popular culture

**DEADLINE EXTENDED to 13 April 2026**

Call for Papers: 

Listening to Possible Worlds 

Sound and Music in Speculative Literature and Culture 

22-23 October 2026, Leiden University, the Netherlands (in-person) 

Confirmed keynote speakers are Anna Snaith (King’s College London) and Chris Tonelli (University of Groningen) 

The Journal of Therapeutic and Applied Geek and Gaming Culture (TAGGC) is a new academic journal for professionals studying the intersections of Geek and Gaming cultures and mental health to share their work. 

The way our current globally interconnected and digitally enabled capitalist formation continuously reshapes itself to reinforce categories of class and overarching capitalist structures requires analyses that engage and critique these adaptive forces of capital. Responding to this need, this seminar seeks to examine the relationship of texts to a global capitalist economy by asking how class and capitalism function within and exert force upon texts and their contexts—in film, literature, art, video games, social media, and other extratextual spaces such as fan sites. In concert with this year’s theme, we also invite examinations of representations of the capitalist ruling class and the material and ideological effects of these representations.

The Dance and Movement Analysis Section of the American Folklore Society is looking for papers, panels, workshops, and lec/dems for the 138th AFS Annual Meeting, to be held at the Renaissance Asheville Downtown Hotel in Asheville, North Carolina from October 27–31, 2026. Deadline is April 6, 2026 for emailing us with ideas and questions, at dance.section@afsnet.org.

See below for a call for papers to the upcoming ASAP (Association for the Arts of the Present), which takes place in Madison, WI on October 15-17, 2026. We invite contributions on the narrative dimensions of any contemporary "brainrot" or "slop" media- with particular interest in genre, grand narrative, minimal narrative, short form, segmentivity, seriality, plot, character, etc.

We are delighted to invite chapter proposals for our upcoming edited volume:
Sociolinguistics of Emojis: Implications for Customer Psychology and Behavior
(Under consideration with Springer, Edward Elgar, and Bentham Science)

This book explores how emojis function as sociolinguistic tools in digital communication—shaping tone, politeness, stance, and perception across platforms like customer service chat, CRM, B2B messaging, influencer ecosystems, and D2C apps. We are especially interested in work that links language use to outcomes such as trust, persuasion, complaint resolution, and user experience.

We welcome submissions across:

Conference Dates - Nov. 12th to 15th 

Location: Seattle, Washington (USA)

Hospitality is often understood as an act of welcome, yet it also raises complex questions about boundaries, authority, and belonging. Drawing on the philosophical framework of Jacques Derrida—who describes hospitality as a tension between openness to the stranger and the conditions that regulate entry—this panel invites proposals that explore how hospitality functions as a pedagogical framework for teaching reading, writing, and interpretation. Proposals may explore hospitality through literary analysis, composition pedagogy, rhetorical theory, cultural studies, or interdisciplinary approaches.

"I don't know what Christmas is, but Christmas time is here": Santa Claus, Christmas, and Implicit Religion in SFF 

Abstracts (250 words) are invited for papers exploring Santa Claus and/or the Christmas holiday in science fiction, speculative fiction and fantasy literature, film, and graphic novels.  Considerations of the interrelation of secular and religious themes in SFF Christmas, implicit religion, and contemporary ritual welcome. 

MLA '27 held in LA in January; for more information on the conference see https://www.mla.org/Events/2027-MLA-Convention  

Deadline:  March 25, 2026

 Contribute to a Special Issue of the Pop Culture Studies Journal on TOYS!

Volume Editor: Jonathan Alexandratos

Abstract: ~500 words due by April 25th to the editor via email at jsalexan@gmail.com.

Overview:

Paper. Film. TV screen. Sound recording. Internet. These are common ways popular culture reaches us. However, while scholarship around comics, movies, TV shows, music, and online media expands, one pop culture area too often remains under-explored: toys.

The Pleasures and Problems of Pooh

The 3rd Biennial kidlit@hollins Children’s Literature Symposium 

On Zoom

Friday-Sunday, July 10-12, 2026

Hollins University Graduate Programs in Children’s Literature

Chaired by Lisa Rowe Fraustino

This year’s hundredth anniversary of A. A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh, published in 1926, provides a springboard for reflection on the role of classic children’s literature. This online symposium seeks presentation proposals from authors, illustrators, librarians, publishers, educators, and scholars in any field. Possible topics for exploration include:                                     

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

Call for Papers: MLA 2027 - Los Angeles

The William Morris Society in the United States is soliciting proposals for two panels at next year's MLA (January 7-10, 2027 in Los Angeles). You are warmly invited to submit proposals for either session. Please submit your proposals to the email addresses listed with each CFP. Submissions must be received by March 15.

William Morris, Collections Technology & the Virtual Archive

We invite original scholarly contributions for an edited comprehensive volume dedicated to
the histories, aesthetics, industries, and cultural politics of cinema in Bhutan. As Bhutanese
filmmaking gains increasing regional and global visibility—through both popular and festival
circuits—this volume seeks to offer the first sustained, interdisciplinary mapping of its
cinematic landscape.