This is a call for chapter abstracts for an upcoming edited volume exploring the cultural, narrative, musical, and global fandom implications of the animated film K-Pop Demon Hunters. The volume will be published as part of the Routledge Advances in Popular Culture Studies book series (https://tinyurl.com/rbtm8fve).

BOSS: The Biannual Online-Journal of Springsteen Studies (http://boss.mcgill.ca/) is an open-access academic journal that publishes peer-reviewed essays on Bruce Springsteen. The editors of BOSS are currently soliciting papers for the journal’s seventh edition, with an expected publication date of December 2026.

Edited Collection Dark Skies Appalachia

Proposal Deadline: 20 October 2025

Estimated Publication Date: 2027

Call for Papers: Dark Skies Appalachia

We invite proposals for contributions to Dark Skies Appalachia, a multidisciplinary collection which will explore the influence of a dark night sky on identity, culture, and sense of place in the Appalachian region, as well as the ecological and human impacts of light pollution and efforts to protect dark skies in and beyond the region. 

CFP: Media Futures The Velvet Light Trap, Issue 98 (to be published Fall 2026) Special Issue Theme: Media have always been a tool for us to imagine our possible futures. Dystopias, utopias, robotic dominance or human climate catastrophe, media help humanity play out the hopes, dreams, or nightmares of what’s to come. Scholarship on media futures has often focused on representations of the future, but also on how cultural and technological changes have shaped and are shaping everything from media production, creative labor, distribution, and audience reception. Algorithmic engines that shape taste help to determine what individuals choose to watch, A.I.

Special Issue Title: Long Modernism, Altered Natures 

Guest Editors: Matthew Gannon, Patrick Whitmarsh, and Kate Marshall

Deadline for Abstracts: 30 November 2025

Deadline for Manuscript Drafts: 31 July 2026

In the Anthropocene, human activities profoundly reshape the climate and environment, disrupting ecological balance and transforming humans into a potent geological force. Dominant strands of Western thought from Descartes to Heidegger have contributed to reinforcing this perceived superiority of humans over other beings, thereby calcifying a dichotomy between the human and the non-human. In the field of translation studies, this human-centered focus has historically been echoed through the discipline’s sustained attention to human languages and culture. However, posthumanism and post-anthropocentrism, which advocate the interconnectedness between humans and non-humans, have challenged the centrality of anthropos in translation. 

Call for Papers – CLOSURE: Journal of Comics Studies #13 (November 2026)

Open Call for Submissions

 CLOSURE: Journal of Comics Studies will once again provide a platform for all facets of comic studies in its thirteenth issue, to be published in Fall 2026. From cultural, visual, and media studies to social and natural sciences and beyond, CLOSURE invites essays and academic reviews that engage with the »state of the comic.« Whether in-depth analysis, comic theory, or innovative new approaches—for the open topic section, we welcome diverse contributions from the interdisciplinary field of comics research.

Thematic Section: »Animal Studies«

CALL FOR PAPERS

Sonic Representations of Jewishness, On Screen and Off

In-person conference at UCLA, April 19-21, 2026

Jews’ longstanding involvement with film and television has drawn much attention from scholars and the general public alike, raising the question of the significance of Jewish heritage and Jewishness more broadly for these creative endeavors, both on screen and behind the scenes. 

Given the centrality of music to Jewish culture, this conference seeks especially to delve into the ways portrayals of Jewishness are reinforced or made more complicated through music and sound in screen culture. 

To mark the 50th anniversary of Stephen King’s landmark 1977 novel, The Shining, editors Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock and Tony Magistrale solicit chapter proposals for an edited collection of scholarly essays with the working title, Fifty Years of The Shining: New Essays. Proposals are welcome on any aspects of the novel, its adaptations, paratexts, and cultural influence.

Please direct 250-word proposals (demonstrating appropriate conversance with relevant existing scholarly literature), as well as inquiries, to Jeffrey.Weinstock@cmich.edu and Anthony.Magistrale@uvm.edu. The deadline for proposals is December 1st, 2025.  

Bureaucratic Modernism

Edited by Alexandra Irimia and Jonathan Foster

Both modernist literature and modern bureaucracy reshaped how societies imagined authority, individuality, and the written word. Modernist authors not only depicted bureaucracy—they absorbed and transformed its textual forms, procedural rhythms, and rationalized aesthetics. This volume takes that convergence as its starting point, asking how the rise of administrative culture in the early twentieth century influenced modernist style, and how modernist experimentation in turn reframed the experience of bureaucracy.

