popular culture

Editors: Arpan Mitra (Ph.D. Research Scholar, St. Xavier’s University) and Dr. Bidisha Kantha (Assistant Professor of English, Xavier Law School, St.  Xavier’s University, Kolkata)

Publisher: DeGruyter Brill has expressed initial interest in this collection

DEADLINE EXTENDED TILL NOVEMBER 5, 2025.

Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is one of the most adapted, parodied, and referenced works of Gothic fiction. Even those who have never read the novella know the “story,” or at least the twist: Henry Jekyll becomes Edward Hyde to live a double life, disconnected from societal pressures and expectations. Many, if not all, of these media adaptations add, edit, or remove elements from the story, making it a hybrid narrative, one part Stevenson’s and one part the adapter’s. 

Call for Papers

Adaptations and Retellings 2026

 Adaptations and retellings, much like nostalgia, are deeply tied to the past. They confront the challenges of integrating past elements into the present and often engage with each other in this process.

(Re)Visiting the Reel/Un-Reel Middle Ages: Pathways to Furthering Research on Medievalisms on Screen (Roundtable) (Virtual)

61st International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University (Kalamazoo, MI), Thursday, 14 May, through Saturday, 16 May, 2026

Co-sponsored by Association for the Advancement of Scholarship and Teaching of the Medieval in Popular Culture, International Arthurian Society-North American Branch, International Society for the Study of Medievalism

Co-organized by Michael A. Torregrossa, Bristol Community College; Scott Manning, Independent Scholar; and Siân Echard, University of British Columbia

Background 

Submission call - Epitaphs Magazine - Issue 3

https://epitaphs-magazine.weebly.com/

For the third issue of Epitaphs, we invite writers, artists and academics and everything in between to submit their short-form Gothic or Horror work on the following theme: Rest. 

The theme can be understood as literally or as figuratively as needed. We encourage contributors to think about the many meanings of rest within a Gothic/Horror context. 

Works can relate to: 

• Final rest

• Calm and relaxation

• Rest in peace 

Call for Papers

Asian Popular Culture / Asian American Experiences

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: October 31, 2025

Proposals for papers and panels are now being accepted for the 47th annual SWPACA

Veterans Studies is a growing field of research that addresses the significant impact of military personnel and their families transitioning from active duty to civilian life with an emphasis on the veteran experience. This session invites papers that explore the many facets of military life exhibited in literature, theater, film, and poetry written by or about military veterans as well as scholarly explorations of the veteran experience.

We invite submissions for a paper panel themed “Non-Western Aesthetics: Rhetoric, Resistance, and Representation” – an exploration of aesthetics from diverse cultural perspectives, non-Western rhetorical traditions, and globalized literary theory. Our aim is to examine non-Western, non-hegemonic discourses from non-White nations that incorporate indigenous critical approaches and local theories within artistic and literary practices. We are particularly interested in South and Southeast Asian literary and cultural studies.

Broad areas of exploration may include, but are certainly not limited to, the following literary and cultural theoretical perspectives:

Weeks after the death of Nobel Prize-winning author Alice Munro last year, her daughter Andrea Skinner disclosed the sexual abuse she'd suffered as a child—abuse about which Munro had known and stayed silent. The disclosure is but one of many revelations in recent years to upend the legacy of a cultural icon. Neil Gaiman, Louis CK, Jean Vanier, and Avital Ronell are only a few public figures to be reassessed in the wake of accounts of sexual abuse. Similarly, disputed claims to Indigenous ancestry touted by artists including novelist Joseph Boyden and singer-songwriter Buffy Sainte-Marie have generated outrage and heartbreak among Indigenous groups and innumerable admirers, compounding generational traumas.

Call for Papers

Science, Technology, and Culture

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: October 31, 2025

We invite chapters for a multi-disciplinary edited collection exploring heavy metal and rock bands that use concealed identities, stage personas and masks as a substantial part of their performance and aesthetic. Hidden identities are not a new phenomenon in either popular music generally or heavy metal/hard rock music more narrowly, as performers obscuring their identity through face paint, masks, and wigs goes back over half a century and encompasses bands including Kiss, Slipknot, and Gwar. New masked bands, including Sleep Token and Ghost, have recently risen to widespread popularity.

This seminar investigates how repression, repetition, and unresolved rhythms shape emotional experience across Anglophone literature, heritage film, and contemporary media. It emphasizes stalled movements of feeling, looping tensions, and residues that resist closure. Such affective patterns disrupt inherited memories and unsettle formations of Englishness and other post-imperial identities. At the center of this seminar lies a guiding question: how do patterns of emotion simultaneously sustain and fracture collective identity?

Call for Papers

Biography, Autobiography, Memoir, & Personal Narrative

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: October 31, 2025