fan studies and fandom

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PAMLA: Queer Romance Panel, 11/20-11/23, San Francisco

updated: 
Monday, May 19, 2025 - 3:41pm
Pacific Ancient & Modern Language Association
deadline for submissions: 
Friday, June 20, 2025

This panel aims to showcase current work on "queer romance," a subject that describes the enfolding of queer sexualities and genders within the popular romance genre. While we welcome careful close readings of specific texts, we are most interested in papers that help to theorize and historicize what it means that a genre once defined in terms of its heteronormative imaginary now openly features queer and trans-identified characters and holds considerable appeal for similarly identified publics of readers and viewers. We are also particularly interested in work that helps us to think queer romance across forms of media, in relation to deep histories of the romance genre, and in transnational and global contexts.

CFP Blood and Bile: Perspectives from the Humanities, art and gaming culture on Blasphemous

updated: 
Monday, May 19, 2025 - 3:41pm
Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Carl von Ossietzky Hamburg; Freie Universität Berlin
deadline for submissions: 
Wednesday, July 16, 2025

In the fictional world of ‘Cvstodia’, a nameless ‘penitent’ traverses a world in which the ‘miracle’ - a divine entity - is worshipped through physical torment and suffering in a gloomy body horror style. In doing so, ‘Blasphemous’ transforms the established conventions of the ‘souls-like’ genre: the difficulty typical of the genre and the cyclical approach to failure are theologically charged. The progress made by defeating boss enemies is enhanced by sacred weapons and rituals, while the level design is recontextualised as a spiritual pilgrimage. These elements are embedded in an elaborate ecclesiastical infrastructure and open up multiple levels of analysis, e.g:

Exploring and Celebrating The Rocky Horror Picture Show in Popular Culture

updated: 
Monday, May 19, 2025 - 3:40pm
PopCRN - The Popular Culture Research Network
deadline for submissions: 
Thursday, July 31, 2025

PopCRN is delighted to announce a conference dedicated to the cult phenomenon, The Rocky Horror Picture Show. This free, online event will be held on Wednesday 27th and Thursday 28th of November 2025.

***DEADLINE EXTENDED*** 2025 Midwest Popular Culture Association/Midwest American Culture Association Conference

updated: 
Friday, May 16, 2025 - 10:51am
Cory Barker, MPCA/ACA
deadline for submissions: 
Sunday, May 25, 2025

CALL FOR PAPERS, ABSTRACTS, AND PANEL PROPOSALS

Midwest Popular Culture Association/Midwest American Culture Association Annual Conference

Friday-Sunday, 3–5, October 2025

The University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa

Conference participants will be responsible for securing their own lodging.

Submit paper, abstract, or panel proposals (including the title of the presentation) with the appropriate keywords (formerly areas) on the submissions website at https://www.mpcaaca.org/submit-panels

Individuals may only submit one paper.

REMINDER: One Short Day: An Online Symposium Celebrating Wicked

updated: 
Thursday, May 15, 2025 - 12:56am
Noah Gallego and Layal Dahi
deadline for submissions: 
Friday, May 30, 2025

One Short Day: An Online Symposium Celebrating Wicked

 

Deadline: May 30, 2025

Conference Date: June 27, 2025

Format: Online (via Zoom, Pacific Time)

Abstract: 150 words + 50 word biographical statement + Time Zone

Submit to: Noah Gallego @noahrgallego@gmail.com 

Organizers: Noah Gallego, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona & Layal Dahi, California State Polytechnic University 

 

CFP Silly Old Bear? Adaptations, Appropriations, and Transformations of Winnie-the-Pooh (7/15/2025; NEPCA online 10/9-11/2025)

updated: 
Tuesday, May 13, 2025 - 2:00pm
Michael Torregrossa / Monsters & the Monstrous Area
deadline for submissions: 
Tuesday, July 15, 2025

