held online from 4th-5th May 2027.

CFP The Lives and Legacies of Medieval Comics: A Commemoration of Ninety Years of Hal Foster's Prince Valiant (Hybrid) (9/15/2026; ICMS Kalamazoo/Online 5/13-15/2027)

updated: 
Monday, July 27, 2026 - 4:39pm
Michael Torregrossa / Medieval Comics Project
deadline for submissions: 
Tuesday, September 15, 2026

 

The Lives and Legacies of Medieval Comics: A Commemoration of Ninety Years of Hal Foster's Prince Valiant (Hybrid)

 

62nd International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University (Kalamazoo, MI), Thursday, 13 May, through Saturday, 15 May, 2026

 

Co-sponsored by Medieval Comics Project, Association for the Advancement of Scholarship and Teaching of the Medieval in Popular Culture

 

Co-organized by Michael A. Torregrossa, Bristol Community College, and Carl B Sell, University of Pittsburgh

 

Rationale 

 

Horror Scholarship for Literary Magazine

updated: 
Monday, July 27, 2026 - 10:27am
Deep Cut Press
deadline for submissions: 
Saturday, October 31, 2026

Deep Cut Magazine, an independent literary magazine, is seeking academic articles on horror for its inaugural issue, to be published December 2026. Academic work will be published alongside original fiction and reprints (by invitation) in an open-access electronic magazine.

While the focus must be on some element of horror as a genre, the scope of the call is purposefully broad: research may focus on literature, film, popular culture, gender studies, history, and more. Interdisciplinary approaches are strongly encouraged.

II International Congress of Videogames, Virtual Environments and Interactive Creation

updated: 
Sunday, July 26, 2026 - 3:01pm
Double Vision Platform/ MASSIVA Research Group /UMH /Salamanca University
deadline for submissions: 
Thursday, October 1, 2026

The II International Congress of Videogames, Virtual Environments and Interactive Creation is an event of scientific and academic dissemination whose objective is the diffusion of studies related to the field of videogames, digital art and online and virtual environments, in its wide range of topics and media: development of ludic and interactive platforms; video game studies (Game Studies); initiatives around eSports; expressions of Digital Art, Virtual and Augmented Reality, and Artificial Intelligence applied to ludic or plastic creation; projects in networked communities and mobile devices; e-learning platforms; games and digital artistic works and their imbrications with cinema, animation, music, comics, etc. 

 

CFP Holy Grail, Batman? Expanding Knowledge of the Grail Legends in Popular Culture (Online) (9/15/2026; ICMS Kalamazoo/Online 5/13-15/2027)

updated: 
Thursday, July 23, 2026 - 10:32pm
Michael Torregrossa / Alliance for the Promotion of Research on the Matter of Britain
deadline for submissions: 
Tuesday, September 15, 2026

2026: 09-15-26: CFP Holy Grail, Batman? Expanding Knowledge of the Grail Legends in Popular Culture (Online) (9/15/2026; ICMS Kalamazoo/Online 5/13-15/2027)

 

Holy Grail, Batman? Expanding Knowledge of the Grail Legends in Popular Culture (Online)

 

62nd International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University (Kalamazoo, MI), Thursday, 13 May, through Saturday, 15 May, 2026

 

Co-sponsored by Alliance for the Promotion of Research on the Matter of Britain, Association for the Advancement of Scholarship and Teaching of the Medieval in Popular Culture

 

Superhero-Con Symposium

updated: 
Thursday, July 23, 2026 - 5:04pm
Pennsylvania College English Association
deadline for submissions: 
Saturday, October 17, 2026

The rise of the superhero is one of the most significant cultural developments of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Since the debut of Superman in Action Comics #1 (April 18, 1938), superheroes have evolved from colorful comic-book figures into powerful global symbols that shape conversations about politics, morality, identity, technology, gender, race, mythology, trauma, and resistance. What began with the imaginative vision of Jerry Siegel (writer) and Joe Shuster (artist) has expanded into a worldwide phenomenon spanning comics, film, television, literature, gaming, digital media, and academic discourse.

