Tag: outside the profession

CFP: react/review Volume 7

 Call for Papers for Volume 7: “Tending To…”

Deadline: Friday, October 9, 2026

In thinking through the theme of “tending to…” we repeatedly returned to, and wrestled with,  the terms associated with it. “Tend” has two historical origins: one from the Latin tendere “to stretch,” and the other from the Middle English attenden “to attend.” These definitions imply a sense of bodily orientation, a “tending towards” a particular focal point or directionality (Ahmed, 2006). Colloquially, “tending to” is synonymously used with “care,” both emphasizing attention. Yet, how do we choose what to care about or direct our attention to? How then can we consider what it means for ourselves to “tend to…” something? With this issue, we want to put pressure on the perception of care and also invite expansions of our understanding of it through both theory and praxis. To theorize and conceptualize the idea of ‘care’ is to work through a concept that can be easily dismissed, romanticized, or, at worst, not be placed under any pressure to unpack its complexity (Adams, 2014). This understanding of care as lacking depth may also show up in its relationship to tenderness: an action that, on its face, might equate with gentleness, but is itself revolutionary and a deliberate action of survival and collectivity (Lorde, 1984, 2007). But the topic of care and “tending to…” permeates our everyday relationships with one another, on social media, and politically. Through their repetitive use, these terms gain cultural relevance yet have the potential to lose impact and meaning over time.

The editors of react/review––a peer review, open-access digital journal dedicated to research by emerging scholars––seek essays for Volume 7 that consider these themes of “tending to…” and care. We invite submissions that consider how, as scholars and makers, we ‘tend to’ the very materials that constitute our intellectual and, at times, personal lives. With placing pressure upon the very act of ‘tending to…,’ we also want to consider the moments when that act is itself not cast in a positive light. Questions that guide this issue are, but not limited to: What are the limits of care? What are the possibilities of care? What does it mean to tend to/care about? How can care act as a methodology? How do people/institutions/practices choose what to care for/what not to care for? When does care/tending to become weaponized? Whose histories are protected/preserved/erased? What futures are being tended to? What are we continuing to nurture? 

We invite scholarship on any historical period and geographical focus that engages with the volume’s theme. While this journal is situated within the fields of art history, architectural history, museum studies, and visual studies, we welcome submissions from any advanced graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and early career contingent scholars in any field, whose work relates to the journal’s particular theme. 

The journal is currently open to submissions for all categories (see descriptions below). For focus and experimental articles, please submit a manuscript and 150-word bio to the journal’s page on eScholarship using the submit function, located at: https://escholarship.org/uc/reactreview. Please remove any identifying information from manuscripts, as submissions will be evaluated through a double-blind review process. 

Questions can be directed to the journal co-managing editors, Graham Feyl, Karla Mendez, and Kristin Yinger at reactreviewjournal@gmail.com. 

Topics may include, but are not limited to:

  • Affect + Affect Theory, Emotion
  • Curatorial practices and collections 
  • Conservation 
  • Stewardship 
  • Archives + archival work
  • Spaces of care (domestic, healthcare spaces, architecture, placemaking, etc.)
  • Relationships and relationality (friendships, sisterhood, communities, etc.) 
  • Welcoming + hospitality 
  • Networks and root systems 
  • Political and social actions
  • Caregiving (medical, political, emotional, etc)
  • Public + private role of care 
  • Futurity + the future of care 

Article categories available for open submission:

Focus articles: essays that emphasize the theme of the call for papers. 

Experimental articles: experimental articles are open-ended pieces that discuss new research findings, speculate on pressing research questions, or address methodological issues encountered in fieldwork or archival work. They differ from the more formal focus articles in that experimental pieces are more exploratory and flexible in nature. Experimental articles provide space for researchers to share works-in-progress, make connections between research and current events, or reflect on methodologies or the experience of conducting research or fieldwork. This section is also open to interviews or new translations of art and architecture-related texts accompanied by a brief translator note.

Focus and experimental article guidelines:

  • 1500-4000 words (excluding footnotes + bibliography)
  • Focus and experimental: may be accompanied by brief responses from members of the editorial staff in order to create a conversation and make connections across research specialties.