Silly Old Bear? Adaptations, Appropriations, and Transformations of Winnie-the-Pooh

Co-sponsored by the Monsters & the Monstrous Area and Disney Studies Area

Call for Papers for 2025 Virtual Conference of the Northeast Popular Culture Association (NEPCA)

Thursday, 9 October, to Saturday, 11 October, 2025

Submissions are open until Tuesday, 15 July by 5 PM EDT

 

PAMLA 2025: Queer Film and Media

updated: 
Tuesday, May 13, 2025 - 1:40pm
Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association
deadline for submissions: 
Thursday, May 15, 2025

This session invites paper submissions that explore the intersections of queer studies, film, media, and digital culture. In connection with this year’s conference theme, we particularly welcome papers that focus on palimpsestic media: how queer narratives have been remediated through new forms, how queer histories have been reimagined, rewritten, or overwritten in works of film, television, video games, and other forms of new media, broadly defined. Papers addressing other aspects of queer identities, communities, readings, and experiences are also encouraged.

Time Trial: Advancing an Understanding of Temporality in Play and Games

updated: 
Monday, May 5, 2025 - 1:58pm
Emma Kostopolus
deadline for submissions: 
Friday, June 13, 2025

Whether it is made an explicit mechanic via countdown clocks and quick-time events, or is simply a natural part of the narrative, games are always already inherently concerned with the passage of time. While it is easy to think of mechanics as being about player control, the relationship of input to output, and how a game’s particular physics engine is encoded, every game has a unique relationship with temporality that players must learn to navigate in order to play successfully, whether that is perfecting the timing of their jumps in a platformer or remembering to log in to complete daily tasks in an MMO.

Call for Book Chapters -- Fans, Fandoms, and Tabletop Roleplaying Games

updated: 
Monday, May 5, 2025 - 1:58pm
Fans, Fandoms, and Tabletop Roleplaying Games
deadline for submissions: 
Sunday, June 15, 2025

Call for Book Chapters
on Fans, Fandoms, and Tabletop Roleplaying Games

 


Deadline for submissions: Sunday, June 15, 2025

Contact email:fans.fandoms.and.ttrpgs@gmail.com 

 

Editors: 

Maria K. Alberto, University of Utah

Adrianna Burton, University of California – Irvine

 

We are seeking proposals for chapters to be included in a peer-reviewed edited collection on fans, fandom(s), and tabletop roleplaying games (TTRPGs). The University of Michigan Press has expressed interest in this collection and the book proposal is currently underway. 

 

Fan Studies Network North America (FSNNA) 2025 conference

updated: 
Monday, May 5, 2025 - 1:58pm
Fan Studies Network North America (FSNNA)
deadline for submissions: 
Friday, May 16, 2025

Get Ready – CFP for FSNNA 2025! Call for Participation

Fan Studies Network North America Conference 2025 (virtual)

October 23-26, 2025

 

REPUTATION: Influence, Power, and Capital

FSNNA Annual Conference 2025

Virtual Crime and Detection

updated: 
Monday, May 5, 2025 - 1:56pm
Virtual Crime and Detection, a special issue of Crime Fiction Studies
deadline for submissions: 
Saturday, November 15, 2025

CFP: Virtual Crime and Detection

Philip K. Dick and the Transfiguration of American Science Fiction

updated: 
Monday, May 5, 2025 - 1:52pm
S. Hartwell Johnson / PAMLA
deadline for submissions: 
Thursday, May 15, 2025

This panel examines the works and influence of American science fiction author Philip K. Dick. We are interested in proposals about the novels and short stories written by PKD, the many film and television adaptations of those works, the influence of his works and ideas on media of various kinds, and, more generally, the influence of Philiip K. Dick on other science fiction authors. This panel welcomes proposals both related to the conference theme, "Palimpsests: Memory and Oblivion," and those not related.