 

CFP Using Comics to Build Community: Approaches to Teaching Comics (Roundtable) (Virtual) (9/30/2026; NeMLA 3/6-9/2027)

updated: 
Monday, July 20, 2026 - 8:16pm
Michael Torregrossa / Association for the Advancement of Scholarship and Teaching of the Medieval in Popular Culture
deadline for submissions: 
Wednesday, September 30, 2026

Using Comics to Build Community: Approaches to Teaching Comics (Roundtable) (Virtual)

Co-organizers Michael A. Torregrossa and Carl B. Sell

Sponsored by Association for the Advancement of Scholarship and Teaching of the Medieval in Popular Culture

Call for Papers - Please Submit Proposals by 30 September 2026

58th Annual Convention of Northeast Modern Language Association (NeMLA)

Salve Regina University (Newport, RI)/Online.

Hybrid event: 6-9 March 2027

 

This session’s modality is Virtual Only, meaning all presentations will be delivered via Zoom regardless of whether the presenters are in-person.

 

CFP Fusion or Fracture in the Hundred Acre Woods: Community in Adaptations of Winnie-the-Pooh (Virtual) (9/30/2026; NeMLA 3/6-9/2027)

updated: 
Wednesday, July 15, 2026 - 8:37pm
Michael Torregrossa / Monsters & the Monstrous Area, Northeast Popular Culture Association
deadline for submissions: 
Wednesday, September 30, 2026

Fusion or Fracture in the Hundred Acre Woods: Community in Adaptations of Winnie-the-Pooh (Virtual)

Co-organizers Michael A. Torregrossa and Carl B. Sell

Sponsored by Monsters & the Monstrous Area of the Northeast Popular Culture Association 

Call for Papers - Please Submit Proposals by 30 September 2026

58th Annual Convention of Northeast Modern Language Association (NeMLA)

Salve Regina University (Newport, RI)/Online.

Hybrid event: 6-9 March 2027

 

This session’s modality is Virtual Only, meaning all presentations will be delivered via Zoom regardless of whether the presenters are in-person.

Slip into "The Backrooms"

updated: 
Wednesday, July 15, 2026 - 8:29pm
Jess Flarity / University of New Hampshire
deadline for submissions: 
Wednesday, September 30, 2026

This panel session seeks to explore the cultural fascination surrounding "The Backrooms," an internet 'creepypasta' about an abandoned office building with endless corridors that became a popular YouTube series and most recently, a blockbuster horror film. What are the Backrooms? Do they represent an artificial or alien intelligence attempting to simulate reality? Are they a glitch in the imperfect fabric of an unstable universe? Are they a metaphor for the subconscious, techno-paranoia, wasteland necrocapitalism, corporate control, or the internet itself? Or is this all just a retelling of the Greek myth of the Labyrinth for a Gen Z audience?

IX INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF FANTASTIC GENRE, AUDIOVISUALS AND NEW TECHNOLOGIES

updated: 
Tuesday, July 14, 2026 - 4:23am
FANTAELX
deadline for submissions: 
Sunday, September 20, 2026

The IX edition of the Congress will take place on 17, 18, 19 and 20 November 2026. Sessions on 17 and 18 November will be held online, while sessions on 19 and 20 November will take place in person at the Auditorium of the Congress Centre "Ciutat d'Elx" (Elche, Spain). There are 3 participation options:

> Option 1: In this modality, the proposals submitted will follow the main thematic line of the new edition of the Congress: The origins of the fantastic genre in audiovisual culture.

Polish Science Fiction: Literature, Film, and Cultural Legacy

updated: 
Saturday, July 11, 2026 - 8:53am
Agnieszka Gutthy
deadline for submissions: 
Thursday, October 15, 2026

Despite the international prominence of Stanisław Lem and, more recently, Andrzej Sapkowski's The Witcher, Polish science fiction and speculative literature remain strikingly underrepresented in English-language scholarship. Existing criticism tends to orbit a small number of canonical figures and a handful of frequently revisited texts, leaving a rich, historically complex tradition, spanning censorship-era political allegory, post-1989 transformation, contemporary literary crossover, and a distinct national cinema largely unexamined outside of Polish-language scholarship.

