Tag: outside the profession

CFP: Star Wars 50 Years: Pasts, Presents, and Futures

The Star Wars 50 Years academic conference will be held by the University of Leicester and the Leverhulme Centre for Humanity and Space at Space Park Leicester on 21-22 May 2027 in anticipation of the 50th anniversary of the original release of the film on 25 May 1977 in the U.S. We are now inviting proposals for conference presentations.

Conference Organisers:

Xiyuan Gao, PhD Candidate – Conference Director
Dr David Christopher – Conference Co-Director
Dr James Aitcheson – Leverhulme Centre Partner
Dr Tara Smith – Leverhulme Centre Partner
Helen Bruce, PhD Candidate – Director, Festival of Media Stories

Overview

Star Wars: A New Hope was first released in the United States on 25 May 1977, inaugurating a screen franchise whose cultural, industrial, and imaginative afterlives now span half a century. The Star Wars 50 Years Conference will mark the anniversary by bringing together scholars, researchers, practitioners, archivists, and fans at the Leverhulme Centre for Humanity and Space in Leicester contiguous with The National Space Centre.

The Centre hosts numerous Star Wars-themed public events throughout the year, and we will be excited to follow their developing programme with an eye to connecting their events and screenings to the conference.

Leicester and Leicestershire occupy a distinctive place in the history of Star Wars in the UK. Leicestershire was home to Palitoy, the toy company that held the coveted manufacturing contract in the UK during the original trilogy era.

Palitoy’s Star Wars figures, vehicles, packaging, and playsets remain central to British collecting cultures and to the material memory of the franchise, linking Leicestershire to the commercial and affective history of Star Wars childhoods, fandom, and merchandising. Indeed, Matt Holt’s upcoming documentary In a Landfill Far, Far Away (Spoon Jar Films) seeks to discover the so-called ‘lost toys’ from the Palitoy factory putatively buried somewhere in Leicestershire which is sure to create a scholarly buzz: ‘Filmmaker unearths legend of buried Star Wars toys’.

Leicestershire’s connection to the franchise is also embodied in personnel history. The late Jeremy Bulloch, born in Market Harborough, was the first actor to perform Boba Fett in The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, helping to create one of the most enduring and enigmatic figures in Star Wars. His association with Boba Fett further situates Leicestershire within the lived and performed history of Star Wars, extending the county’s relevance beyond merchandising and into questions of screen performance, character embodiment, cult stardom, and fan memory. Gareth Edwards, director of Rogue One also calls Nuneaton home.

More broadly, the franchise has launched or fostered the careers of myriad British performers from Sir Alec Guinness and Peter Cushing though to John Boyega, Felicity Jones, and Daisy Ridley. And so much of Lucas’s production efforts were located at various studios and locations across the UK including locations in Leicestershire.

Star Wars 50 Years invites contributors to reflect on the franchise’s pasts, presents, and futures, especially with regard to the participation of UK production inputs or international franchise phenomena, but not necessarily limited by this parameter as such. The conference welcomes papers on Star Wars across film, television, animation, games, publishing, merchandising, fan communities, transmedia storytelling, race, gender, class, politics, technology, nostalgia, and global reception, etc.

By gathering in Leicester, the conference asks not only what Star Wars has meant over the past fifty years, but also how particular places, objects, performances, institutions, and communities have shaped the franchise’s meanings across the UK and beyond.

Topics of Interest

We welcome papers on, but not limited to, the following research topics:

  • Star Wars histories, legacies, and cultural memory.
  • Directors, writers, producers, showrunners, designers, performers, and other creative workers across the franchise.
  • Star Wars and transmedia storytelling across film, television, animation, novels, comics, games, audio, toys, and digital platforms.
  • Expanded universes, canon, continuity, retconning, and the relationship between Legends and Disney-era canon.
  • Star Wars television and Disney+ distribution.
  • Star Wars animation (The Clone Wars, Rebels, and more recent animated projects).
  • Star Wars games, interactive storytelling, virtual worlds, and player agency.
  • Ethnicity, class, disability, age, and embodiment in Star Wars.
  • Feminism, female characters, creators, audiences, and female-led fan practices.
  • Masculinity, fatherhood, family, lineage, inheritance, and dynastic storytelling.
  • Queer readings, slash fandom, transformative works, and alternative affective attachments.
  • Stardom, performance, voice acting, physical performance, puppetry, motion capture, and creature performance.
  • Practical effects, digital effects, CGI, sound design, editing, and the aesthetics of technological change.
  • John Williams, musical themes, soundscapes, voice, and sonic memory.
  • Merchandising, toys, collecting, licensing, branding, and commercial culture.
  • Museums, exhibitions, archives, private collections, fan collections, and the preservation of Star Wars objects.
  • Global Star Wars: international reception, translation, dubbing, subtitling, censorship, distribution, and localisation.
  • Fandom, fanfiction, fan art, cosplay, fan films, podcasts, conventions, online communities, and platform cultures.
  • Fan controversy, anti-fandom, canon disputes, toxicity, moderation, inclusion, and community governance.
  • Nostalgia, childhood, memory, intergenerational spectatorship, collecting, and affect.
  • Science, space travel, astronomy, robotics, artificial intelligence, and the relationship between Star Wars and public science imagination.
  • Theme parks, immersive experiences, live events, exhibitions, tourism, and commercialised fan participation.
  • Archives, lost materials, production histories, oral histories, memory work, and fan-led preservation.
  • The future of Star Wars: franchise fatigue, renewal, legacy, and new audiences.