 

Submit abstract here: https://pamla.ballastacademic.com/Home/S/19694

Exploring The Murderbot Diaries; PAMLA (Nov. 20-23, 2025)

updated: 
Monday, May 5, 2025 - 1:50pm
Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association (PAMLA)
deadline for submissions: 
Thursday, May 15, 2025

The 122nd annual conference of the Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association (PAMLA) will be held from Thursday, November 20, to Sunday, November 23, 2025, at the InterContinental Hotel, San Francisco, California.

Exploring The Murderbot Diaries:

Since the publication of All Systems Red in 2017, Martha Wells’ The Murderbot Diaries series has come to include seven books, three related short stories, and an upcoming Apple TV+ adaptation starring Alexander Skarsgard. The series has won four Hugo Awards, two Nebulas, and four Locus Awards, with Wells often turning down subsequent award nominations.

K-Pop Reader

updated: 
Monday, May 5, 2025 - 1:33pm
Min Ji Kang/Denison University
deadline for submissions: 
Monday, May 12, 2025

We invite additional chapters for a K-pop reader for publication with Routledge. We especially welcome scholars who can contribute to Part I from global perspectives situated outside the U.S. (particularly in Africa, Latin America, Southeast Asia, and Europe), as well as contributors for Parts II and III from wide ranging fields.

The abstract, table of contents for the reader, and submission details can be found below.

Abstract

Identity in Popular Culture SAMLA Panel

updated: 
Monday, May 5, 2025 - 1:33pm
South Atlantic Modern Language Association
deadline for submissions: 
Wednesday, July 30, 2025

Popular culture serves as a powerful pedagogical force, often subtly and overtly shaping our understanding of the world, ourselves, and others. From the narratives we consume in film and television to the interactions we engage in on social media, popular culture offers frameworks for understanding social norms, historical events, scientific concepts, and the very nature of identity itself. This session aims to unpack the processes through which knowledge is produced, validated, contested, and internalized within and via popular culture, as well as how these processes intersect with the lived experiences and representations of various identities.

Possible Panel Topics May Include, but are not limited to:

The World of Warcraft Handbook: Twenty Years in Azeroth (Palgrave Macmillan, 2026)

updated: 
Monday, May 5, 2025 - 1:18pm
David John Boyd (University of Glasgow) / Russell McDermott (Dickinson College)
deadline for submissions: 
Sunday, June 15, 2025

The World of Warcraft Handbook: Twenty Years in Azeroth (Palgrave Macmillan, 2026)
Edited by David John Boyd (University of Glasgow) &  Russell McDermott (Dickinson College)

Psychoanalyzing the Post-Apocalypse: Psychoanalytic Approaches to 21st Century Fiction and Film

updated: 
Friday, May 2, 2025 - 3:49pm
Cenk Tan and Ercan Gürova
deadline for submissions: 
Thursday, May 1, 2025

CALL FOR BOOK CHAPTERS

Psychoanalyzing the Post-Apocalypse:

Psychoanalytic Approaches to 21st Century Fiction and Film

 “Under Strong Interest” by McFarland’s Critical Explorations in Science Fiction and Fantasy series

CFP CLOSED - THANK YOU FOR YOUR INTEREST -

Editors’ Introduction

Transformers and SOGIE: Call for Proposals for Edited Collection

updated: 
Thursday, May 1, 2025 - 8:59pm
Daniel M. Look
deadline for submissions: 
Saturday, May 31, 2025

Title: TBD, but potentials include:

  • ‘Til All Are One: Gender, Sex, Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity/Gender Expression (SOGIE) in Transformers

Editors (Collaborators): Elizabeth Sanders, Daniel M. Look

Description / Call for Papers:

We are soliciting chapters/articles for an edited academic book on topics relating to the Transformers franchise and gender, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, and/or gender expression.Proposals from academics and independent scholars covering official continuity/properties, fanfiction, the fandom, and content creators will be considered. Proposals should be for new essays, not republications of previous works.

