fan studies and fandom

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?

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.

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.

Call for Conference Papers

"Live Long and Prosper": 60 Years of Star Trek in Popular Culture - 10-11 September 2026

Free and Online

The Popular Culture Research Network, Australia

In September 1966, the first episode of Star Trek aired on American television, introducing audiences to a future shaped by exploration, diplomacy, scientific discovery, and the possibility of social progress beyond the limitations of the present.

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

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/

[please note the updated conference date and timeline]

National Video Games: Cultures, Industries, Communities
international conference

4–6 December 2026
University of Warsaw, Poland

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. 

The Bloomsbury Handbook of Literature and Popular Music

This comprehensive, interdisciplinary handbook will be published by Bloomsbury Academic in late 2027.

This collection explores how literature and popular music intersect, influence each other, and create new possibilities for artistic expression, and seeks to map the rich terrain where these two cultural forms meet. We will work from broad definitions of both literature and popular music, encompassing work from traditional novels and poetry to digital narratives and graphic novels, from classical and folk sound traditions to electric and contemporary electronic music.

Free of taxes! Open Access Journal

Academic Journal: Em Tese (ISSN 1982-0739) OA
Submission format: .doc or .docx, font 12, spacing 1,5, from 10 to 20 pages long.
Submission guidelines: https://periodicos.ufmg.br/index.php/emt/about/submissions 
Submission system: OJS 3.0
Journal homepage: https://periodicos.ufmg.br/index.php/emt/index
Questions: lauraribaraujo@gmail.com

Background & Rationale:

CFP NEPCA Monsters & the Montrous Area 2026

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.

2027 marks the 50th anniversary of the film now generally known as Episode IV: A New Hope, the first instalment in the hugely successful Star Wars franchise created by George Lucas. As beloved as it is divisive, Star Wars now straddles multiple decades and generations while proliferating across narrative media (novels, comics, games, animation, TV). It provides a series of compelling case studies in the relationship between creativity and commerce, from the foundation of Lucasfilm during the New Hollywood period to the 21st century Disney-era, and it has developed via a complex interplay between cutting-edge technological innovation, nostalgia, and mythmaking.

Second and Final Call for papers

Sensation: The Sounds, Visions, and Words of David Bowie

Academic conference, University of Agder, Norway 29. – 30. September 2026