The conference is scheduled to be on-site and in-person. The submission of remote presentation proposals will be considered only under specific mitigating circumstances.

Submission Details

Individual Papers

The individual proposal shall include the following information, all in the same document:

  • A title.
  • An abstract (maximum 300 words) for a 15-20-minute presentation.
  • Speaker’s short biography (maximum 150 words), including affiliation.
  • Speaker’s email address.

Pre-constituted Panels

The panel proposal shall include the following information, all in the same document:

  • A panel title.
  • All individual abstracts (maximum 300 words each).
  • All speakers’ short biographies (maximum 150 words each), including their affiliation and email address.
  • If you wish to designate a panel chair, please indicate this in the panel proposal. Otherwise, the committee will assign one for you.

To submit, please email your proposal as an attachment (Word file preferred) to sw-conf-50@leicester.ac.uk by 1-November-2026. Please clearly state in the email subject either “Star Wars 50 Years individual proposal” or “Star Wars 50 Years panel proposal”.

Notification of accepted papers and panel proposals will be returned on or before 31st January 2027.

Conference Address

Space Park Leicester
Space City, 92 Corporation Rd, Leicester
Postcode: LE4 5SP

Contact Information

If you have any queries regarding the conference, please email conference director Xiyuan Gao (xg92@leicester.ac.uk) or co-director Dr David Christopher (dc435@leicester.ac.uk).

General enquiries: sw-conf-50@leicester.ac.uk

Contact Email

sw-conf-50@leicester.ac.uk

URL

https://le.ac.uk/media/research/star-wars-50-years

CfP: Mapping the Extremes – Polar Cartography

Texas Map Society Fall Meeting 2026

Mapping the Extremes –  Polar Cartography

Oct 3, 2026 – Central Library, The University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, Texas

The Texas Map Society invites paper proposals for its Fall Meeting, which will focus on polar mapping. This year, we are thrilled to host our meeting in conjunction with the 15th Biennial Virginia Garrett Lectures on the History of Cartography, Oct 1-2, 2026. Their theme this year is “Frozen Frontiers: 500 Years of Mapping Antarctica”.  The lecture series also marks the opening of a new Special Collections exhibit, “Frozen Frontiers: 500 Years of Mapping Antarctica,” which showcases Antarctic maps, books, and prints donated to UTA Libraries by former NBC 5 Senior Meteorologist and Texas Map Society board member – and longtime Editor of The Neatline – David Finfrock. 

We invite submissions detailing innovative mapping of the Arctic and Antarctic. We seek to bring together map collectors, historians of cartography, marine scientists, geographers, archivists, digital humanities scholars, and others to explore the polar regions as a contested and evolving space.

We welcome paper proposals on, but not limited to, the role of maps in colonial claims; historical and modern methods of mapping the Arctic and Antarctic; environmental humanities; Indigenous geographies; the recovery of non-Western spatial knowledge and navigation traditions; borders and jurisdictions; and digital humanities projects.   

As we are the Texas Map Society, we always welcome papers on the mapping of Texas, map collections featuring Texas, and other local mapping, regardless of theme.

Submission Requirements

We welcome proposals for individual 20-minute papers or pre-constituted panels.

  • Individual Abstracts: 250–300 words.
  • Panel Proposals: A 150-word session description plus short abstracts for each presenter.
  • Short Biography: A 100-word biography can include relevant publications or projects.

Deadlines

  • Proposals Due: August 20
  • Acceptance Notification: the first week of September

Contact Information

Please submit all materials in a single PDF directly to TMS VP Lydia Towns at Lydia.towns@sfasu.edu

Contact Email

Lydia.towns@sfasu.edu

CfP for INTERFACE Issue 31: Rethinking Materiality in an Age of Digital Presence

Call for Papers for Issue 31 (December 2026)

Submission Deadline: October 31, 2026

Guest Editors:

Paweł Piszczatowski  (University of Warsaw)

Helga Müllneritsch (National Taiwan University)

Rethinking Materiality in an Age of Digital Presence

 “If matter itself is lively, then not only is the difference between subjects and objects minimized, but the status of the shared materiality of all things is elevated. All bodies become more than mere objects, as the thing-powers of resistance and protean agency are brought into sharper relief” (Bennett, Vibrant Matter, 2010, p. 13).