Book/exhibition reviews (750-1,000 words): Reviews on recent exhibitions, public art projects, or publications should touch on the theme of the current issue. To pitch a review, please send a ~150-word pitch and CV to co-managing editors, Graham Feyl, Karla Mendez, and Kristin Yinger, at reactreviewjournal@gmail.com with the subject line REVIEW by Friday, October 9, 2026.

Bibliography

Adams. Rachel. Love, Money, Duty: Stories of Care in Our Times. Columbia University

        Press, 2025. 

Ahmed, Sara. The Cultural Politics of Emotion. Routledge, 2004.

Ahmed, Sara. Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, Objects, Others. Duke University Press, 2006. 

Care Collective. The Care Manifesto: The Politics of Interdependence. Verso, 2020.

Collins, Lisa Gail. Stitching Love and Loss: A Gee’s Bend Quilt. University of Washington Press, 2023.

Evans, Catherine A. “Tender(ness): The Feminist Anthology as Carework.” 

ASAP/Journal, Volume 10, Number 3 (September 2025): 431-452. 

Ferrell, Elizabeth. About the Rose: Creation and Community in Jay DeFeo’s Circle. Yale 

        University Press, 2022.

Fink, Marty. Forget Burial: HIV Kinship, Disability, and Queer/Trans Narratives of Care. 

        Rutgers University Press, 2020. 

German, Vanessa and Deesha Philyaw, eds. TENDER: a literary anthology and book

        of spells: evidence. 1HOOD Media, 2019. 

Gould, Deborah B. Moving Politics: Emotion and ACT Up’s Fight Against AIDS. 

        The University of Chicago Press, 2009. 

Hobart, Hi‘ilei Julia Kawehipuaakahaopulani and Tamara Kneese. “Radical Care: Survival Strategies for Uncertain Times.” Social Text 38, no. 1 (2020): 1-16. 

hooks, bell. Soul Sister: Women, Friendship, and Fulfillment. South End Press, 2007.

Huberman, Anthony. “Take Care.” In Circular Facts, edited by Mai Abu ElDahab, Binna

        Choi, Emily Pethick. Sternberg Press, 2011. 

Lonetree, Amy. “A Heritage of Resilience: Ho-Chunk Family Photographs in the Visual Archive.” The Public Historian, vol. 41, no. 1 (February 2019): 34-50.        

Lorde, Audre. Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches by Audre Lorde. Crossing Press, 1984, 2007.

Lugones, Maria C. in collaboration with Pat Alake Rosezelle. “Sisterhood and 

Friendship as Feminist Models.” In Feminism and Community, edited by Penny 

A. Weiss and Marilyn Friedman. Temple University Press, 1995. 

Ochoa, María. Creative Collectives: Chicana Painters Working in Community. University of New Mexico Press, 2003.

Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky. “Paranoid Reading and Reparative Reading, Or, You’re 

        So Paranoid, You Probably Think This Essay Is About You.” In Touching Feeling:

        Affect, Pedagogy, Performativity. Duke University Press, 2003. 

Tepper, Allie. “She Said.” In Las Vegas Ikebana: Maren Hassinger and Senga 

        Nengundi, edited by Allie Tepper. Pacific and the Cooley Gallery, 2024. 

Tobin, Amy. Women Artists Together: Art in the Age of Women’s Liberation. Yale University Press, 2023. 

Tsinhnahjinnie, Hulleah J. “When Is a Photograph Worth a Thousand Words?” In Photography’s Other Histories, edited by Christopher Pinney and Nicolas Peterson, 40–52. Duke University Press, 2003.

Ukeles, Mierle Laderman. “Manifesto for Maintenance Art 1969! Proposal for an exhibition: ‘CARE,’ 1969.” October 1969. https://queensmuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Ukeles-Manifesto-for-Maintenance-Art-1969.pdf

Vesely-Flad, Rima. The Fire Inside: The Dharma of James Baldwin & Audre Lorde. North Atlantic Press, 2026.

