popular culture

Revolutions & Revisions in Popular Culture (in Collecting)-PCA Annual Conference, March 24-27, 2027: Boston, Massachusetts

updated: 
Saturday, September 5, 2026 - 12:30am
Popular Cultural Association/2027 PCA 57th National Conference
deadline for submissions: 
Saturday, October 31, 2026

PCA Annual Conference, March 24-27, 2027: Boston, Massachusetts

 

 

The Collecting and Collectibles Area invites proposals exploring how “collecting” has become an embodiment of the economic, political, environmental, and digital precarities that shape contemporary popular culture. Collecting now operates as a dynamic source for epistemic production, constantly redefining how popular culture is constructed, construed, mediated, valorized, historicized, and even contested. 

 

The Black Sitcom

updated: 
Thursday, September 3, 2026 - 9:00am
Danielle Lenáe Littlefield
deadline for submissions: 
Friday, October 16, 2026

The Black Sitcom: A Comprehensive Survey with Critical Essays

1950 – 2000 

Watching Cinema Theoretically: Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Film

updated: 
Wednesday, September 2, 2026 - 9:15pm
Chris Vanderwees
deadline for submissions: 
Sunday, November 1, 2026

The relation between a theory and its so-called “object” always poses the danger of reducing an art form (in this case film) to a mere instance testifying to the validity of the theory. In this way, the theory provides the “genus” of which a given film will be a mere “species”. The application of psychoanalytic ideas or Marxist concepts to film would therefore run the risk of depriving the specificity and singularity of the object in favour of the hegemony of the theory. Here, theory would truly live up to its theological vocation (the “theo” in theory refers to God) standing transcendentally above its “object” upon which it would cast its daunting shadow.

Seeking Papers on the American West

updated: 
Tuesday, September 1, 2026 - 6:00pm
Southwest Popular and American Culture
deadline for submissions: 
Saturday, October 31, 2026

Call for Papers

THE AMERICAN WEST

Southwest Popular / American Culture Association (SWPACA)

 

48th Annual Conference, February 17-20, 2027

Marriott Albuquerque

Albuquerque, New Mexico

https://swpaca.org

Submissions open: September 1, 2026

Proposal submission deadline: October 31, 2026

 

#WeirdGirlLit: Why Do Girls Just Want to Be Weird?

updated: 
Tuesday, August 25, 2026 - 11:15pm
Kelly Ferguson/ Miami University
deadline for submissions: 
Tuesday, September 22, 2026

Although internet culture may have brought about the hashtag #WeirdGirlLit,” women authors have long used writing to explore taboo and forbidden topics deemed beyond the purview of polite/patriarchal society. While Heather Colley of Writers Digest has noted that “Women in literary fiction are becoming murderers, cannibals, psychopaths, and stalkers,” we contend that female protagonists have long been unhinged both across time and space. Historically, freaky (anti)heroines have served as a release through which women readers could escape the restrictive confines of ideal femininity and instead probe hidden desires and other illicit aspects of their identities. 

Call for submissions - Transgressing Fictions: Transgressive Fiction in Trans-National and Trans-Temporal Contexts (NeMLA Panel)

updated: 
Tuesday, August 25, 2026 - 6:30pm
Ya'el Z. Frankel / Northeast Modern Language Association (NeMLA)
deadline for submissions: 
Wednesday, September 30, 2026

The term “transgressive fiction” was coined in 1993 by LA Times columnist Michael Silverblatt to describe a loosely related coterie of authors in the ‘80s and ‘90s whose writing has “violation at its core: violation of norms, of humanistic enterprise, of the body.” Silverblatt’s preliminary “sketch” of the genre’s leading voices was primarily American, almost entirely Anglophone, and exclusively white.

Shakespeare in Pop Culture

updated: 
Saturday, August 22, 2026 - 3:00pm
Southwest Popular / American Culture Association
deadline for submissions: 
Saturday, October 31, 2026

Call for Papers

Shakespeare in Pop Culture

Southwest Popular / American Culture Association (SWPACA)

 

48th Annual Conference, February 17-20, 2027

Marriott Albuquerque

Albuquerque, New Mexico

https://swpaca.org

Submissions open: September 1, 2026

Proposal submission deadline: October 31, 2026

 

CFP: PCA Special Topic: UFOs, Cryptids, Conspiracies, and the Paranormal

updated: 
Tuesday, August 18, 2026 - 9:15am
UFOs, Cryptids, Conspiracies, and the Paranormal Area of the PCA
deadline for submissions: 
Saturday, October 31, 2026

The 2027 Conference of the Popular Culture Association (PCA) will host a special topic area on UFOs, Cryptids, Conspiracies, and the Paranormal. 

In Brightest Day: Race, Justice, and the Speculative in HBO's Lanterns and the Green Lantern Mythos

updated: 
Monday, August 17, 2026 - 2:30pm
Julian Chambliss, Ritesh Khandewal, and Harry Foster / Michigan State University, Dept. of English
deadline for submissions: 
Thursday, October 15, 2026

CALL FOR PAPERS

In Brightest Day: Race, Justice, and the Speculative in HBO's Lanterns and the Green Lantern Mythos

Proposed for New Suns: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in the Speculative -- The Ohio State University Press

Edited by Julian C. Chambliss, Ritesh Khandelwal, and Harry M. Foster (Michigan State University)

ABSTRACT DEADLINE: October 15, 2026
Send abstracts (300-500 words) and a bio (approx. 100 words) to greenlanternbookproject@gmail.com with the subject line "Lanterns CFP -- [your surname]."