Over the past two decades, the concept of materiality has undergone a profound transformation across the humanities. Approaches such as New Materialism, Posthumanism, and Object-Oriented Ontology have challenged anthropocentric models of thought by emphasizing the vitality, agency, and relationality of both living and non-living matter. Rather than treating objects as passive entities defined solely by human perception and use, these perspectives foreground the active role of material forms in shaping human experience, cultural practices, and historical processes.

Yet questions surrounding materiality are far from new. Throughout history, philosophers, artists, writers, and cultural thinkers have explored the relationship between human beings and the material world. In the late eighteenth century, for instance, the German philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder argued that “sight reveals merely shapes, but touch alone reveals bodies” (Herder, Sculpture, 2002, p. 35), emphasizing tactility and embodiment as fundamental conditions of human experience. His reflections acquire renewed significance in the present moment, when increasing aspects of social interaction, creativity, labour, and intimacy are mediated through digital technologies.

The emergence of artificial intelligence, virtual environments, and digitally mediated relationships raises new questions about the status of the material in contemporary life. While digital technologies may appear to distance human experience from physical presence, they remain deeply embedded in material infrastructures, embodied practices, and affective relations. The rise of AI companions, virtual therapists, and synthetic forms of intimacy challenges established distinctions between human and non-human, physical and virtual, object and subject.

This special issue seeks to explore how materiality has been imagined, experienced, represented, and transformed across different historical periods and cultural contexts. Rather than understanding the digital age as a departure from material existence, we invite contributions that examine how new technologies, philosophical developments, artistic practices, and social transformations reshape our understanding of matter itself. How have concepts of materiality evolved across time? How do objects acquire meaning through their movement, preservation, and transformation? How might digital and technological developments alter, rather than diminish, our relationship with embodied existence?

We welcome interdisciplinary contributions from literary studies, history, philosophy, cultural studies, media studies, anthropology, art history, and related fields. Submissions may address any historical period or theoretical approach within literary and cultural contexts.

Possible topics include, but are not limited to:

Literary, Historical, and Philosophical Foundations

  • Philosophical approaches to being, matter, embodiment, and the material world
  • Historical transformations of concepts of materiality across cultures
  • The global circulation and intercultural adaptation of material concepts and practices
  • Handwriting as a form of embodied expression and the material trace of the self
  • Drawing, sketching, and visual practices as material expressions of thought
  • Material objects and their meanings across time and space
  • Objects as carriers of memory, emotion, and historical experience
  • Matter as palimpsest: accumulated layers of personal and collective histories

 Material Practices, Technology, and Intimacy

  • The movement of material practices across cultures and historical periods
  • Traditional Chinese Medicine in Europe and the transnational circulation of healing practices
  • Material and spiritual connections in practices such as ancestor worship
  • Bodies, prosthetics, and technological extensions
  • Understanding of materiality as a property of discrete objects or emerging through dynamic networks of human, non-human, and technological relations
  • Ethical questions surrounding AI-human interaction
  • Artificial intelligence, emotional attachment, and new forms of intimacy
  • Reshaping of our understanding of embodiment, relationality, and presence through digital objects, virtual environments, and algorithmic systems

 Cultural Representations and Imaginaries

  • Literary representations of artificial consciousness and synthetic emotions
  • Cinematic portrayals of human-machine relationships
  • Science fiction and speculative explorations of synthetic life
  • Representations of human and non-human agency
  • The role of objects and technologies in shaping identity and memory
  • Artistic engagements with virtuality, embodiment, and material presence

INTERFACE also invites papers not related to the Special Topic which will be published in a dedicated General Topic Section.

Papers should be submitted online at http://interface.org.tw/ no later than October 31, 2026; and should include an abstract of no more than 250 words.

All potential authors should consult our website for Author Guidelines (http://interface.org.tw/index.php/if/about/submissions#onlineSubmissions)

Contact Information

Paweł Piszczatowski  (University of Warsaw)

Helga Müllneritsch (National Taiwan University)

Contact Email

hmuellneritsch@ntu.edu.tw

URL

https://interface.org.tw/index.php/if/pages/view/CallforPapers31

CFP: TRANSPOSITIONES, Vol. 6, No. 2 (2027) Call for Papers: Earth / Sediment / Trace: Geologies, Material Memories, and the More-than-Living World

TRANSPOSITIONES

Journal for Transdisciplinary and Intermedial Culture Studies /
Zeitschrift für transdisziplinäre und intermediale Kulturforschung
ISSN 2749-4128 (print), 2749-4136 (online)

Vol. 6, No. 2 (2027)

Call for Papers

Thematic focus of the issue:

Earth / Sediment / Trace: Geologies, Material Memories, and the More-than-Living World