SCMS 2027: Precariousness in Media History: Lost Films, Dead Links, Forgotten Stories

updated: 
Friday, July 10, 2026 - 9:54am
SCMS 2027
deadline for submissions: 
Monday, August 10, 2026

This panel seeks to explore the precariousness of media, from its physical integrity and digital ephemerality to the complications of human-machine interaction and the elided histories of players, users, fans, and tech developers. With the current encroachment of generative AI in the workplace, media production, information circulation, fan reception, real estate, and the environment, it becomes urgent to question how precariousness underlies the development, deployment, and dissipation of past media.

Still Screaming: An Online Conference Celebrating 30 Years of 'Scream'

updated: 
Tuesday, July 7, 2026 - 10:31am
Dr. Alissa Burger
deadline for submissions: 
Saturday, August 15, 2026

Still Screaming: An Online Conference Celebrating 30 Years of Scream

 

2026 marks the 30th anniversary of Wes Craven’s Scream (1996), which has had a profound impact on horror films and the slasher subgenre specifically. In the past three decades, Scream has become a franchise of seven films and a television series (2015-16, 2019). Scream has also expanded beyond the screen, reverberating throughout the popular culture landscape and serving as the foundation for a game, collectible figures, multiple Ghostface mask variations, and an entire collection of merchandise at Spirit Halloween (and elsewhere). 

 

Between Screens: Video Games, Film, Television and Transmedia Exchange

updated: 
Thursday, June 25, 2026 - 4:50pm
Dr Michael Samuel (University of Bristol) and Dr Richard Cole (University of Bristol)
deadline for submissions: 
Friday, August 7, 2026

Between Screens: Video Games, Film, Television and Transmedia Exchange

Edited by Dr Michael Samuel and Dr Richard Cole

Adaptation is a dialogic process, a creative exchange across content production and context rather than an attempt at fidelity. Recent trends in adaptation studies reflect this complexity. Videogames exist within a vast ecosystem of transmedia storytelling and experiences, yet scholarship on adaptation and video games remains limited.

CFP NEPCA Monsters & the Montrous Area 2026 - UPDATED DEADLINE (7/1/2026; Online 10/15-17/2026)

updated: 
Saturday, June 20, 2026 - 12:01am
Michael Torregrossa, NEPCA's Monsters & the Monstrous Area
deadline for submissions: 
Wednesday, July 1, 2026

CFP NEPCA Monsters & the Montrous Area 2026 - UPDATED DEADLINE

 

The Monsters & the Monstrous Area of the Northeast Popular Culture Association (a.k.a. NEPCA) seeks proposals for inclusion in NEPCA’s 2026 annual conference.

 

The event will run as a virtual conference from Thursday, October 15th, through Saturday, October 17th. Virtual sessions will take place via Zoom throughout the day on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Registration will open up in mid-July. The registration fee is expected to be around 50 USD.

 

Protecting Hip Hop and Rap Music: The first amendment to the people and communities that survive through artistic expression

updated: 
Thursday, June 18, 2026 - 9:37pm
Texas Southern (COLABS) College of Liberal Arts and Behavioral Sciences
deadline for submissions: 
Thursday, October 1, 2026

Theme: Hip Hop and Rap Conference 

 

Tentative date: November 19-22

 

Location: Houston, TX

 

Award for best presentation 

Scholarship for top scholars 

  • Judged by artists, PhD’s, Workshop, and Peer Review. 

 

Green Day and the Politics of Pop-Punk

updated: 
Wednesday, June 17, 2026 - 10:44am
Punk: Beyond Its Beginnings
deadline for submissions: 
Saturday, August 15, 2026

Green Day has often been treated as a problem in the “longview” of punk: too popular, too melodic, too commercial, too successful. Green Day and the Politics of Pop-Punk starts from the opposite assumption. Green Day matters precisely because the band’s career makes it impossible to separate punk from the mass-cultural conditions it has so often claimed to resist.

CFP: European Journal of Media, Art & Photography - 2/2026

updated: 
Tuesday, June 16, 2026 - 3:28am
European Journal of Media, Art & Photography
deadline for submissions: 
Tuesday, September 1, 2026

European Journal of Media, Art & Photography

 

ejmap.sk | Indexed in WoS Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI) | Q1 in art journals category

 

Superheroes of the Squared Circle - Chapter Contributors

updated: 
Friday, June 12, 2026 - 7:22pm
Forrest C. Helvie / CT State Community College
deadline for submissions: 
Wednesday, July 15, 2026

CALL FOR CONTRIBUTORS

Superheroes of the Squared Circle:

The Intersection of Comics and Professional Wrestling

An Edited Academic Collection for McFarland & Co. Publishing

Editor: Forrest C. Helvie, Ph.D.

Connecticut State Community College

About the Project

Child’s Play: Representation and Games in Children’s Media and Culture

updated: 
Thursday, June 11, 2026 - 12:33pm
Special Issue of The Lion and the Unicorn (Vol. 52.2 [2028])
deadline for submissions: 
Wednesday, March 31, 2027

CFP, Special Issue of The Lion and the Unicorn (Vol. 52.2 [2028])

 

Child’s Play:

Representation and Games in Children’s Media and Culture

(guest editor, Gretchen Papazian)

 

Deadline for 18-20-page/3,500-4,000-word submission: March 31, 2027

 

 

Journal of Taylor Swift Studies (JOTSS) Special Edition 2026

updated: 
Monday, June 8, 2026 - 1:12pm
The Manuscript: Journal of Taylor Swift Studies (JOTSS)
deadline for submissions: 
Sunday, August 30, 2026

The Manuscript: Journal of Taylor Swift Studies (JOTSS)
Binghamton University’s Special Edition

Colloquially Speaking! Ruminations on the Possibilities of the Field: Call for Papers

Submission Deadline: August 30, 2026

Submission Website: https://orb.binghamton.edu/jotss/

CSULA Eagle Con 2026 – Neo-Los Angeles

updated: 
Saturday, June 6, 2026 - 5:39pm
California State University Los Angeles
deadline for submissions: 
Sunday, July 19, 2026

Join a panel at the 14th annual CSULA Eagle Con!  Eagle Con is an annual event devoted the power and potential of speculative and fantastic media to critique social formations, interrogate subjectivities, and constitute alternative worlds. 

Appalachian Glass: Furnace of Meaning and Memory--Call for Creative Nonfiction

updated: 
Saturday, May 30, 2026 - 4:36pm
Todd A. Comer
deadline for submissions: 
Tuesday, September 1, 2026

Appalachian Glass: Furnace of Meaning and Memory

This edited collection addresses a major gap in current work focused on Appalachia’s glass industry. We have catalogs and reference books. We have histories focused on class, labor, and gender. We have histories focused on the rise and demise of glass factories. But the human work of meaning, identity, and memory--in the context of Appalachian glass--has yet to be gathered and shared in book form. 

Call for Cunterbury: Chaucer Themed Podcast Seeking Guest Co-Hosts for Canterbury Tales

updated: 
Friday, May 29, 2026 - 8:25pm
Cunterbury Collective
deadline for submissions: 
Thursday, December 31, 2026

 

Cunterbury is a scholarly arts & comedy podcast hosted by three Gen Z academics — A.J. Scott, Alice Fulmer-Zelinka and Shannen Escote — exploring the major works of Geoffrey Chaucer and friends, starting with The Canterbury Tales. In our first season, we are providing witty commentary and voices to discuss the Tales and their pilgrims like you’ve never heard them before. 

International Journal of James Bond Studies, Vol. 10

updated: 
Wednesday, May 27, 2026 - 8:02am
University of Roehampton
deadline for submissions: 
Tuesday, December 1, 2026

The International Journal of James Bond Studies is now accepting submissions for Volume 10.

Pages