popular culture

Muslim Solidarities beyond nation, region and sovereignty

updated: 
Sunday, March 1, 2026 - 7:02am
UCLA
deadline for submissions: 
Saturday, April 4, 2026

This panel will foreground how Muslim minorities acculturate cooperative networks of solidarity, acceptance, creativity and affect beyond rigid notions of nation, region and sovereignties. In this context we will look at ruptures which persist due to the rigid and restrictive processes of neocolonial and neoliberal regimes and how it continues to shape the lived and material realities of South Asian Muslims across national and diasporic contexts. In particular we will discuss the historical contexts and enduring consequences of the rigid and restrictive processes of colonisation, partition, migration, trade, caste, legalities, and majoritarianism as it intersects with the inter-nation and cross-border movements of Muslims within and beyond South Asia.

Disrupted Hospitality

updated: 
Sunday, March 1, 2026 - 7:01am
Ben P. Robertson / Troy University
deadline for submissions: 
Tuesday, September 1, 2026

Abstracts are invited for a proposed special session to be held at the annual meeting of the South Atlantic Modern Language Association, scheduled for 5-7 November 2026 at the Wyndham Atlanta Buckhead Hotel and Conference Center, Atlanta, GA, USA.

Trade in Legend and Tradition

updated: 
Sunday, March 1, 2026 - 7:00am
Folklore Society
deadline for submissions: 
Wednesday, July 1, 2026

Join us for our two-day conference on Trade in Legend and Tradition, to be held on Saturday 5th and Sunday 6th September as the twentieth Legendary Weekend of the Folklore Society, at Tuckers Hall, home of the Guild of Tuckers, Weavers and Shearmen in Fore Street, Exeter EX4 3AN. Whether you’re into fairs or fairy gold, merchant gilds or markets, make us an offer. Contributions are welcome on the lore of trade, commerce or business: from smugglers to street cries and the South Sea Bubble, from murdered pedlars to plague stones, it’s all grist to the mill. Anyone can join us – folklorists, entrepreneurs, economic historians, storytellers, captains of industry and jacks of all trades.

CFP: European Journal of Media, Art & Photography (EJMAP)

updated: 
Sunday, March 1, 2026 - 6:51am
European Journal of Media, Art & Photography
deadline for submissions: 
Tuesday, September 1, 2026

European Journal of Media, Art & Photography

 

ejmap.sk | Indexed in WoS Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI) | Q1 in art journals category

 

Heated Rivalry: The Phenomenon

updated: 
Sunday, March 1, 2026 - 6:51am
Dr. Anthony Guy Patricia / Concord University, Department of Humanities
deadline for submissions: 
Sunday, May 31, 2026

CFP: Heated Rivalry: The Phenomenon

An edited collection of essays on the television series that seduced the world

 

Heated Rivalry appeared simultaneously across screens in Canada, the United States (via HBO Max) and other countries in late November and quickly, if unexpectedly, became a worldwide phenomenon. Audiences were immediately hooked on the story of star hockey prospects Shane Hollander (Hudson Williams) and Ilya Rozanov (Connor Storrie) and the sexual and romantic relationship that blossoms between them over a span of years.

 

MomoCon 2026 Academic Symposium

updated: 
Sunday, March 1, 2026 - 6:51am
MomoCon
deadline for submissions: 
Sunday, March 1, 2026

MomoCon 2026 Academic Symposium
May 21-24, 2026
Georgia World Congress Center (Atlanta, GA)
https://www.momocon.com/
Deadline for Submissions: March 1st, 2026
Contact Email: Susan.Noh@uga.edu
Theme: Content Adaptations From Page to Place
Adaptations have always been a central component of the global anime industry. The franchises
and content that we love are often dependent on vast, ever-expanding webs of adaptations to
continue to provide diverse avenues for consumer engagement.
Historically, media mix has played a key role in popularizing the cultural form of anime and is

Call for Proposals: Star Trek and the Courtroom

updated: 
Sunday, March 1, 2026 - 6:51am
Craig A. Meyer
deadline for submissions: 
Monday, June 1, 2026

Call for Proposals: Star Trek and the CourtroomAn Edited Collection on Justice, Law, and the Trial in Star Trek

We invite proposals for an edited volume examining trial and courtroom episodes across the Star Trek franchise. From “Court Martial” (TOS) to “Ad Astra per Aspera” (SNW), Star Trek has used the trial format to explore questions of personhood, justice, military law, civil rights, ethical responsibility, and the limits of legal systems. These episodes serve as philosophical laboratories, testing the boundaries of law when confronted with, for example, artificial intelligence, alien cultures, time travel, and evolving definitions of sentience and citizenship.