Across the environmental humanities, increasing attention has been devoted to the geological dimensions of culture and the cultural dimensions of the Earth. Geohumanities, critical mineral studies, energy humanities, environmental justice scholarship, and related fields have opened new perspectives on extraction, sedimentation, toxicity, waste, material memory, and deep time. At a moment marked by accelerating ecological transformations and growing awareness of the material infrastructures that sustain contemporary life, geological matter has emerged as a crucial site for rethinking history, memory, environment, and cultural imagination. Rather than treating the Earth as a passive backdrop to human activity, recent scholarship has approached rocks, minerals, soils, fossils, sediments, and other material formations as archives of planetary processes, environmental change, cultural memory, and political conflict. Questions of resource extraction, environmental justice, and slow violence increasingly intersect with inquiries into deep temporalities, material traces, sacred landscapes, and the long afterlives of human and more-than-human actions.

This issue invites contributions that explore how literature, art, media, philosophy, religion, and cultural practices engage with geological matter, deep time, sedimented histories, and the material conditions of planetary life. We especially welcome work that investigates the cultural significance of rocks, minerals, fossils, soil, waste, ruins, and other forms of more-than-living matter, while also addressing questions of environmental justice, resource extraction, toxicity, and slow violence. We welcome analyses of literary, philosophical, historical, and cultural texts from a wide range of regions and traditions, including comparative and transnational perspectives. Topics may include:

• geohumanities and geological imagination;

• earth, stone, sediment, dust, and soil;

• lithic ecologies and critical mineral studies;

• deep time, planetary temporalities, and environmental history;

• extractivism, mining, resource conflicts, and energy humanities;

• environmental justice and slow violence;

• toxic landscapes and contaminated environments;

• waste, ruins, landfills, and material afterlives;

• fossils, paleontology, and material histories of life;

• material memory, archives, traces, and sedimented histories;

• sacred geographies, holy mountains, stones, and pilgrimage landscapes;

• archaeology, antiquarianism, and the materialities of the past;

• textual strata, sedimented knowledge, and epistemic layers;

• geological trauma, memory, and post-catastrophic landscapes;

• petrofiction, climate fiction, and environmental storytelling;

• artistic and literary engagements with earth materials;

• relations between living and non-living matter;

• fungi, decomposition, and processes of material transformation;

• posthumanist, new materialist, and decolonial approaches to geology and the earth.

Proposals comprising a 250-word abstract in English or German and a brief biographical note should be sent to: transpositiones@uw.edu.pl by October 20, 2026.

A final decision regarding abstract acceptance will be made by October 31.

Deadline for submitting completed manuscripts: February 28, 2027.

The issue is expected to be published in the autumn of 2027.

CFP: Photography, Archive, and Political Imagination (online, 23-25 Sep 26)

Deadline: Jul 15, 2026

Visual Thinking and Futures of Democracy. Photography, Archive, and Political Imagination.

7th edition of REFRAMING THE ARCHIVE: International Conference on Photography and Visual Culture.

How do images shape democratic life? Not only as records of politics, but as forces that constitute visibility, authority, and participation?
​
This conference examines photography and archival practices as contested sites where democracy is made, negotiated, and disrupted: between evidence and control, memory and exclusion, protest and institutional power.
We invite contributions from researchers, artists, and practitioners engaging with photography, archives, activism, and visual culture across historical and contemporary contexts.

KEYNOTE & GUEST SPEAKERS
DR NONI STACEY, Cultural Historian, United Kingdom
DR TOM ALLBESON, Cardiff University, United Kingdom
DR ÖZGE ÇELIKASLAN, Visual Artist, Researcher, Activist, Turkey/Germany
MARCELO BRODSKY, Visual Artist, Argentina

This conference proceeds from the premise that photography and archival visual practices do not simply document democratic life, but actively participate in the production of its conditions. Rather than treating images as representations of political reality, it approaches visual practices as sites in which subjects relations of recognition, authority, and participation are constituted and contested. Photography is thus understood not as a neutral medium of documentation, but as a dispositif through which subjects are rendered visible, legible, and governable, while simultaneously sustaining forms of civic address and political agency (Azoulay, 2008, 2019).

This ambivalence is not incidental. Since its emergence, photography has been bound to competing and often contradictory political functions: as a technology of exposure and a mechanism of control; as a means of rendering injustice visible and as an instrument in the administration of populations; as a vehicle for democratic communication and as a support for imperial, colonial, and capitalist orders. The persistent alignment of photography with accessibility, transparency, and evidentiary truth has contributed to its enduring association with democratic ideals, even as these same attributes underpin its authority within regimes of surveillance, classification, and governance (Mirzoeff, 2011, 2017).

Central to this problem is the epistemological status of the image. Photography has historically operated through an assumed equivalence between visibility and knowledge, whereby seeing is aligned with knowing and presence with recognition. This equivalence underwrites the image’s authority as evidence while obscuring the conditions of its production, circulation, and interpretation. It is precisely this instability that enables photography to function simultaneously as a site of political claim-making and as an instrument through which such claims are regulated, mediated, or foreclosed.

