fan studies and fandom

 Contribute to a Special Issue of the Pop Culture Studies Journal on TOYS!

Volume Editor: Jonathan Alexandratos

Abstract: ~500 words due by April 25th to the editor via email at jsalexan@gmail.com.

Overview:

Paper. Film. TV screen. Sound recording. Internet. These are common ways popular culture reaches us. However, while scholarship around comics, movies, TV shows, music, and online media expands, one pop culture area too often remains under-explored: toys.

Call for Papers: Journal of Fandom Studies

Special Issue: ‘Heated Rivalry: Queering Sports in Popular Culture’ 

Guest Editors:

Yvonne Gonzales, University of Southern California

Kirsten Crowe, University of Southern California

View the full call here>>

https://www.intellectbooks.com/journal-of-fandom-studies#call-for-papers

Since the release of the Canadian-produced streaming TV show Heated Rivalry, the show and its actors have exploded across traditional and social media, prompting wide discussions about sexuality in sports and the female consumption of MM (male/male) romance. Based on the Game Changers novel series by Rachel Reid, Heated Rivalry follows the illicit romance between two male hockey players. In the months since, both NHL ticket and queer romance novel sales have skyrocketed; parodies of Heated Rivalry have popped up on SNL and off-Broadway stages.

CFP: Heated Rivalry: The Phenomenon

An edited collection of essays on the television series that seduced the world

Heated Rivalry appeared simultaneously across screens in Canada, the United States (via HBO Max) and other countries in late November and quickly, if unexpectedly, became a worldwide phenomenon. Audiences were immediately hooked on the story of star hockey prospects Shane Hollander (Hudson Williams) and Ilya Rozanov (Connor Storrie) and the sexual and romantic relationship that blossoms between them over a span of years.

"— and then she makes out with her dog! That's the essay." Speaking of Haraway's Companion Species Manifesto, to which I'm the modest witness, Eileen Myles is too a dog person while the Internet is rather more abuzz with considerations for the feline question... Mammalian largeness is a 'do' to be vegan yet rodents and fish deserve inclusion here. 

Send 200-300 word abstracts speculating on how interspecies intimacy (Giddens 1992) may, could, or should evolve zoos out-of-business with reckonings for affect studies as we deconstruct the 'fandom' paradigm together. 

We are currently accepting submissions for Vol. 1.1 of Bad Vibes Only: Critique Today (Summer 2026). 

Founded by a collective of PhD students and affiliated faculty at Brown University, BVO is a forthcoming online independent journal committed to fostering critical conversations about contemporary literature, popular culture, and intellectual production. The publication features essays, reviews, and the occasional work of satire or poetry. Contributors include Nebula and Hugo award winners, Yale Drama Award recipients, and emerging writers. If you’ve got a bone to pick and if you believe that critique is an indispensable complement to artistic, cultural, and intellectual production, then this might be the venue for you. 

Literature and Global Popular Music 2027 Modern Language Association Adaptation Forum Call for Papers How does literature travel through global popular music? How do novels, poems, plays, and other literary forms resonate when translated into sound, lyrics, stage performance, music videos, and media circulation across borders?This guaranteed session invites studies of musical adaptations that illuminate the cultural, social, and political resonances of literary works. How do literary forms find new life in global popular music? In what ways do these adaptations reshape questions of identity, memory, translation, and power across national and linguistic boundaries?Possible topics include (but are not limited to): 

The Vampire Studies Area of the Popular Culture Association welcomes papers, presentations, panels, and roundtable discussions exploring all aspects of the vampire throughout global culture.

Our theme for PCA 2027 is L.O.V.E.

L = Lust
O = Obsession
V = Vitality / Virility
E = Eternity / Exsanguination

Conference Call for Papers

The Star Wars 50 Years academic conference will be held by the University of Leicester and the Leverhulme Centre for Humanity and Space at Space Park Leicester on 21-22 May 2027 in anticipation of the 50th anniversary of the original release of the film on 25 May 1977 in the U.S. We are now inviting proposals for conference presentations.

Conference Organisers: