popular culture

2007 has been heralded as one of the best in film history. Numerous exceptional films were released, and some actors and directors reached career pinnacles with their 2007 work (the Coen Brothers, Paul Thomas Anderson, Daniel Day-Lewis, George Clooney). I am soliciting 250-word abstracts on any topic related to films from that year, whether as single-film studies, comparative analyses, or studies in cinematic trends. Your presentation can involve films from other years, as long as the 2007 film plays a central role in the argument. I am especially interested in essays on any of the following films: 

American Gangster

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

Critical articles on the representation of Muslims/Islam in Indian films are invited from research scholars/faculty members for the upcoming volume "Muslims in Indian Cinema" to be edited by Md Sarfaraj Nawab and Asrin Khatun.

The X-Files Companion - Call for Contributions

Chapter proposals are invited for a proposed edited companion on the seminal television series The X-Files (1993-2018, Fox), its movies, spin offs (The Lone Gunmen, Millennium), and surrounding paratextual material (books, comics, fan fiction etc).

Call for Proposals for Papers and Panels:
Gender Studies Area

Popular Culture Association (PCA) National Conference

June 2-5, 2021

Boston, MA (option for virtual participation)

In the past decades, video games have established themselves as a global entertainment medium enjoying ever-increasing sales and profits. What was once a contested form of entertainment, now benefits from a level of social acceptability comparable to that of more traditional media such as the cinema. The popularity and cultural capital of video games calls for an inquiry into their contribution to the construction of cultural identity. While this avenue of research has begun to gain momentum, as proven by the increasing number of academic publications on gender identity or sexual orientation, less attention has been given to colonialism and colonial subjects in the context of today’s neoliberal postcolonial and postcommunist world.

The Area for Esotericism, Occultism,and Magic at the Southwest Popular/American Culture Association invites paper proposals for a special online panel at this year's all-online conference.  This panel will focus on the prominent and pervasive role and significance of esoteric, occult, and magical themes, aesthetics, imagery, conceptions, and content in gaming media.  This is intended to encompass games themselves (board games, table-top/RPG, console/PC, live-action RPG, alternate reality games, simulations, etc.) as well as tie-in media of any type (books, films, television, internet series, etc.).  Of equal interest is the reception and application of games and game-like systems or content within esoteric, occult, and ma

The Journal of L.M. Montgomery Studies, a peer-reviewed publication of the L.M. Montgomery Institute at the University of Prince Edward Island, invites scholarly articles and creative work (written, visual, or audio-visual) on the topic of “L.M. Montgomery and Mental Health.” Abstracts due 15 February 2021; Submissions due 2 August 2021

For more information go to https://journaloflmmontgomerystudies.ca/mentalhealth_cfp

REMINDER: We are seeking book chapters for an edited scholarly collection on the Chinese web drama Chen Qing Ling (The Untamed)!

We are soliciting book chapters for an edited scholarly collection on Chen Qing Ling/The Untamed, its contexts, and its audiences. This will be a multi-disciplinary and interdisciplinary collection that considers the show's popularity, influences, and effects from a variety of cultural and critical viewpoints.

Going Viral: Chronotopes of Disaster in Film and Visual Media 

Guest editors: Sotirios Bampatzimopoulos (Ankara University) and Geli Mademli (University of Amsterdam) 

The study of conspiracism overlaps with the study of esotericism, occultism, and magic in several respects.  In addition to the frequent significance of secrecy and clandestine interactions in the history of esoteric, occult, and magical movements, their association (real or imagined) with heterodox religious movements, political subversion, and intelligence organizations has led to close association of these conceptions with each other in popular cultural imagination as well as in their own subcultural milieux.  Esotericists, occultists, and magicians have themselves engaged in conspiracist conception, generated conspiracy theories, and projected them onto others, as well as themselves being the recipients of such projections by both religious and secula

"Tantra" has the distinction of being one of the few conceptions that simultaneously refers to intensely esoteric and antinomian systems of traditional mystical, magical, and occult practice deeply rooted in and contextualized in cultural specificity while also being used to describe popularized receptions that variously narrow its focus, broaden its scope, secularize it, moralize it, sanitize it, demonize it, and diabolize it.  Sometimes popular conceptions also associate its practice with variant interpretations of concepts such as the "Left-Hand Path" that themselves have accrued a considerable range of both emic and etic significances frequently at odds with one another.  Unlike abstractions such as the "Left-Hand Path," Tantra has retained a common t

Nickelodeon’s Avatar: The Last Airbender (2005-08) and its sequel The Legend of Korra (2012-14) are among the most acclaimed and influential animated television series of the twenty-first century. Yet, there has been little scholarly writing about them. To remedy this gap, I am looking for contributors for an edited volume of essays on this franchise.

The book will be designed for a general undergraduate readership, covering a range of topics in relation to the Avatar franchise. These include (but are not limited to):

Dr Jenny Bonnevier, Örebro University, Sweden and Associate Professor Berit Åström, Umeå University, Sweden invite original essays for a contributed volume on kinship in the fiction of N.K. Jemisin. Lexington Books have expressed a provisional interest in publishing the volume.

The Comics Arts Conference is now accepting 100 to 200 word abstracts for papers, presentations, and panels taking a critical or historical perspective on comics (juxtaposed images in sequence) for a meeting of scholars and professionals at Comic-Con International, in San Diego, CA, July 22-25, 2021.  We seek proposals from a broad range of disciplinary and theoretical perspectives and welcome the participation of academic and independent scholars.  We also encourage the involvement of professionals from all areas of the comics industry, including creators, editors, publishers, retailers, distributors, and journalists.