Within this framework, archives cannot be understood as neutral repositories of the past. They are epistemic and political infrastructures that organise what becomes historically legible, delimiting the field of visibility within which subjects and events acquire meaning. As systems of selection, classification, and preservation, archives structure the conditions under which recognition is granted or withheld, and thus play a constitutive role in the production of political reality. Their apparent function as guarantors of memory and access is inseparable from their role in stabilising authority and reproducing regimes of knowledge.

At the same time, visual practices operate within sites of conflict, dissent, and uprising. Images do not simply represent political struggle; they participate in it. They condense and transmit gestures of resistance, circulate affects, and intervene in the temporalities of political action, reactivating past struggles within present contexts (Didi-Huberman, 2016). Yet these same images are also subject to processes of capture, circulation, and institutional framing that re-inscribe them within dominant visual orders. The political force of images thus resides not in their capacity to reveal truth, but in their unstable position within competing regimes of visibility.

In recent decades, this dynamic has become particularly visible in the convergence of artistic practice and activist mobilisation. From the visual cultures of uprisings and occupations to ongoing movements such as Black Lives Matter and Rhodes Must Fall, images have circulated across streets, networks, and institutions, often exceeding or displacing conventional sites of artistic display. These practices not only mobilise visual forms but reconfigure the spaces in which they operate, challenging the authority of museums, galleries, and archives while exposing their entanglement in broader political and economic structures. In this sense, activist aesthetics does not simply intervene in existing regimes of visibility, but calls into question the institutional and spatial frameworks through which such regimes are sustained.

Alongside these dynamics of conflict and contestation, recent forms of practice have foregrounded the role of participation, imagination, and collective engagement in reconfiguring democratic life. Participatory and socially engaged artistic practices increasingly operate as sites in which publics are not only represented but constituted through processes of interaction, collaboration, and shared authorship. Such practices extend beyond institutional or policy-driven models of participation, cultivating dispersed and open-ended forms of engagement that unfold across everyday spaces and mediated environments. In doing so, they contribute to the formation of a reflective and imaginative public sphere, in which alternative social and political possibilities can be articulated, negotiated, and rehearsed (Cunningham & Hammond, 2026). This shift raises the question of whether democratic transformation emerges not only through opposition to existing structures, but through the creation of new forms of collective experience and political imagination.

This instability is further intensified in contemporary conditions, where digital infrastructures and algorithmic systems reorganise the circulation, visibility, and legibility of images at scale. The promise of expanded access is entangled with new forms of extraction, surveillance, and control, raising renewed questions about the relationship between visibility, power, and democratic participation. At stake, then, is not only how images function within democratic contexts, but how particular understandings of photography have been historically bound to the very idea of democracy itself. Visual media have played a central role in shaping the terms of political recognition, in constituting and fragmenting communities, and in mediating both consensus and conflict within contemporary democratic formations (Stacey, 2020).

The conference invites contributions from researchers, scholars, visual artists, practitioners, and cultural professionals at any stage of their careers, that critically engage with photography and archives as sites in which democratic relations are produced, mediated, and contested. Particular attention is given to practice-led artistic and curatorial work, as well as collaborative and community-based projects, that engage archives and visual media as sites of intervention, reworking historical materials and visual regimes in ways that challenge dominant narratives and open alternative political imaginaries.

We welcome proposals for 15-minute theory, practice-led, and performative presentations (followed by 15-minute panel discussion) from various disciplines, including: photography, art history and theory, anthropology, museology, philosophy, cultural studies, visual and media studies, and related areas. These presentations should offer an in-depth investigation into the conference topic. Please note that the conference will be conducted in English.

Submissions may address, but are not limited to, the following lines of inquiry:

1. ARCHIVES, POWER, AND THE PRODUCTION OF KNOWLEDGE
Examines how photographic archives organise regimes of visibility and historical knowledge, shaping political recognition, belonging, and exclusion.

2. COUNTER-ARCHIVES, ACTIVISM, AND PRACTICES OF REPAIR
Focuses on practices that mobilise images and archives to intervene in dominant visual orders, including reappropriation, restitution, removal, and repair.

3. REACTIVATING THE ARCHIVE: AESTHETICS, ETHICS, POLITICS
Addresses artistic and curatorial engagements that reconfigure archival materials and raise questions of authorship, ownership, and responsibility.

4. IMAGES AS EVIDENCE, IMAGES AS POLITICAL ACTION
Considers the role of images as evidentiary forms and as instruments of intervention within legal, civic, and political contexts.

5. DIGITAL INFRASTRUCTURES AND ALGORITHMIC VISIBILITY
Explores how digital platforms and algorithmic systems reorganisation of regimes of visibility, access, and circulation.