Conrad Adapted: Cinematic and Otherwise

updated: 
Saturday, February 28, 2026 - 7:53pm
Modern Language Association/Joseph Conrad Society of America
deadline for submissions: 
Sunday, March 22, 2026

Papers, delivered in English, on adaptations of works by Joseph Conrad, in any form and language, including film, television, games, opera, theatre, musical compositions, and graphic novels. This is the planned guaranteed session for the Joseph Conrad Society of America Allied Organization at the Modern Language Association Convention in January 2027. Email 300 word proposals and 100-word biography to Jana Giles, giles@ulm.edu. Deadline: March 22, 2026.

For further information and to see the call posted on the MLA website, see: https://mla.confex.com/mla/2027/webprogrampreliminary/index.html.

 

 

MLA 2027 Panel: Beyond Emancipation? Stages of Protest, Resistance, and Agency for the 21st Century

updated: 
Friday, February 27, 2026 - 2:55am
Modern Language Association
deadline for submissions: 
Friday, March 20, 2026

How might theatre and performance come to confront the global rise of populism, while setting the stage for, and potentially provoking a reconceptualization of, emancipatory ways of being in the world? Please send 250-word abstracts and brief bios to Rüstem Ertuğ Altınay, University of Milan (ertug.altinay@unimi.it) and Sharon Lois Mazer, Auckland University of Technology (sharon.mazer@aut.ac.nz)

2026 Harry Potter Academic Conference (HPAC) at Chestnut Hill College

updated: 
Tuesday, February 24, 2026 - 10:35pm
Harry Potter Academic Conference (HPAC) at Chestnut Hill College
deadline for submissions: 
Friday, April 10, 2026

CALL FOR PAPERS: 15th Annual Harry Potter Academic Conference (HPAC) at Chestnut Hill College

Friday and Saturday, October 23–24, 2026 (Eastern Time)

In person at Chestnut Hill College, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA

Deadline for proposals: April 10, 2026

"Justice" (SCLA, October 29-31 2026, Austin TX)

updated: 
Tuesday, February 24, 2026 - 5:02pm
Society for Comparative Literature and the Arts
deadline for submissions: 
Monday, June 1, 2026

2026 Meeting of the Society for Comparative Literature and the Arts

October 29-31, 2026
Embassy Suites Austin Central
Austin, TX

“Justice”

Keynote Speaker: TBA

MLA 2027 Convention – Literature and Global Popular Music

updated: 
Tuesday, February 24, 2026 - 5:02pm
Modern Language Association
deadline for submissions: 
Friday, March 6, 2026

Literature and Global Popular Music 2027 Modern Language Association Adaptation Forum Call for Papers How does literature travel through global popular music? How do novels, poems, plays, and other literary forms resonate when translated into sound, lyrics, stage performance, music videos, and media circulation across borders?This guaranteed session invites studies of musical adaptations that illuminate the cultural, social, and political resonances of literary works. How do literary forms find new life in global popular music? In what ways do these adaptations reshape questions of identity, memory, translation, and power across national and linguistic boundaries?Possible topics include (but are not limited to): 

Journeying Between Thresholds And Metamorphoses. International Conference

updated: 
Tuesday, February 24, 2026 - 5:01pm
Tallinn University
deadline for submissions: 
Tuesday, March 31, 2026

Call for Papers

Deadline for abstracts: March 31st, 2026

Journeying Between Thresholds and Metamorphoses

International Conference

May 8th-9th, 2026

Tallinn University, Narva mnt 29, Silva Building, Room S-529 (Tallinn, Estonia)

PCAS / ACAS 2026 Conference

updated: 
Tuesday, February 24, 2026 - 4:58pm
Popular Culture Association in the South / American Culture Association in the South
deadline for submissions: 
Monday, June 15, 2026

2026 Conference New Orleans, LA October 15th- 17th

The Popular Culture Association in the South and the American Culture Association in the South meet annually to present and discuss ideas about popular culture, American culture, and culture world-wide. This year we meet at the The Royal Sonesta in New Orleans located in the center of the French Quarter.

