popular culture

After an enriching interdisciplinary conference in 2025, Heavy Childhoods 2026 will run under the title “Curating Future Nostalgia in Heavy Times”

Call For Papers

The Erotica, Sexuality, Pornography, & Kink Area of the National Popular Culture Association (PCA) invites scholars to participate in the PCA’s annual conference. Details of the conference can be found at https://pcaaca.org/page/submissionguidelines

Call for Papers

Food and Culture

Southwest Popular / American Culture Association (SWPACA)

47th Annual Conference, February 25-28, 2026

Marriott Albuquerque

Albuquerque, New Mexico

http://www.southwestpca.org

Proposal submission deadline: October 31, 2025

Call for Presentations for the Annual Meeting of the Popular Culture Association

We invite presentations about War after 1945, covering any of the following general topics with special attention to popular culture:

Korea, Vietnam, Gulf War, Iraq, Afghanistan; Cold War and Global War on Terrorism; military interventions and peacekeeping missions involving Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, and Europe. We particularly welcome papers that look at pop culture in light of the 25th anniversary of 9/11.

Presentations may focus on writers and artists: original fiction, poetry, memoirs, drama, art, music, film, and television.

This special panel to be held in the Area for Esotericism, Occultism, and Magic of the Southwest Popular/American Culture Association seeks 15-20 minute conference presentations from all disciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives examining any and all aspects of the emerging trend of “reality shifting” in relation to popular culture, particularly that of Generation Z.

The Generational Studies area of the Popular Culture Association welcomes proposals for papers on any and every topic related to America’s generations including: Baby Boomers, Generation Jones, Generation X, Xennials, Millennials (Gen Y), and iGen (Gen Z). If your paper is accepted, you will be presenting at the 2026 Popular Culture Association national conference, held at the Marriott Marquis in Atlanta, April 8-1.

We invite submissions from individuals and organized panels (3 or 4 persons), focusing on topics related to:

Feeling haunted by that unfinished conference proposal? We've got just the Halloween treat for you: a two-week extension -- now accepted through November 14!

Mathematics and engineering are often confined to academic settings, yet they form the foundation of life and popular culture alike. When we examine engineering marvels in movies, books, and other media, we uncover rich symbolism and deeper meanings that reveal how these disciplines shape our understanding of the world.

Panels are now forming on topics related to all aspects of mathematics and engineering and their intersection with popular culture. Possible topics may include (but are not limited to):

Mystery / Detective Fiction Area

Southwest Popular / American Culture Association (SWPACA)

47th Annual Conference, February 25-28, 2026

Marriott Albuquerque

Albuquerque, New Mexico

https://www.swpaca.org

EXTENDED proposal submission deadline: November 14, 2025

DEADLINE EXTENDED!

Call for Papers

“War & Culture”

Southwest Popular / American Culture Association (SWPACA)

47th Annual Conference, February 25-28, 2026

Marriott Albuquerque

Albuquerque, New Mexico

https://www.southwestpca.org

NEW Submission Deadline: November 14, 2025

The esoteric, occult, and magical roots of deep ecology have become increasingly interconnected with the growing popularity of witchcraft practices, neopagan worldviews, and explicitly spiritual climate activism and environmentalism.  These developments include specific foci on particular ecological concerns and crises, but such trends are equally exemplified by transdisciplinary dialogues in which holistic scientific perspectives intersect with diverse systems of belief. This special panel seeks 15-20 conference presentations to explore these connections and their influence on, reception by, and expression through popular culture in any and all of its manifestations.  

The extraordinary success of K-Pop Demon Hunters (2025) as the most-watched original title in the history of Netflix (with over 325 million views) invites the reconsideration of a surprisingly vast and multivalent “mega-trope” that has proliferated throughout popular culture in numerous variations for centuries.  Its deep roots in folklore and mythology remain to be further explored, mapped, and connected with its various historical expressions throughout indigenous worldviews, Classical cultures and civilizations into Late Antiquity and ultimately through the global Middle Ages and straight through into the interactions of Western, East/Asian, and diverse global civilizations of the contemporary period.  While this mega-trope is here identified

Call for Papers

Medievalisms Area

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: November 14, 2025

Come join academics and working professionals at the Atlanta Marriott Marquis, April 8-11 2026!

We are considering proposals for sessions organized around a theme, special panels, and/or individual papers.  Sessions are scheduled in 1½ hour slots, typically with four papers or speakers per standard session.  Presentations should not exceed 15 minutes. Working professionals, scholars, educators, and graduate students are all encouraged to submit.

Proposals within animation studies in relation to popular culture are welcomed. Possible themes for papers/panels include but are not restricted to:

Special Issue

Shopping Fictions: Representing Shops and Shopping in British Literature and Culture