6. AESTHETICS, ACTIVISM, AND POLITICAL IMAGINARIES
Investigates how images operate within protest, dissent, and participatory practices, and how they contribute to the formation of collective imaginaries and forms of democratic engagement.

7. MUSEUMS, INSTITUTIONS, AND THE POLITICS OF DISPLAY
Examines how museums, galleries, and cultural institutions shape regimes of visibility and public memory through exhibitionary and curatorial practices, and how these processes are contested, reconfigured, or displaced by artistic and activist interventions.

SUBMISSION
Applications must be sent via email to info@reframingthearchive.com no later than July 15, 2026, by 11:59:00 p.m. WEST.
Applicants should submit one proposal only, in English.
Presentations have a duration of 15 minutes and should adhere to one of the following formats:

INDIVIDUAL PAPERS
Applicants are required to submit the information listed below in one PDF file:
— Author information (name, email, affiliation, ORCID)
— Paper title, abstract (300 words max), and keywords (maxi 5),
— Bibliographical references (max 5),
— Author short biographical note (written in third person, 100 words).

This information must be gathered into one PDF document with the filename saved as: FirstnameLastname-RTA2026.pdf. The applicant should indicate in the subject line: IND Application for RTA 2026 Conference.

PRE-CONSTITUTED PANELS
Submission of proposals for pre-constituted panels should consist of three papers. The corresponding candidate is required to submit a panel proposal that includes:
— Panel title and abstract (250 words)
— Information regarding the three speakers and their individual papers, as described in the guidelines for individual papers above.

​This information must be gathered into one PDF document with the filename saved as: FirstnameLastname-RTA2026.pdf. (name of the corresponding applicant)
The applicant should indicate in the subject line: PAN Application for RTA 2026 Conference.

SELECTION PROCESS
The submitted proposals will undergo a peer-review process, and candidates will be notified of the results of their proposals by September 4, 2026.
Selected speakers must confirm participation in the conference and complete registration within one week of receiving the selection notification.

PUBLICATION
Extended versions of the presented papers should be submitted for publication by 17 Oct 2026 via Archivo Papers manuscript system at http://www.archivopapers.com.
Following a double blind peer-review process, the papers will be featured​ ​in​ ​an​ ​edited​ ​volume of Archivo Papers, co-edited by Ana Catarina Pinho, Laura Singeot, and Jane Simon, to be published in 2027.

IMPORTANT DATES
Deadline​ ​for​ ​submission:​ ​Jul 15,​ ​2026
Notification​ ​of​ ​selected speakers:​ Sep 04,​ ​2026
Deadline​ ​for​ ​speakers​ ​registration:​ ​one week after confirmation of acceptance
Conference:​ ​Sept 23-25,​ ​​2026 (Online)
Manuscript submission for publication:​ ​Oct 17,​ ​​2026

Org. Committee
Dr Ana Catarina Pinho, IHA, Nova University of Lisbon, Portugal
Dr Laura Singeot, Tours University, France
Dr Jane Simon, Macquarie University, Australia

CFP: Artificial Intelligence and Cultural Meaning: Language, Images and Interpretation in the Digital Age

Call for Chapters

Artificial Intelligence and Cultural Meaning: Language, Images and Interpretation in the Digital Age

Edited by  Ester Cristaldi

Under contract with Anthem Press

Chapter proposals are invited for the edited volume Artificial Intelligence and Cultural Meaning: Language, Images and Interpretation in the Digital Age, under contract with Anthem Press.

The volume examines artificial intelligence as a cultural, semiotic, social and media phenomenon. Rather than approaching AI only as a technical system or computational tool, the book investigates how AI participates in the production, circulation and transformation of meaning in contemporary digital culture.

The central premise of the volume is that AI does not simply process information. It increasingly mediates how people write, read, see, classify, imagine, remember and interpret the world. AI systems generate texts and images, organise visibility, shape public attention, classify social subjects, predict behaviour and participate in the construction of cultural narratives.

The book is grounded in semiotics and linguistics, but it also welcomes interdisciplinary perspectives from cultural studies, media and communication studies, media sociology, digital sociology, digital humanities, visual culture, platform studies, critical data studies, journalism studies, environmental humanities, science and technology studies, and related fields.

Topics

Possible topics include:

  • AI, language and meaning
  • Large language models and linguistic authority
  • AI and language inequality
  • AI-generated images and visual culture
  • Synthetic media and visual disinformation
  • AI, public trust and the crisis of mediation
  • AI, platforms and public attention
  • Algorithmic visibility and digital inequality
  • AI, datafication and social classification
  • AI, creativity and cultural production
  • AI, cultural labour and the creative industries
  • AI, archives and cultural memory
  • AI, embodiment, interfaces and everyday experience
  • AI, environment, infrastructure and digital materiality
  • AI, interpretation and cultural authority
  • AI, media ecologies and affective publics
  • AI, memory, archives and the digital humanities

Submission Guidelines

Interested contributors are invited to submit:

  • a provisional chapter title;
  • an abstract of approximately 250–300 words;
  • a short biographical note of approximately 100 words;
  • institutional affiliation and contact details.