MLA 2027 Convention – Literature and Global Popular Music

updated: 
Tuesday, February 24, 2026 - 4:57pm
Modern Language Association
deadline for submissions: 
Friday, March 6, 2026

Literature and Global Popular Music 2027 Modern Language Association Adaptation Forum Call for Papers How does literature travel through global popular music? How do novels, poems, plays, and other literary forms resonate when translated into sound, lyrics, stage performance, music videos, and media circulation across borders?This guaranteed session invites studies of musical adaptations that illuminate the cultural, social, and political resonances of literary works. How do literary forms find new life in global popular music? In what ways do these adaptations reshape questions of identity, memory, translation, and power across national and linguistic boundaries?Possible topics include (but are not limited to): 

From the Margins of Los Angeles: Fante, Bukowski, and Their Americana

updated: 
Tuesday, February 24, 2026 - 4:57pm
MLA LLC Italian American
deadline for submissions: 
Friday, March 20, 2026

This panel examines how literature circulates beyond fixed ethnic identity by bringing together the work of John Fante and Charles Bukowski as a case study in Italian American literary afterlives. While Fante is firmly situated within Italian American literary studies and Bukowski is more often framed within postwar American counterculture, this panel argues that reading them relationally reveals how Italian American literary aesthetics travel, mutate, and endure beyond explicitly ethnic frameworks.

THE SOUTHERN GOTHIC AT PCAS/ACAS 2026

updated: 
Tuesday, February 24, 2026 - 2:18pm
Popular Culture / American Culture Association in the South
deadline for submissions: 
Monday, June 15, 2026

CALL FOR PROPOSALS: THE SOUTHERN GOTHIC AT PCAS/ACAS 2026

The Southern Gothic is not merely a regional offshoot of the Gothic tradition—it is a dynamic cultural mode shaped by the histories, violences, mythologies, and contradictions of the American South. Rooted in hauntings both literal and structural, the Southern Gothic interrogates race, class, gender, sexuality, religion, ecology, labor, memory, and the ongoing afterlives of history. Its borders—like its landscapes and bodies—are unstable, porous, and contested.

Call for Chapters Slacker: Answering the True Call - Essays on Linklater’s Cult Classic (Working Title)

updated: 
Tuesday, February 24, 2026 - 2:09pm
Sara Bizarro
deadline for submissions: 
Friday, May 1, 2026

Richard Linklater’s Slacker (1991) is a cult classic with a crucial role in the history of American cinema. The movie is unusual in many ways. It does not have a traditional narrative; it follows 100 characters around the UT Austin area in a way that seems completely random. There is no protagonist, no story, no thread to the individual events, yet somehow it is a completely coherent and engaging movie that sparks as many reflections as the number of scenes it has.

 

We are looking for chapter proposals in the form of abstracts. Topics already included are work, capitalism, Buddhism, film as a dream, narrative, episodic views of life, and absurdity. Possible topics for new chapters include:

 

Special Issue on “Popular Literature: Culture, Power, and the Politics of the Popular”

updated: 
Tuesday, February 24, 2026 - 2:06pm
New Literaria: An International Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Humanities
deadline for submissions: 
Tuesday, June 30, 2026

New Literaria: An International Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Humanities

 

CALL FOR PAPERS

Vol. 8 No.2

Special Issue on “Popular Literature: Culture, Power, and the Politics of the Popular”

 

Concept Note

MLA 2027 -- Emancipatory Narratives in African American Humor

updated: 
Tuesday, February 24, 2026 - 7:41am
MS Screen Arts and Culture
deadline for submissions: 
Monday, March 16, 2026

This guaranteed panel (in-person at the Modern Language Association in Los Angeles, California; January 7-10, 2027) takes a cue from the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of African American Humor Studies and seeks 250-word proposals that discuss how African American humorists eschew "just jokes" to articulate personal and collective selfhood and freedom. Please submit abstracts by Monday, March 16 to dmorgan@scu.edu. This panel is sponsored by the Screen Arts and Culture Committee.

Accepted presenters must be MLA members by April 1, 2026. 

Call for Abstracts: Elvis and Philosophy

updated: 
Tuesday, February 24, 2026 - 7:41am
Elvis and Philosophy: Essays Concerning the King
deadline for submissions: 
Monday, June 1, 2026

Call for Abstracts!Elvis and Philosophy: Essays Concerning the King

Edited by Joshua Heter and Richard Greene

Abstracts are sought for a collection of essays on any philosophical topic related to Elvis Aaron Presley to be published with Wallace & Jacobs Press. We hope to receive a number of submissions concerning his music and movies as well as his persona, life, relationships, cultural impact, legacy, mythos, etc.