Contact Information

Co-managing editors: Graham Feyl (UC Santa Barbara), Karla Mendez (UC Berkley), and Kristin Yinger (UC Santa Barbara(

Contact Email

reactreviewjournal@gmail.com

URL

https://escholarship.org/uc/reactreview/submissions

CFP: ‘Mickey and Minnie at 100’

To view the full call click here>>

https://www.intellectbooks.com/ijds#call-for-papers

Call for Papers – Special Issue for The International Journal of Disney Studies, which examines the Walt Disney Company, an international media conglomerate that impacts our global culture. This international, peer-reviewed journal draws from a variety of academic and industrial lenses, perspectives, methods and fields, while providing a space for scholars to present new research, review current research and comment on wider Disney commodities.

On 27 October 1954, Walt Disney opened the inaugural episode of Disneyland with this iconic quote: ‘I only hope we never lose sight of one thing: it all started with a mouse’. While the Disney Studio did not begin precisely with Mickey (the Alice Comedies and Oswald the Lucky Rabbit predate him), it was the mouse pair that reflected a crucial starting point for the Disney brand; Mickey and Minnie debuted together in 1928, co-starring in the landmark shorts Steamboat Willie and Plane Crazy and coincided with the arrival of sound and color in films, the rise of comic books in print media, and all manner of merchandising that kept the studio afloat during the worst of the Depression and war years. Together they became the most enduring and widely recognised animated characters in global popular culture.

On the other hand, Mickey Mouse has often been used derisively. For some, the character is safe, dull, even boring – emblematic of Disney playing it safe. Though mischievous in the early shorts (particularly in one his most famous roles as the ‘Sorcerer’s Apprentice’), Mickey’s ascendance as the corporate mascot of the Walt Disney Company (particularly after Walt’s death in 1966) has lent him both an instant recognizability but also a vested interest in keeping his image ‘clean’. Mickey has also been invoked pejoratively in the phrase ‘Mickey Mouse degrees’, demeaning the importance of degrees in fields such as media studies, despite the ongoing importance of the humanities writ large.

This special issue–which will be released in 2028, marking the centenary of Mickey and Minnie Mouse’s official debut–invites scholarly work on Mickey and Minnie Mouse across Disney texts, visual arts, and theme-park environments—canonical or lesser-known, produced by Disney Studios, its subsidiaries, or fans and artists wholly unconnected to the company. Primary sources may include an array of mediums, including comics, television, radio, animation, theme parks, video games and other forms of media. We encourage contributors to critically engage with Mickey and Minnie as cultural icons, commercial phenomena, artistic achievements and symbols of Disney’s evolving brand from interdisciplinary perspectives, including (but not limited to):

  • Historical and archival approaches to their creation, design evolution and early reception;
  • Transnational and transcultural perspectives on the figures of Mickey and Minnie (local adaptations, international reception and non-Western reinterpretations);
  • Gender, race, class and identity (and their intersection) in the representation and merchandising of Mickey and Minnie across decades;
  • Animation techniques, performance and character animation (from rubber-hose to digital eras);
  • Copyright, public domain and the legal and economic life of the characters;
  • Fan cultures, nostalgia, cosplay and participatory practices;
  • Mickey and Minnie as political and ideological symbols (propaganda, diplomacy, consumerism or resistance);
  • The evolution of Mickey and Minnie from role models of romantic courtship to companion-like partnership;
  • Mickey’s and Minnie’s relationship(s) and/or in comparison to other Disney characters;
  • The characters’ role in Disney corporate history and branding strategies;
  • Artistic legacies and appropriations by contemporary artists and designers.

We especially encourage submissions that move beyond canonical US American/Global North perspectives and explore Mickey and Minnie in global, comparative, or marginalised contexts.

Submission Guidelines

Full paper submissions will be expected by 1 May 2027 and should be submitted to the IJDSwebsite’s Pubkit system. When you submit, you will have the opportunity to specify that your piece is for the special issue ‘Mickey and Minnie at 100’. Please note that we are open to accepting Articles (6,000-8,000 words), Fresh Perspectives (1,000-3,000 words) and Reviews (1,000 words). The journal uses Harvard referencing and all images should follow copyright and/or fair use laws (as explained in the journal’s Notes for Contributors),

For queries or to discuss potential topics, please contact:

● Joel Gray – joel.gray@shu.ac.uk

● Dr. Peter Cullen Bryan – petercullenbryan@gmail.com

● Dr. Eva Van de Wiele – Eva.VandeWiele@ugent.be

Contact Information

Joel Gray – joel.gray@shu.ac.uk

Dr. Peter Cullen Bryan – petercullenbryan@gmail.com

Dr. Eva Van de Wiele – Eva.VandeWiele@ugent.be

URL

https://www.intellectbooks.com/ijds#call-for-papers

CFP: Radio, Podcast, & Sound Media Area, Popular Culture American Culture Association Conference

RADIO, PODCAST, & SOUND MEDIA AREA

POPULAR CULTURE AMERICAN CULTURE ASSOCIATION CONFERENCE

MARCH 24-27, 2027, BOSTON

 DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSION: OCTOBER 31, 2026

We invite papers and presentations on all aspects of radio and audio media, including but not limited to: radio and audio media history; radio and audio media programs and content (music, drama, talk, news, public affairs, features, interviews, sports, college, religious, ethnic, community, low-power, pirate, etc.); podcasting (news, public affairs, commentary, audio drama, branded content); new audio media (internet radio, streaming audio, etc.); audio social media (Clubhouse, Twitter Spaces, Reddit Talk, etc.); radio literature studies; media representations of radio and audio media; rhetorical research; legal and regulatory policy; economics of radio and audio media; and radio and audio media technology. We welcome U.S., international, or comparative works and media presentations and are catholic regarding method, theory, or approach. Papers or presentations should be planned for no more than fifteen minutes. We encourage you to emphasize audience involvement and elicit stimulating questions and discussion.

Joint Panel with The Sixties Area

This year we are also featuring a joint panel between The Sixties and the Radio, Podcast & Sound Media areas that relate to the conference’s theme: Revolutions & Revisions in Popular Culture. Possible paper topics are wide open, and could include things like: the FM radio revolution in the U.S. (freeform/progressive formats, changes in FCC policies, etc.); significant radio stations, such as WDIA in Memphis, KSAN in San Francisco, etc.; “pirate radio” in the U.K. (Radio Caroline, etc.) and official responses (the creation of BBC1, etc.); the expansion of stereophonic audio in relation to popular music, psychedelic rock, etc.; the influence of/by particular record labels on pop culture and the counterculture (especially independents such as Motown, Vanguard, ESP, etc.); more recent podcasts or other audio media about the 1960s; any of the above in non-U.S./U.K. contexts; and any other related subjects. If you would like your paper submission to be considered for the shared panel(s), please note that on your abstract or via email to the area chair.

Paper or presentation proposals must include an abstract of 300 words and paper or presentation title, and author’s institutional affiliation and email address. We do not accept undergraduate student submissions. Submit your paper or presentation proposal to: https://www.aievolution.com/pcaaca/

The proposal will include an abstract of 300 words and paper or presentation title, institutional affiliation, and email address. In order to submit a paper or presentation proposal your PCA membership must be valid for 2026-2027.

August 1, 2026 – Paper submissions and early registration open

October 31, 2026 – Deadline for submissions

November 15, 2026 – Travel Grant applications due

December 31 – Early registration ends

Address paper or via email to:  Matthew Killmeier, PCA/ACA Radio and Audio Media Area Chair, Dept. of Communication and Theatre, Auburn University at Montgomery

Contact Information

Matthew Killmeier, Dept. of Communication & Theatre, Auburn Univ. at Montgomery, 334-244-3950, P.O. Box 244023, Montgomery, AL 36124-4023, USA

Contact Email

mkillmei@aum.edu

URL

https://www.aievolution.com/pcaaca

CFP: Critical Digital Archives. Travel, Translation, Transformation.  A Hybrid Symposium on Archives in and from the SWANA Region

British Institute for Libyan and Northern African Studies (BILNAS) 
School of Advanced Studies, University of London (ILCS-ICS) 
21–22 January 2027 

Call for papers: Critical Digital Archives. Travel, Translation, Transformation.  

A Hybrid Symposium on Archives in and from the SWANA Region. 