Call for Papers for the Samuel Beckett Working Group at the IFTR World Congress in Melbourne, Australia, 6–10 July 2026

‘Nothing to be done’: What Samuel Beckett’s Theatre Does and What We Do with It

(Re)generative Storytelling: Embodied Narratives for Resilience and Social Renewal

March 5-8, 2025| Pittsburgh PA), Virtual Only

Abstract submission link: https://cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/21583

ABSTRACTS DUE: SEPT 30, 2025 

Reading as a Political Act (Roundtable, NeMLA 2026)

Deadline for abstract submission: September 30, 2025

From book bans to executive orders, the question of academic freedom and the freedom to read has become increasingly urgent. In the wake of the 2024 election, debates around “parental rights” and ideological control have intensified, fueling challenges to literacy and intellectual freedom. According to preliminary data from the American Library Association, 1,128 unique titles were challenged between January 1 and August 31, 2024 (“American Library Association reveals preliminary data on 2024 book challenges,” September 23, 2024).

Open Cultural Studies (www.degruyter.com/culture) invites submissions for a special issue entitled Post-Truth and Indigenous Environmental Justice in Canada: Myths, Media, and Reality.

Call for Papers

Stardom and Fandom

Southwest Popular / American Culture Association (SWPACA)

47th Annual Conference, February 25-28, 2026

Marriott Albuquerque

Albuquerque, New Mexico

https://www.southwestpca.org

Submissions open: September 1, 2025

Proposal submission deadline: October 31, 2025

This panel explores the regenerative power of early modern drama and travel narratives, focusing on how these texts reimagine cultural encounters, expand geographic and imaginative boundaries, and challenge traditional understandings of self and the other, with particular emphasis on the Mediterranean as a vital site of exchange. In harmony with the conference theme of (Re)generation, this panel invites papers that investigate how Shakespeare and his contemporaries engaged with the Mediterranean as a space of constant (re)formation, where diverse cultures, languages, and religions converged, influencing both dramatic form and narrative structure.

Topics may include, but are not limited to:

In an era defined by rapid social, technological, and environmental change, the concept of (Re)generation offers a vital framework for reimagining general education. This panel invites scholars, educators, and academic leaders to explore how the principles of (Re)generation can revitalize curricula, pedagogy, and institutional practices in ways that not only respond to the challenges of the present but also prepare us for the future.

Twenty years ago, David Eng, Jack Halberstam, and the late José Esteban Muñoz asked “What’s Queer about Queer Studies Now?” in a special issue of Social Text. With this question, they invited the field’s overhaul through considerations of race, debates about temporality/futurity, and interrogations of the transnational assemblages that then shaped refugee and migrant life. At the same time the special issue deconstructed the privileged subjects of queer studies, it echoed, furthered, and made space for field-defining works in queer Latinx studies: Muñoz’s Disidentifications (1999), Juana Maria Rodríguez Queer Latinidad (2003), Richard T.

This is a call for chapter proposals on the FX Channel's 2023 docuseries "Dear Mama: The Saga of Afeni and Tupac Shakur" for the FX Reader, an anthology of FX's best original TV series, which is under a two-volume book contract with Syracuse University Press.  The docuseries explores the lives and legacies of Tupac Shakur and his mother Afeni, who was a Black Panther Party activist.

From Lisa Barlow’s claim of being “Mormon 2.0,” to Meredith Marks’ immortal declaration about “the rumors and the nastiness,” The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City has captured imaginations far beyond Utah. The show is at once high drama, cultural export, and local funhouse mirror—inviting us to think seriously (and playfully) about how Salt Lake City is represented, interpreted, and mythologized.

This event will bring together fans, critics, scholars, and community members for a day of lively discussion, re-enactment, and reflection. We are less interested in the strict application of academic methods than in thoughtful, stimulating insights rooted in local culture, fandom, and appreciation.

The CUNY Graduate Center French Department invites submissions for our Spring 2026 student conference on the theme of “étrangeté.”

Étrangeté evades easy translation. It encompasses "strangeness," "foreignness," and "otherness," offering expansive variability. Etrangeté inhabits both the self and the other. It arises through external judgment and internal reflection alike. It can be unsettling, absurd, and beautiful.

Divination, Witchcraft & the Occult *SPECIAL TOPIC*

CALL FOR PRESENTATIONS
Popular Culture Association Conference
8-11 April 2026
Atlanta, GA, US

The broad interest in divination, witchcraft, and the occult has been part of popular culture for centuries. Scholars’ discomfort with the topic is often palpable: they tend to focus on intersections that feel more legitimate, e.g. legal ramifications (laws against occult practice, witch trials etc), or archival documents, or simply sticking to fictional accounts.

57th NeMLA Annual Convention, March 5-8, 2026 in Pittsburgh, PA

We have come twenty-five years ahead in the 21st century. Wars have been an ongoing phenomenon contributing to the precarious nature of the world. Communicating has become challenging and mired by distractions in all phases of wars. The seminar invites critical interactions with the history of war, the ongoing scenarios of war globally and the mediums approaches for communication (and lack thereof) arising from wars on national and international frontiers across the globe.
Some of the themes that participants could explore are:
- The War in Ukraine and Communications
- The Great World Wars and the Communication Crisis
- The Ethics of War and Communication
- AI and Communication in the Age of War