OVERVIEW

Call for Chapters : Eating for a Green Future

updated: 
Saturday, August 15, 2026 - 3:45pm
Dr. Shashibhusan Nayak
deadline for submissions: 
Thursday, October 15, 2026

CALL FOR CHAPTER PROPOSALS

Eating for a Green Future

Literature, Culture, and the Politics of Food in Contemporary India

Edited by

Dr. Manisha Mohanty (Assistant Professor, S'O'A University & Fulbright-Nehru Fellow)

Dr. Shashibhusan Nayak (MLA Bibliography Fellow, MLA)

Dr. Sonali Das (Assistant ProfessorS’O’A University)

Call for Submissions to the Journal for Cultural & Religious Theory Book Reviews section

updated: 
Friday, August 14, 2026 - 12:00am
Journal for Cultural & Religious Theory (JCRT)
deadline for submissions: 
Thursday, December 31, 2026

 

The editorial board of the Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory (JCRT), a Whitestone Publication, is pleased to announce the relaunch of its book review program. Effective immediately, JCRT is soliciting single-title reviews and cluster reviews from scholars working across religious studies, theology, philosophy of religion, critical theory, and adjacent fields.

 

UPDATE--Football and Performance

updated: 
Thursday, August 6, 2026 - 1:30pm
Eero Laine
deadline for submissions: 
Tuesday, September 1, 2026

CFP: Football and Performance

Editors: Eero Laine, Noe Montez, and Shannon Walsh

 

We are currently seeking chapter abstracts for an edited volume on football and performance. Theatre and performance studies allow us a unique view towards the ways that sports extend into civic space, politics, and daily life. How can the disciplines of theatre, dance, and performance studies serve as an analytic for sport, generally, and American football, in particular?

 

Captivating Criminality 14: Methods of Murder

updated: 
Monday, August 3, 2026 - 12:15am
The International Crime Fiction Association
deadline for submissions: 
Sunday, January 31, 2027

Captivating Criminality 14: Methods of Murder The International Crime Fiction Association is delighted to announce the fourteenth Captivating Criminality conference, to be held at the conference’s home venue, Bath Spa University, Corsham Court, UK, from 24-26th June 2027. There will also be an Early Career and Postgraduate Research workshop on the afternoon of 23rd June – which this year is open to all. This conference marks ten years since the inception of the journal Crime Fiction Studies (Edinburgh University Press).

Beyond Pathology: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Dementia Studies in Humanities

updated: 
Thursday, July 30, 2026 - 6:30pm
National Institute of Technology Rourkela
deadline for submissions: 
Tuesday, August 25, 2026

Special Call for Book Chapters 

We are pleased to announce a Special Call for Book Chapters for the forthcoming edited volume Beyond Pathology: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Dementia Studies in Humanities, which brings together interdisciplinary humanities scholarship that reconceptualises dementia through diverse representations of lived, narrated, and mediated experiences of the condition.

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).

Gossip: A Multidisciplinary Conference

updated: 
Tuesday, July 28, 2026 - 7:00am
Newcastle University, UK
deadline for submissions: 
Tuesday, December 15, 2026

Gossip: A Multidisciplinary Conference16th-18th June 2027Newcastle University, UK What a gossip!  To gossip is to be disruptive, to be unsocial; it is also to bring people together, to be social.

CFP - 2027 SAAS CONFERENCE: Speculative Ontologies: The Posthuman, the Eerie, and Cultural Memory in US Media and Narratives PANEL

updated: 
Tuesday, July 28, 2026 - 4:15am
SAAS (Spanish Association of American Studies)
deadline for submissions: 
Thursday, October 15, 2026

Call for Papers (CFP)18th SAAS Conference: Negotiating Identity and Power: Resistance, Rebellion, and Resilience in U.S. Literature and CultureUniversidad de Oviedo, Spain | March 15–17, 2027Panel Title:Speculative Ontologies: The Posthuman, the Eerie, and Cultural Memory in US Media and NarrativesPanel Chairs:

“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 

 

The Picaro and Picaresque Fiction

updated: 
Monday, July 27, 2026 - 2:30pm
PAMLA
deadline for submissions: 
Friday, July 31, 2026

20032. The Picaro and Picaresque Fiction "The Picaro and Picaresque Fiction" examines variations on theme of the picaro from its sixteenth-century Spanish origins to the present day. What does this recurring impish rapscallion have to offer readers in different political and historical contexts?

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.

New Perspectives on Creature Features (additional chapters)

updated: 
Friday, July 24, 2026 - 3:45pm
Fernando Gabriel Pagnoni Berns
deadline for submissions: 
Wednesday, September 30, 2026

New Perspectives on Creature Features (additional chapters)

Edited by

Fernando Gabriel Pagnoni Berns (Universidad de Buenos Aires)

 

Pages