This symposium aims to provide a forum for scholars, archivists, community and cultural organizations interested in critical approaches to digital archives containing materials from and about the SWANA (Southwest Asia and North Africa) region, understood as a geographic, historical, and cultural space. In this space, archives have been historically imposed, looted, extracted, dispersed, destroyed, but also rescued, rebuilt and reinvented, pioneering practices of resistance, reparation and return that raise compelling ethical, theoretical and practical questions for scholars and stakeholders (Ghaddar, 2025). Building on Itza Carbajal and Michelle Caswell’s framework (2021), our approach seeks to advance a language-sensitive understanding of reparative archival practices that are attentive to and accountable for the technological, social, and environmental impacts of digital archives.  

We are interested in digitisation as a transformative process that reshapes archival practices, knowledge production, and power relations. 

Conceived as a collaborative, interdisciplinary, and horizontal forum, the symposium invites participants, both in person and online, to engage in discussion and exchange around three interconnected themes and interpretative lenses. Two keynote speakers – Sara Salem (LSE) and Amanda Egbe (UWE) – will act as discussants, facilitating collective reflection and dialogue around participants’ contributions. The three themes of the symposium are Travel, Translation and Transformation: 

Travel: Archives in Movement 

This strand explores journeys and movement both as subjects represented in archival collections and as conditions shaping the archive itself, opening up questions of archival looting, dispersal and dispossession as well as care, stewardship, and reparation. Discussions may engage with spatial humanities approaches, including digital mapping and gazetteers; the displacement and mobility of archives; practices and ethics of archival solidarity and return; and questions of heritage, ownership, and identity from indigenous and diasporic perspectives. 

Translation: Languages in the Archive 

This strand will examine issues relating to languages and translation, both in the records and in the archival metadata that make them searchable by and accessible to stakeholders. We will especially welcome contributions reflecting on the role of metadata as descriptive as well as interpretative text, exploring the potential for linguistic, semantic and epistemological translations.  We will also welcome contributions that explore the multilinguality of archival records as enduring representations of human activity and consider the practices and ethics of reparative translation in digital archives. 

Transformation: Digital Futures and Ethics of Dematerialization 

The third strand will look at digitisation as a transformative process for the archive that involves new materialities and highlights new absences. We aim to discuss the impact of digital projects on key stakeholders (users, subjects of records, source communities). We invite contributions on the fragility of digitised and born-digital heritage, as well as the specific biases and risks that digitalisation processes may introduce, particularly through the reproduction, by digital tools, of historical and ongoing harms to people and the environment.  

We also aim to assess the potential of digital technology, especially non-corporate and low-threshold, to act as vectors of resistance and tools against erasure. 

Keynote speakers:   

Sara Salem is an Associate Professor in Sociology at the London School of Economics. Her first book, published with Cambridge University Press, is entitled Anticolonial Afterlives in Egypt: The Politics of Hegemony (2020). Her second book, co-authored with Mai Taha, is entitled Anticolonial Radios: On the Sonic Lives of Internationalism, forthcoming with Cambridge University Press. Along with Mai Taha, she curates Archive Stories, a platform exploring radical and creative archives. 

Amanda Egbe is a Senior Lecturer in Media Production at the University of the West of England and leads Heritage Futures, a practice-led research programme building infrastructure for heritage at risk through archives, film, and digital systems. Her research focuses on how cultural memory is documented, governed, protected, transformed, or lost in contexts shaped by social change, technological transformation, environmental stress, and historical inequity.  

Convenors:  

Barbara Spadaro, University of Liverpool 

Valeria Vitale, University of Sheffield 

The event is jointly hosted by the Institute of Languages, Cultures and Societies (ILCS) and the Institute of Classical Studies (ICS) at the School of Advanced Studies, University of London, and funded by the British Institute for Libyan and North African Studies (BILNAS).  

Please send via email a 300words abstract and short bio to b.spadaro@liverpool.ac.uk and v.vitale@sheffield.ac.uk  

Deadline: 30 SEPTEMBER 2026 

A limited number of travel bursaries will be offered to participants travelling to the symposium in London. 

