The Northeast Popular Culture Association (NEPCA) The Body, Fashion, and Popular Culture Area invites submissions for NEPCA’s annual conference to be held online Thursday, October 15th through Saturday October 17th 2026.

Body and Culture is concerned with the human body as text, both literal and discursive, and how the body’s production of meaning is socially, culturally, historically, psychologically, economically, affectively, and/or politically located. The meanings that culture writes onto bodies, the origins and constructions of those meanings, and the impact those meanings have on bodies so inscribed, become pertinent questions. We welcome topics of any nature dealing with the body — in the body’s most diverse meanings — including the absence of such.

Fashion and Culture is concerned with what covers and surrounds the body. All areas and aspects of style, fashion, clothing, design, and related trends, as well as appearances and/or consumption including the: history, aesthetics, online marketing/branding including celebrity/influencer retailing, youth stylings, psychological/ sociological aspects of dress, image, including construction of personal and cultural identities, in addition to areas relating to purchasing, shopping or alternative sourcing of fashion.

Topics can include, but are not restricted to: 

1. Fashion and the Racialised-(Neo)Colonised Body: Intersections and Divergences
2. The Fashion of Costumes: Performing Characters Across Genres and Eras
3. The Body within Fashion: Identity, Slippages, and More
4. The Business of the Body: Age, Skincare, and ‘Cosmetic’ Surgeries
5. Celebrity Influencers, Trend-setters, and the Fashion Mongers 
6. Youthful Fashion and the Adolescent Body in Popular YA Literature, Series and Films
7. Neurodivergent Representation in Fashion
8. Body, Gestures, and Fashion in Period dramas, such as Bridgerton, The Gilded Age, and Downton Abbey
9. Politicising Fashion and Performing Politics
10. The Representation of Body and Fashion on Social Media

The call will be open until Monday, June 15th by 5pm EDT. You can submit your proposal at this link, which will ask the following questions about your proposal:

Proposal Type (Single Presentation, Panel, or Roundtable)

Working Title

Academic Affiliation (if any)

Abstract (250 words)

Short bio (50-200 words)

Every presenter, individual, panel, or roundtable, will need to register for the conference. Registration will open up in mid-July. The registration fee is expected to be around 50 USD.

If you have questions about the NEPCA Conference, please check out the Conference Page or feel free to reach out to NEPCA’S The Body, Fashion, and Popular Culture Area Chairs: Hannah Sophie Schiffner, Zeppelin University at h.schiffner@zeppelin-university.net; Protichi Chatterjee, MA, Jawaharlal Nehru University at protichichatterjee@gmail.com. 

ROUNDTABLES: Roundtables allow a group of participants to convene with the goal of generating discussion around a shared concern. Roundtables typically involve shorter position or dialogue statements (5-10 minutes) in response to questions distributed in advance by the organizer. Most of the roundtable session time should be expected to be spent on discussion.