popular culture

The Journal of Children in Popular Culture is an open-access, online, international, interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed journal that provides a forum for scholars and professionals to interrogate  representations of the child in popular culture. JOCPC facilitates an international dialogue among scholars and professionals through vigorous discussion of the intersections between the child, the conception of childhood, children's material culture, children and politics, the child body, and any other interactions with the child in the context of popular culture.   

In a 2022 article, one of a number of related works, and drawing on the work of Didier Deleule and François Guéry (2014)– the late art theorist Marina Vishmidt critiqued the manner in which an analysis of ‘bodies’ seemed to be overly focused on the register of vulnerability, or the post-structuralist, discursive, or psychoanalytic dimensions, thus relegating bodies excessively to the realm of the abstract, to the exclusion of the concrete. Anatomy, with regards to both its aesthetic and scientific purposes, also has abstract and concrete dimensions – as innovative recent works analyzing anatomy within its broader social and historical contexts demonstrate.

June 26-28, 2024

Virtual Conference

https://swpaca.org/

Submissions open on March 25, 2025

Proposal submission deadline: April 15, 2025

Messengers from the Stars: On Science Fiction and Fantasy

No. 9, 2026

Guest Editor: Alexandra Cheira

Co-Editor: Ana Rita Martins

Messengers from the Stars is an international, peer-reviewed, open-access journal, offering academic articles, reviews, and providing an outlet for a wide range of creative work inspired by science fiction and fantasy. The 2026 issue will be dedicated to the following theme:

The Streets of Tomorrow:

The Cityscape(s) of Fantasy & Science Fiction

Throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, popular culture increasingly served as an intermediary to present and, in some cases, reimagine academia and the academy for mass audiences. This mediation results from an assembly of narratives from various media forms and contexts, both by those inside and outside the academy. The result is a vision of the academy in Western popular culture that is exciting and inviting at turns, but is more frequently shark-like, insular, and intimidating. 

Special thematic dossier 7.1 | The Boundaries of US Identity and the African American Experience

Editor: Beatriz Hermida Ramos (Universidad de Salamanca)

Culinary Expeditions: Media, Food, and Halal Tourism in the Global South, to be published by Peter Lang International Academic Publisher as part of the book series Food and Cultures from the Global South.

This book will explore the intersection of media, halal tourism, and gastronomy in the Global South, examining how food storytelling, digital media, and travel narratives influence Muslim tourist experiences and cultural representation.

This panel calls for papers that examine theories and histories of the body alongside histories of fashion and modeling. In what ways do contemporary fashion studies or modeling studies build on or depart from foundational texts that interrogate the body? How do fashion and modeling embody or resist ableism, ageism, transphobia, fatphobia, and other forms of oppression that are mediated through the body? This panel is particularly interested in the role of the model, expansively defined as fashion modeling, artist's modeling, instagram modeling or other forms of model-like roles and embodied performances.

Ann Radcliffe
Academic Conference
For Academic Researchers across the Horror Genre!

The Seventh Annual Ann Radcliffe Academic Conference at StokerCon 2025

CALL FOR INITIAL PAPERS

​Conference Date: Friday, June 13, 2025

​Conference Location: Hilton Stamford Hotel & Executive Meeting Center

1 First Stamford Pl

Stamford, CT 06902

​The 2025 StokerCon convention is eager to channel the creative potential of Stamford’s history, culture, and communities.

Call for articles for the peer-reviewed academic blog of the PopMeC Association for US Popular Culture Studies (popmec.hypotheses.org ISSN 2660-8839). We accept, process, and publish articles on a rolling basis and we welcome eassays by postgraduate students and early career scholars.

The conference, "Undercover Agents: Women, Crime, and Detection in the Global Nineteenth Century" will be held on 28-29 August 2025 at the School of English, University of St Andrews, and is supported by funding from the British Association for Victorian Studies.

Call for Papers

“Horror (Literary & Cinematic)”

Southwest Popular / American Culture Association (SWPACA)

2025 SWPACA Summer Salon

June 26-28, 2025

Virtual Conference

https://swpaca.org/

Submissions open on March 25, 2025

Proposal submission deadline: April 15, 2025

The Circus Historical Society will hold its 2025 Convention in Las Vegas Nevada from October 22 to October 25. More information about Convention is available here: https://circushistory.org/next-convention/ (Registration opens soon!) 

We invite proposals for presentations at the convention on any subject related to circus history:

Recent reports about Neil Gaiman’s alleged decades of sexual abuse have led to renewed discussions about how to approach popular and award-winning works by authors and illustrators who draw rebuke in their personal lives.  Censorship over a range of complaints is increasing globally. Social media callouts over content have resulted in withdrawn publications, canceled book contracts, and altered reputations of authors, illustrators, and publishers.