Deadline Extended: Evolutions in Cinematic Virtual Reality

updated: 
Monday, February 23, 2026 - 1:51am
Tim Gruenewald, The University of Hong Kong
deadline for submissions: 
Friday, March 6, 2026

Evolutions in Cinematic Virtual Reality  

Symposium at The University of Hong Kong 

18. – 19. May 2026

The Victorians and Their Publics

updated: 
Monday, February 16, 2026 - 8:58am
Victorian Popular Fiction Association
deadline for submissions: 
Sunday, March 1, 2026

 

Liverpool John Moores University, UK

6-8th July 2026

 

Confirmed keynotes:

Melissa Gustin (National Museums Liverpool), with guided tours of the Walker Art Gallery

Tara MacDonald (University of Lethbridge, Canada) “Public Institutions, Private Care: Sex Work and Care Work in Victorian Popular Fiction”

Journal of Anime and Manga Studies (JAMS) - Volume 7

updated: 
Monday, February 16, 2026 - 8:51am
Journal of Anime and Manga Studies (JAMS)
deadline for submissions: 
Friday, May 15, 2026

Journal of Anime and Manga Studies (JAMS) - Volume 7

Volume to be published in December of 2026

The Journal of Anime and Manga Studies (JAMS) is excited to announce the call for papers for our seventh volume, to be published December 2026.

The Journal of Anime and Manga Studies is a peer reviewed, open-access journal published by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. JAMS is dedicated to publishing scholarly works exploring anime, manga, and a broad range of related topics, such as methodologies, cosplay, fandoms, adaptations, and more. As an open-access journal, JAMS aims to reach a broad-ranging audience of scholars (both within and beyond the academy) and interested general readers.

Last Call: Academic Conference on Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy (ACCSFF) CFP

updated: 
Saturday, February 14, 2026 - 4:19pm
Academic Conference on Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy
deadline for submissions: 
Sunday, February 15, 2026

ACCSFF ‘26

                                                                                         Call for Papers

The 2026 Academic Conference on Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy will be held Saturday and Sunday, May 30-31, 2026, in Toronto, Ontario, at York University, Canada.

This year's author GoH keynote speaker is the Nebula Award winning Premee Mohamed.

We invite proposals for papers in any area of Canadian science fiction and fantasy, including:

    -studies of individual works and authors;
    -comparative studies;
    -studies that place works in their literary and/or
     cultural contexts.

JAMS@AX26 - Anime Expo Academic Symposium

updated: 
Friday, February 13, 2026 - 5:42pm
Billy Tringali - JAMS@AX Symposium - Journal of Anime and Manga Studies
deadline for submissions: 
Friday, March 27, 2026

JAMS@AX26

Want to present your work at the one-and-only Anime Expo? The Journal of Anime and Manga Studies(JAMS) and Anime Expo have once-again teamed up to give you the JAMS@AX26 academic symposium, July 2-5, 2026 at the Los Angeles Convention Center. This symposium presents an incredible opportunity to connect fans of all ages directly to scholars researching and writing about the medium we all love. 

The JAMS@AX26 welcomes all papers taking a scholarly perspective on anime, manga, cosplay, and their fandoms.

DLC+ | "Slop" and "Nostalgia" – Current Keywords in Digital Literary Culture Mini-Conference

updated: 
Friday, February 13, 2026 - 1:45pm
Digital Literary Cultures (DLC+)
deadline for submissions: 
Saturday, March 14, 2026

Current Keywords in Digital Literary Culture: “Slop” and “Nostalgia”

May 14th, 2026

Virtual Mini-Conference

https://dlcplus.org/ 

 

DLC+ is excited to announce the second installment of its Current Keywords in Digital Literary Culture series, mini-conferences devoted to studying the most pressing and emerging concepts actively shaping digital literary culture. 

 

Literary and Cinematic Representations of Carceral Los Angeles

updated: 
Friday, February 13, 2026 - 11:59am
MLA 2027
deadline for submissions: 
Monday, March 16, 2026

While Los Angeles has regularly been called the “City of Angels,” historian Kelly Lytle Hernández has argued that a more appropriate epithet would be the “City of Inmates,” as Los Angeles has historically been a site for innovations in imprisonment, surveilling, policing, and oppressing various communities for their race, ethnicity, class status, sexuality, and other out-group identifications. Literature and cinema have long been fertile sites for examining the ramifications of police- and prison-centric ideologies within American society and culture, particularly for a city that defined itself by cinema.

MLA 2027 - Nabokov in the '70s / Nabokov's Afterlife

updated: 
Friday, February 13, 2026 - 10:40am
International Vladimir Nabokov Society
deadline for submissions: 
Friday, March 20, 2026

The International Vladimir Nabokov Society seeks paper proposals for presentations on the following themes for the Modern Language Association’s Annual Convention (January 7-10, 2027, Los Angeles):  

 

 Nabokov in the ‘70s / Nabokov’s Afterlife

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