Full chapters will be expected to be approximately 6,000–8,000 words, including references.

Timeline

Proposal submission deadline: 30 June 2026
Notification of acceptance: 15 July 2026
Full chapter submission: 30 November 2026
Editorial feedback: January 2027
Revised chapter submission: 28 February 2027
Final manuscript preparation: March–April 2027

Submission

Chapter proposals should be sent to:

Maria Pia Ester Cristaldi
Üsküdar University
mariapia.cristaldi  @ uskudar. edu.tr

Please include “Chapter Proposal – Artificial Intelligence and Cultural Meaning” in the subject line.

Contact Information

 Ester Cristaldi
Üsküdar University
mariapia.cristaldi @uskudar.edu.tr

Contact Email

mariapia.cristaldi@uskudar.edu.tr

CFP: The Black Press at 200

“The Black Press at 200,” which will be held March 17–18, 2027 at Howard University in conjunction with the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, home of the Black Press Archives. This free two-day symposium commemorates 200 years of Black journalism and examines the enduring significance of the Black Press as “one of the most vital and enduring institutions in American public life.” The symposium will convene scholars, journalists, archivists, artists, students, and community researchers to explore the historical legacies, contemporary practices, and futures of Black journalism.

Symposium schedule and deadline:

  • Abstract Submission Deadline: September 18, 2026
  • Notification of Acceptance: October 30, 2026
  • Symposium Dates: March 17–18, 2027 at Howard University

This conference particularly encourage submissions from graduate students, early-career scholars, community scholars, independent researchers, and practitioners whose work engages Black journalism, Black intellectual history, media studies, African American history, diaspora studies, archives, digital humanities, and related fields.

Contact Information

Questions and submissions for the conference may be directed to:

Michael Guy
mguy@blackpressresearchcollective.org

Contact Email

mguy@blackpressresearchcollective.org

URL

https://msrc.howard.edu

CFP: Black Journalism in Global Perspective: Intellectual Exchange Across the Diaspora

“Black Journalism in Global Perspective: Intellectual Exchange Across the Diaspora,” is a collaborative workshop co-sponsored by the African American Intellectual History Society and the Black Press Research Collective. The workshop will take place at Brown University on October 15–16, 2026 and is designed for early-career scholars and ABD graduate students working on themes related to the Global Black Press. The workshop seeks to rethink the Black Press “not simply as a historical institution, but as a dynamic space of global Black thought,” with particular attention to transnational exchange, intellectual production, and the cultural work of journalism across the African diaspora. Selected participants will have opportunities for publication in Black Perspectives and Global Black Thought.

These are the submission details and timeline for the workshop:

  • Expression of Interest / Abstract Deadline: July 1, 2026
  • Notification of Acceptance: August 1, 2026
  • Workshop Dates: October 15–16, 2026 at Brown University

This call encourages submissions from graduate students, early-career scholars, community scholars, independent researchers, and practitioners whose work engages Black journalism, Black intellectual history, media studies, African American history, diaspora studies, archives, digital humanities, and related fields.

Contact Information

Questions and submissions for the workshop may be directed to:

Michael Guy

mguy@blackpressresearchcollective.org

Contact Email

mguy@blackpressresearchcollective.org

CFP: Ephemera Society of America 2027 Conference

Ephemera Marks the Day: Holidays & Celebrations

Request for Presentations:

Holidays and celebrations give us a chance to take a break from our regular schedules and focus on something special. They can mark or commemorate historically significant events, such as Independence Day, Juneteenth, or Memorial Day. They may mark a holiday, religious or otherwise, like Christmas, Mardi Gras, Halloween or Mother’s Day. Celebrations may also be held for personal events, such as a birthday, wedding anniversary, religious confirmation or graduation.  And increasingly, a plethora of national days have been promoted by industry or interest groups, some of which have been instituted through government resolution. Earth Day (an international observance) is more serious in nature. National Peanut Butter Day, Sibling Day, or Hug an Australian Day are more light-hearted. Almost every holiday has its “trappings,” many of which take the form of ephemera. And the look of these trappings evolves over time and can vary significantly according to culture or region.

Ephemera 47, the Ephemera Society of America (ESA) annual conference, will take place at the Hyatt Regency in Greenwich, Connecticut, on Friday, March 19, 2027. Each speaker will address a topic related to a celebration or holiday, relying heavily on tangible ephemera—invitations, decorations, posters, advertisements, greeting cards, tickets, brochures, menus, trade cards, broadsides, receipts, souvenirs, correspondence, itineraries, photographs, postcards, maps, diaries—to illustrate their subject. Keep in mind that our focus is not just the images of your chosen subject but the story of your subject, its significance, how it is celebrated and how it evolved over time. 

