“Sex is more exciting on the screen and between the pages than between the sheets”
- ANDY WARHOL

Erotica as a domain of cultural expression occupies one of the most contested and intellectually generative intersections in contemporary media studies, cultural theory, and the humanities. Far from being a peripheral subject, erotica has historically shaped visual art, literary tradition, musical form, cinematic language, and the architecture of digital culture. Yet its academic study remains unevenly mapped, often confined to narrow disciplinary corridors or treated as supplementary to 'serious' scholarship. In an era marked by algorithmic media, platform capitalism, evolving gender politics, and the proliferation of fan-driven creative economies, the study of erotica demands renewed scholarly rigour and interdisciplinary courage. From the ancient erotic iconography of indigenous civilisations to the AI-generated content reshaping digital desire, from the coded sensuality of classic cinema and graphic novels to the explicit negotiations of kink communities and fan-fiction archives—erotica is not simply about desire. It is about power, identity, representation, and resistance.

This international academic online conference, 'Deciphering the World of Erotica: Where Fantasy Meets Media', brings together scholars, researchers, and critical practitioners from across the globe to engage with erotica as a serious site of cultural, psychological, sociological, and media inquiry. The online conference seeks to move beyond moral panic and titillation, situating erotic expression within the broader landscapes of media history, feminist theory, queer studies, audience research, and digital humanities.

OBJECTIVE

The international online conference is guided by a set of interconnected academic objectives. At its foundation, it seeks to establish erotica as a legitimate and generative field of interdisciplinary inquiry, bridging media studies, cultural theory, gender studies, psychology, sociology, and the arts. Building on this, the online conference examines how erotica has been produced, consumed, censored, and reclaimed across diverse media platforms, including cinema, television, OTT, comics, music, theatre, and digital spaces. This conference also critically analyses the relationship between erotic representation and constructions of gender, sexuality, body aesthetics, and identity, including femininity, masculinity, gender fluidity, and the femme fatale archetype. It further explores how erotica intersects with popular culture through celebrity, fandom, fan-fiction, poster culture, food culture, and vernacular slangs as sites of erotic meaning-making, and investigates erotica's evolving relationship with technology and artificial intelligence, including AI-generated content, algorithmic curation, deepfakes, and the ethics of digital desire. Equally, the online conference aspires to build comparative, cross-cultural dialogue connecting classic erotic texts in literature, novels, and comics with contemporary expressions across OTT content, manga, graphic novels, and kink communities. Throughout, it provides a rigorous and ethics-sensitive scholarly platform for examining audience reception, consent, fantasy, and the psycho-social dimensions of erotic culture, and in doing so, encourages scholars at all career stages to develop the research frameworks, pedagogical approaches, and critical vocabularies adequate to erotic expression in twenty-first century media landscapes.

GUEST SPEAKERS

• PROF. GAURI D CHAKRABORTY
  Times School of Media, Bennett University

• PROF. PANKHURI SINGH
  Scholar of Global Shakespeare, Film, and Performance, University of Porto.

• DR. MITALI SRIVASTAVA
  Sexologist (MBBS, MD, FECSM)

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

• DR. DEBJANI SAHU
  Media Analyst and Identity Researcher

• DR. NEHA MISHRA RAJ
  Poet, Independent Researcher, Academic Writer

• DR. RANA BEDI
  Assistant Professor, Lovely Professional University, Punjab

• DR. APOORVA JUNEJA
  Former Assistant Professor, Independent Researcher, and Entrepreneur

• DR. MITHULA THOMAS
  Assistant Professor, VIT, Vellore

• DR. SMRITI SHIKHA
  Assistant Professor, Amity University, Maharashtra

• DR. SUSISMITA SHARMA
  Guest Faculty, Handique Girls' College, Assam

THEMATIC CLUSTERS

To foster coherent intellectual dialogue, the sub-themes of the online international conference have been consolidated into seven thematic clusters. Papers and presentations may engage with one or more themes within a cluster.

CLUSTER I - EROTICA AND MEDIA FORMS

• Visual Culture
• Cinema (Classic Movies, Mainstream Cinema)
• Television
• OTT Platforms
• Theatre Culture
• Poster Culture

Description: This cluster invites scholarly engagement with how erotica has been constructed, coded, and consumed across media forms from early cinema and classic literature to contemporary streaming and theatrical performance. It examines the gaze, narrative form, and the visual grammar through which desire is organised and presented.

CLUSTER II - EROTICA AND POPULAR CULTURE

• Music Culture
• Celebrity Culture
• Food Culture
• Slangs
• Fandom & Fiction

Description: Erotica saturates popular culture in ways both visible and encoded. This cluster explores the erotic dimensions of music, celebrity bodies, gastro-erotic aesthetics, vernacular slang as erotic language, and fandom and fan-fiction spaces where audiences actively rewrite erotic narratives around existing cultural texts.

