fan studies and fandom

“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.

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. 

This issue aims to restore much-needed scholarly attention to analog effects and other hands-on approaches to filmmaking in analog and contemporary digital cinema. Special effects have become a growing area in film studies with the rise of digital cinema since the turn of the century, sparking renewed interest across academic writing, popular culture, journalism, and fandom. Scholars such as Warren Buckland, Stephen Prince, Charlie Keil, Kristen Whissel, and Julie A. Turnock have primarily focused on the cinematic realism of CGI and its ubiquitous use in Hollywood mainstream cinema. Furthermore, as Dan North, Bob Rehak, and Michael S.

Beyond Conventional Screens: New Approaches to Audiovisual Storytelling - Call for Chapter Proposals

Edited by Sotiris Petridis 

• Deadline for proposals: 01 June 2026
• Notification of Acceptance: by mid-June 2026
• Deadline for chapters: 15 November 2026

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.

[please note the updated conference date and timeline]

National Video Games: Cultures, Industries, Communities
international conference

4–6 December 2026
University of Warsaw, Poland

Call for Papers

Stardom & Fandom

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 Papers

Horror (Literary & Cinematic)

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

We are inviting select chapters at this stage as majority of the entries for the volume have been finalised. Apart from the topics mentioned below, prospective contributors are free to propose other topics, but if we have already finalised paper/s on said area, we may have to decline such proposals. For details regarding the concept and theme of the volume, please visit the-handbook-of-bengali-cinema, the original CFP for the volume. Priority will be given to quality proposals in the below areas:

Thematic:

Nandan and the Politics of State Support for Culture

Bengal-isms in Cinema in Bengali

Genres/Movements:

Call for Papers (CFP) for ISBN Edited Volume
Edited Volume Title: Body Politics in Literature

About the Volume

The body in literature is never neutral; it is a site where power is exercised, identities are shaped, and social meanings are constantly negotiated. Rather than viewing the body as a purely biological entity, literary texts reveal it as something produced through cultural norms, political structures, and ideological forces. This edited volume, Body Politics in Literature, aims to investigate how writers across different periods and traditions represent the body as a space of control, conflict, and transformation.

Call for Papers: International Journal of Media & Cultural Politics

Special Issue: ‘Entertainment Video Games Within Wider Culture’

View the full call here>>

https://www.intellectbooks.com/international-journal-of-media-cultural-politics#call-for-papers

Context

Date of conference: 28-29 August, 2026

Deadline for Abstract Submission: 5 July 2026

Online, international, interdisciplinary conference titled:

A Letter to Video Games:The Mechanisms of Emotions

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.