Each presentation will be 30 minutes in length, followed by a brief Q&A. Please submit the following:

·         Presentation title and a written abstract, focusing on the way ephemera tells the story of your chosen topic. Please describe the specific types of ephemera you will use to illustrate your topic. Each presentation needs to feature at least three different types of ephemera. Proposals should not exceed 150 words.

·         5 to 6 representative ephemera images

·         Single-paragraph biography, including any affiliations

·         A .jpg photograph of yourself for publicity purposes

·         Mailing address, phone number and e-mail address

Following a review of all proposals, finalists may be asked to submit 10 to 15 images of the types of ephemera that will be used to illustrate their talk. Proposals must be submitted via e-mail or post by September 15, 2026 to Barbara Loe, Ephemera 47 Conference Chair.

e-mail: bjloe@earthlink.net 

post:      Ephemera Society of America, Inc., P.O. Box 95, Cazenovia, NY 13035-0095.

Decisions and notification about proposals will be made by November 30, 2026. Presenters will be requested to sign a release at the time of acceptance allowing their presentation to be filmed for use by the ESA.

If selected, a draft PowerPoint presentation must be submitted by February 28, 2027. The final presentation must be submitted by March 12, 2027. Presentations must include 25 or more ephemera images. At this time, funding is not available from ESA to support travel or presentation costs. 

ESA is eager to expand the use of ephemera in the classroom, and we encourage presentations on all subjects addressing the use of ephemera in teaching and academic research. We encourage undergraduate and graduate students to submit proposals for the Emerging Scholars Program to be held on Thursday afternoon, March 18th.  For more information, please see “Emerging Scholars” under the “Discover” tab on our website:  www.ephemerasociety.org

CFP: 2026 Dress and Body Association Conference

2026 Dress and Body Association Conference

CALL FOR PAPERS

The Dress and Body Association invites submissions for the organization’s seventh annual conference, which will be held on November 7-8, 2026. Consistent with our long-term goals for inclusivity and sustainability, all activities will be 100% online.

Join our Google Group to learn about opportunities and converse with members of the DBA year-round! Email to request membership: dress.body.assoc@gmail.com.

Opening the Archives of Dress and the Body

This year’s theme focuses on the many types of archives that inspire learning and making such as libraries, museums, corporate archives, personal wardrobes, costume shops, photo albums, and diaries. It also invites reflection on histories of scholarship and activism. How do we know what we know about dress and the body?

Proposals on any topic related to dress and the body will be considered, but abstracts related to this year’s theme are most likely to be accepted. Topics might include:

  • Well-known and little-known collections
  • Historical costumes as inspiration for new designs
  • Interacting with physical artifacts in the era of AI
  • Stories that are told (and not told) by archives
  • Addressing biases and privilege in archives
  • Decolonizing archives (theories, methods, practices, activism)
  • The science of historical colors and materials
  • Old and new technologies for imaging the body
  • The ethics of displaying bodies and personal artifacts
  • What is ‘archival fashion’ and who buys and wears it?
  • Scholarship and activism informed by archival discoveries
  • Recreating historical moments/eras in media (films, TV, games, and literature)
  • Practices of the archive/archiving

Both beginning and advanced scholars are welcome. Abstracts should be 200-300 words. Presenters do not need to submit a paper before the conference. Depending on the number of submissions and the time zones of presenters, each person should have approximately 20 minutes to speak with additional time for discussion.

Although we welcome scholars, educators, artists, designers, and activists from any country, the language of the conference will be English. We will consider a group of presentations in another language if there is sufficient interest.

Abstracts must be written in English and should be drawn from your own, original work. We ask that presenters not simply recycle presentations from classes or other conferences. Pre-recorded presentations are allowed, but presenters must join the Zoom meeting to hear other speakers and participate in the discussion in real time.

Please submit your abstract by July 15, 2026. All submissions will be read by at least two reviewers in a single-blind review process. If there is no extension on the deadline, authors can expect letters of acceptance by mid- to late-August. (Given the challenging times we are living in, please be patient with any delays… we are doing our best.)

To submit an abstract, go to this link: https://forms.gle/uoz3ohs9bG21pQDFA

Curious about past conferences? Check out our programs for 2020-2024 on Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/@dress_and_body_association.

Whether you choose to submit an abstract or not, you’re welcome to attend the conference!

There is no charge. Just email us (dress.body.assoc@gmail.com) to join our Google Group and stay informed.

The Dress and Body Association is registered as a non-profit organization (501(c)(3)) in the state of Indiana (United States).

Dress & Body Association | dress.body.assoc@gmail.com

Contact Email

dress.body.assoc@gmail.com

URL

https://forms.gle/uoz3ohs9bG21pQDFA