popular culture

Mid-Atlantic Popular & American Culture Association (MAPACA) 2026 Virtual Summer Symposium, July 26, 2026

This one-day virtual event on July 26, 2026 is in addition to our 3-day conference in November to accommodate scholars outside the Mid-Atlantic region and those for whom an in-person event is otherwise inaccessible. We greatly encourage international scholars to submit for this dynamic, one-day event!

The Journal of Dracula Studies is open for submissions for its upcoming 2026 issue. We invite manuscripts of scholarly articles (4000-6000 words) on any of the following: Bram Stoker, the novel Dracula, the historical Dracula, the vampire in literature including folklore, fiction, film, popular culture, and related topics. Submissions should be sent electronically (as an e-mail attachment in .docx). Please indicate the title of your submission in the subject line of your e-mail.

Call for Papers

ESOTERICISM, OCCULTISM, and MAGIC

Southwest Popular / American Culture Association (SWPACA)

2026 SWPACA Summer Salon

June 25-27, 2026

Virtual Conference

https://swpaca.org/

Submissions open on March 30, 2026

Proposal submission deadline: April 27, 2026

CALL FOR PRESENTATIONS Everything Fab Four Fest: REVOLVERNovember 6-8, 2026, Asbury Park, NJBerkeley Oceanfront Hotel

You are cordially invited to submit abstracts and/or panel suggestions for an international symposium devoted to the life, work, and influence of the Beatles, particularly in relation to their legendary album REVOLVER (1966). The festivities will include a host of well-known speakers, journalists, and musicians. 

At a time when some are attempting to rewrite the Humanities, it might be questioned as to how archives can not only be preserved but also utilized to fight for the future. Children’s and Young Adult Literature and Culture are deeply shaped by questions of memory, authority, and cultural transmission. Contributors are encouraged to consider the archive as an ever-evolving site of power that governs inclusion, exclusion, and interpretation. One might posit questions such as How do archival practices shape the stories available to young readers, and how might authors, educators, and scholars work against inherited silences and erasures?

A two-day conference to be held online by the University of Liverpool, in partnership with the Science Fiction Foundation and the Arthur C. Clarke Award, 12-13 December 2026

Keynote Speaker: Andrew M. Butler (non-voting chair of the Arthur C. Clarke Award)

Roundtable discussion with Clarke Award-winning authors Anne Charnock, Adrian Tchaikovsky and Tade Thompson

Event Title:                    Truth in (Contemporary) SocietyEvent date:                    Monday, 29th & 30th June 2026
Location:                       Workroom 3, 38 Mappin St, University of Sheffield

Call for Papers

Tolkien in Popular Culture

Southwest Popular / American Culture Association (SWPACA)

2026 SWPACA Summer Salon

June 25-27, 2026

Virtual Conference

https://swpaca.org/

Submissions open on March 30, 2026

Proposal submission deadline: April 27, 2026

Research group “Translation and Language Studies” (Faculty of Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities, Kaunas University of Technology) is organising an international conference on linguistics, discourse, media, communication, translation, cultural literacy and impact on society “Intermediality in Communication: Translation, Media, Discourse” held in Kaunas, Lithuania.

The scope of the conference includes 8 thematic sections with their own set of topics:

Linguistics. This section aims to examine the current directions in linguistic research, particularly focusing on how language interacts with different forms of media. 

The theme for this year’s MMLA conference explores the relational dynamics inherent in an archive. Since Derrida’s Archive Fever, the role of the archive has been conceived as a site for both the storage and construction of memory. What is selected and how it is framed by the archival materials works both to capture memory and history and shape how something or someone should be remembered. In keeping with this theme, the permanent section for comics and graphic novels is interested in research that interrogates the intersection of comic studies and the archive.

Scholars are encouraged to contribute articles about the Grateful Dead and reviews of Grateful Dead-and-related performances and media for consideration for publication in the field’s refereed journal, Grateful Dead Studies. Accepted pieces from the current submission cycle will be published in volume 8 (2027 / 2028) of the journal.

Article submission deadline: 1 August 2026

Review submission deadline: 1 September 2026

Grateful Dead Studies is also seeking qualified reviewers interested in supporting the peer review process. Please reach out if you would like to help scholarly discourse about the Grateful Dead thrive.

IMAGINATION, MEDIATION, & MANIFESTATION

Inaugural Graphic Medicine Europe Conference X Cross Comix
9-12 September 2026
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam & De Doelen Rotterdam

Call for Papers: Autumn 2026: Biophilia: The Shape of the Future
Coreopsis

A Multidisciplinary Journal of the Mythic Arts

This journal accepts papers from many disciplines and is welcoming of all faiths and philosophies. We publish about 5 papers per issue that have been peer-reviewed according to academic standards. Final submissions should be 3000 to 10,000 words. 

If you have a finished paper ready for submission, send it directly to coreopsisjournalofmyththeatre@gmail.com

Time, Memory and Forgetting in the Western

Two-Day Symposium | 10–11 September 2026 | University of Essex, UK

Deadline for submissions: 30th April 2026

To submit: 250 word outlines for all submission types via email to richard.parker@uc.cl

“There will come a time when you believe everything is finished; that will be the beginning.”— Louis L’Amour, Lonely on the Mountain.