CfP: "Serial Minimalism: Contemporary Strategies of Sparseness, Reduction and Condensation"

updated: 
Thursday, April 10, 2025 - 12:46pm
Eric Dewald (Saarland University)
deadline for submissions: 
Sunday, June 1, 2025

Higher, faster, more expensive: At the latest since the era of the insurgent streaming wars, excess has become a leitmotif of modern television culture (cf. Maeder 2021, 11–14). As an "oversized audiovisual narrative" (Bandirali/Terrone 2021, 14), series indulge in dramatic opulence, preferably becoming entangled in a dynamic of exposed exaggeration, trying to compete not only with other shows but also with themselves (cf. Sudmann 2017). In this context, excess seems inevitably linked to the discourse of narrative quality, which increasingly demonstrates that "size matters" (Jahn-Sudmann/Kelleter 2012, 209).

CFP: Debates in Digital Humanities 2028

updated: 
Thursday, April 10, 2025 - 12:33pm
Debates in Digital Humanities
deadline for submissions: 
Sunday, May 25, 2025

Hello,

 

Please see below for information on the call for submissions for the next general volume of Debates in Digital Humanities. The deadline for abstracts is May 25, 2025. We hope you’ll submit and/or share the information with interested DHers. 

 

CFP: Debates in the Digital Humanities 2028

Kelly Baker Josephs and Lindsay Thomas, Editors

Deadline for 300-500 word abstracts: May 25, 2025

IVC: Open Call for Submissions

updated: 
Thursday, April 10, 2025 - 12:32pm
InVisible Culture
deadline for submissions: 
Thursday, May 15, 2025

Open Call for Current Topics in Visual & Cultural Studies

Submissions requested by May 15. Rolling submissions accepted until June 15.

InVisible Culture is accepting essays (4,000-10,000 words) and artworks addressing issues in visual and culture studies for an upcoming general issue. The journal welcomes authors from the disciplines of film and media studies, art history, anthropology, and visual studies to submit work on any topic. Academics and artists at all stages in their careers, as well as independent scholars, are encouraged to apply. We particularly encourage submissions by graduate students.

Articles

SWPACA Summer Salon: Taylor Swift and Swiftie Studies

updated: 
Saturday, April 5, 2025 - 1:03pm
Southwest Popular / American Culture Association (SWPACA)
deadline for submissions: 
Tuesday, April 15, 2025

Call for Papers

Taylor Swift & Swiftie Studies 

Southwest Popular / American Culture Association (SWPACA)

2025 SWPACA Summer Salon

 

June 26-28, 2025

Virtual Conference

https://swpaca.org/ 

Submissions open on March 25, 2025

Proposal submission deadline: April 15, 2025


 

EXTENDED DEADLINE: Looking for Specific Chapters on Mike Flanagan's Netflix Series

updated: 
Thursday, April 3, 2025 - 3:48pm
Baylor University
deadline for submissions: 
Friday, April 25, 2025

This is an updated version of a previously submitted CfP for Planet Flanagan, a collection examining the Netflix series of Mike Flanagan. The call for chapters was very successful and we have some great work in progress, but we are still missing chapters covering two key content areas:

  • Gender/Sexuality
  • Space/Architecture


So, this is a specific call for submissions for chapters of about 10,000 words looking at these topic areas across all five of Mike Flanagan's Netflix series. The original call for chapters is replicated just below to give more detail.

Edited collection: The Work is Mysterious and Important: Critical Perspectives on Severance

updated: 
Thursday, April 3, 2025 - 3:48pm
Vera Cuntz-Leng, Philipps-Universitaet Marburg & Ruth Knepel, Goethe-Universitaet Frankfurt
deadline for submissions: 
Sunday, June 1, 2025

The critically acclaimed science fiction series Severance (produced by Ben Stiller and created by Dan Erickson, 2022-) explores the idea of surgically dividing a person’s memories between their work and private lives. It raises many thought-provoking questions, embedded in a rich environment of cultural references and equipped with a distinct visual style, nuanced storytelling, and outstanding performances of its cast. With its second season, it has become the most successful production by Apple TV+ so far and is widely discussed by critics and fans. A large part of the fascination for the series comes from the multitude of possible readings it elicits.