CLUSTER III - EROTICA, GENDER AND THE BODY

• Gender Fluidity
• Femininity
• Masculinity
• Femme Fatale
• Body Aesthetics
• Fantasies Across Life Stages

Description: This cluster examines erotica as a field in which gender is constantly performed, contested, and reimagined - from the archetype of the femme fatale to fluid erotic identities, from the aestheticised body to the politics of fantasy across age and generation.

CLUSTER IV - EROTICA AND SEQUENTIAL / GRAPHIC ART

• Comics
• Manga
• Graphic Novels
• Classic Novels & Stories

Description: Sequential art has long been a vehicle for erotic expression from pulp Western comics to the rich erotic lexicons of Japanese manga and literary graphic novels. This cluster explores how drawn and printed forms navigate censorship, embody fantasy, and construct erotic subjectivities in ways distinct from other media.

CLUSTER V - EROTICA, SOCIETY AND HISTORY

• Psychology
• Sociology
• History
• Indigenous Culture
• Kinks & Fetishism
• Audience Reception

Description: Erotica does not exist outside of social and historical structures. This cluster brings sociological, psychological, and historical frameworks to bear on erotic expression - examining how desire is culturally constructed, how indigenous traditions have encoded eroticism, how audiences receive erotic content, and how kink and fetish communities constitute distinct erotic subcultures.

CLUSTER VI - EROTICA, CENSORSHIP AND THE LAW

• Censorship
• Pornography
• Platform Regulation
• OTT Governance

Description: Where does erotica end and pornography begin? This cluster examines the contested boundary between erotic art and explicit content exploring state censorship, legal frameworks, platform governance, and comparative analysis of how mainstream cinema and streaming services negotiate erotic content across different cultural and regulatory contexts.

CLUSTER VII - EROTICA AND EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES

• Artificial Intelligence
• Algorithmic Desire
• Deepfakes
• Digital Culture

Description: Artificial intelligence is rapidly transforming the landscape of erotic production and consumption. This cluster critically examines AI-generated erotic content, algorithmic recommendation systems, the ethics of synthetic desire, deepfake media, and the broader implications of machine-mediated intimacy for consent, identity, and the future of human sexuality.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

Abstracts of 250-300 words with 5-6 keywords on any of the above themes or any other related topics in English are invited for the conference. The abstract should also contain the title of the paper, the name of the author(s), affiliation, address with email address along with short authors bio in 50-100 words. The abstract should be an original work without any usage of AI. All the papers would be reviewed by the technical committee of the conference before final acceptance. The abstract for the conference can be submitted to the conference email address: admin@thethinksphere.org

Formatting Requirements:

• Font - Times New Roman
• Font size - 12 pt.
• Spacing - 1.5
• Alignment - Justified

** All the abstract with the author's bio should be sent in a single Word/Doc file. **

PUBLICATION

Peter Lang Oxford has expressed initial interest in a potential post-conference edited volume featuring selected papers presented at the conference. Further details regarding this publication opportunity will be announced following the conference.

REGISTRATION FEES

INDIAN DELEGATES

• UG/PG Students

• Presenter: ₹500

• Participant: ₹500

• Research Scholars

• Presenter: ₹750

• Participant: ₹500

• Independent Researchers

• Presenter: ₹800

• Participant: ₹500

• Faculty

• Presenter: ₹900

• Participant: ₹500

INTERNATIONAL DELEGATES

• UG/PG Students

• Presenter: USD 20

• Participant: USD 18

• Research Scholars

• Presenter: USD 25

• Participant: USD 18

• Independent Researchers

• Presenter: USD 27

• Participant: USD 18

• Faculty

• Presenter: USD 30

• Participant: USD 18

IMPORTANT DATES

• ABSTRACT SUBMISSION DEADLINE - 25th July, 2026.
• NOTIFICATION OF ACCEPTANCE - By 31st July, 2026.
• LAST DATE OF REGISTRATION - 7th August, 2026.
• CONFERENCE DATES - 21st and 22nd August, 2026.

**Conference schedule will be shared with everyone by 15th August, 2026**

NOTES:

• All paper presenters and participants will be given certificates.
• Authors & co-authors submitting a single paper will have to register and pay separately.
• Registration fees to be paid only after receiving notification of acceptance of the paper.
• Please check the spam folder for emails from us.
• For cancellations, you must confirm on or before 10th August, 2026. No refunds will be provided after that.

CONTACT & ORGANISING TEAM

For Further Queries, Contact: admin@thethinksphere.org

Roudrajjal Dasgupta
Convenor

Susmita Sengupta
Technical Team

Dr. Debjani Sahu
Sonali Bisht
Research Team