Class and Capitalism in Literature, Film, and Culture

updated: 
Thursday, April 3, 2025 - 3:40pm
Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association (PAMLA)
deadline for submissions: 
Thursday, May 15, 2025

The way our current globally interconnected and digitally enabled capitalist formation continuously reshapes itself to reinforce categories of class and overarching capitalist structures requires analyses that engage and critique these adaptive forces of capital. Responding to this need, this seminar seeks to examine the relationship of texts to a global capitalist economy by asking how class and capitalism function within and exert force upon texts and their contexts—in film, literature, art, video games, social media, and other extratextual spaces such as fan sites.

On Metamorphosis. Interdisciplinary Perspectives

updated: 
Thursday, April 3, 2025 - 3:36pm
University of Palermo / Institut français Palermo
deadline for submissions: 
Sunday, April 20, 2025

Call for papers

On Metamorphosis. Interdisciplinary Perspectives

International Conference, Palermo, 8th - 9th May 2025

 

Cultures and Societies Department, University of Palermo, Italy

 

Academy of Fine Arts, Palermo, Italy

 

French Cultural Center, Palermo, Italy

 

Deadline for abstracts: April 20th, 2025

 

The Magic Kingdom: Exploring Disney’s Impact on Popular Culture

updated: 
Wednesday, April 2, 2025 - 2:07am
PopCRN - The Popular Culture Research Network
deadline for submissions: 
Wednesday, April 30, 2025

PopCRN (the Popular Culture Network) is back with a virtual conference exploring all things Disney, to be held online on Thursday 24th and Friday 25th of July 2025.

Since the Walt Disney was founded his eponymous film studio in 1923, the Disney brand has been a mainstay of popular entertainment. The iconic Micky and Minnie Mouse head the line-up of an impressive array of characters and actors that have become cultural icons. Today Disney is a conglomerate of entertainment businesses, investing in theme parks, sports television, a cruise line, resort destinations, National Geographic Expeditions, clothing, games, and publishing.

Fandom | Cultures | Research - Call for Abstracts (Issue 1/26)

updated: 
Monday, March 31, 2025 - 3:45pm
FANDOM | CULTURES | RESEARCH
deadline for submissions: 
Sunday, June 1, 2025

Fandom | Cultures | Research is the first international journal based in Germany for scholarship in the fields of Fan, Audience, Media, and Cultural (Data) Studies. With the multiplicity of accepted formats – ranging from full papers to reviews, conference reports, and data papers – the journal fosters academic discussion across these disciplines, especially regarding methodological questions: Each issue will consist of double-blind peer-reviewed full papers, alongside an editorially reviewed section that may contain data papers (data sets and complementary text), book reviews, conference reports, and interviews. Other creative format suggestions are also welcome. Furthermore, we invite themed guest sections for every issue.

Comics and Graphic Novels Permanent Section [MMLA 25]

updated: 
Wednesday, March 26, 2025 - 7:02am
Midwest Modern Language Association [MMLA]
deadline for submissions: 
Friday, April 25, 2025

CFP Comics and Graphic Novels Permanent Section
Chair: Keegan Lannon, University of Illinois – Chicago.

Conference: Nov 14-16, 2025
Marquette University
Milwaukee, WI

What Does Hope Look Like?

If it is true, as the CFP for this conference notes, that “hope can be found in the Humanities,” then comics and graphic novels offer a unique glimpse into that hope by drawing on the media affordances of prose and the visual arts. Comics let us “see” hope and optimism is ways other media are unable to.

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