URL: https://ics.sas.ac.uk/news-events/events/critical-digital-archives-travel-translation-transformation

Contact Email

b.spadaro@liverpool.ac.uk

URL: https://ics.sas.ac.uk/news-events/events/critical-digital-archives-travel-translation-transformation

CFP: Material Culture Workshop: “Re-Materialising: Navigating Transience and Absence” – University of Cambridge

Deadline: Sept. 11, 2026

The Material Culture Workshop at the University of Cambridge invites submissions for 20 minute papers for our Michaelmas 2026 sessions on the theme “Re-Materialising: Navigating Transience and Absence.”

  • How do we approach object-based studies without the object?
  • How can we use extant archival material to “reconstruct” the material lives of groups and individuals traditionally underrepresented in institutional collections?
  • How does the archive present challenges and opportunities as a material object itself?

This theme invites projects which challenge disciplinary divisions and embrace material culture studies of non-extant objects and understudied groups. Papers may engage with themes of fragmentation, archival absence, loss, transient objects/experiences, unconventional archival practice, and related topics.

The Material Culture Workshop is convened by postgraduate students Cecelia Eure and Robert Hewis and aims to highlight the work of early career researchers and practitioners in history, art history, archaeology, anthropology, cultural studies, and related disciplines. It is hosted in-person at the University of Cambridge and online at 5:30 pm every other Monday.

Submissions must include a title, abstract (250 words), and a brief bio, sent as a Word document to Cecelia Eure (cre48@cam.ac.uk) by 11 September 2026.

Contact Information

Faculty of History, University of Cambridge

Contact Email

cre48@cam.ac.uk

Call for Applications: Exhibition Review Editor for the journal ‘Italian American Review’

Call for Applications: Exhibition Review Editor

The Italian American Review is seeking an editor for exhibition reviews.

The exhibition review editor researches potential exhibits for assessment, invites writers, manages the review process, and edits the reviews, while serving as the main point of contact between review writers and the Italian American Review (IAR) editorial staff. This editor should be familiar with current issues concerning Italian American studies and should have first-hand experience in museum or other exhibit-production design. The editor should be aware of organizations that deal with Italian diasporic history, in the US and abroad, and should remain up to date on that knowledge.

This position requires editorial, organizational, and communications abilities. This position is a nonpaying volunteer role, in keeping with the practice of academic journal publishing. The IAR is looking for a three-year commitment starting October 2026.

The Italian American Review, a bi-annual, peer-reviewed journal of Queens College’s John D. Calandra Italian American Institute The City University of New York), publishes scholarly articles about the history and culture of Italian Americans, as well as other aspects of the Italian diaspora. The journal embraces a wide range of professional concerns and theoretical orientations in the social sciences and in cultural studies.

For more information, see the Publications page on the Calandra Institute’s website, under Italian American Review. If you are interested in taking on the duties of this editorial position, please send your CV and a cover letter to Associate Editor Anthony Julian Tamburri at anthony.tamburri@qc.cuny.edu and to Managing Editor Rosangela Briscese at rosangela.briscese@qc.cuny.edu. The deadline for applications is October 1, 2026.

Contact Information

 Anthony Julian Tamburri and Rosangela Briscese 

Contact Email

rosangela.briscese@qc.cuny.edu

URL: https://calandrainstitute.org/publications/italian-american-review/

CFP: Popular Culture Association Libraries, Archives, and Museums

The Popular Culture Association (PCA) annual conference will be held March 24-27, 2027 at the Boston Marriott Copley Place in Boston, Massachusetts. Scholars from a wide variety of disciplines will meet to share their Popular Culture research and interests. The Libraries, Archives & Museums area invites proposals dealing with any aspect of Popular Culture as it pertains to libraries, archives, museums, or related areas.

The 2027 PCA conference theme is “Revolutions & Revisions in Popular Culture.” Presenters in Libraries, Archives & Museums are invited to consider how their work might engage with questions of transformation, reinterpretation, innovation, resistance, adaptation, or cultural change. Theme-related proposals are welcome but not required, and all submissions relevant to the area will receive full consideration.

Possible topics can include:

  • Explanations and depictions of research collections, archival collections, or exhibits;
  • Advances in technical services for collecting/preserving/exhibiting popular culture materials;
  • Using popular culture materials in educational programs and/or information literacy instruction;
  • Analyses of social media or web resources in library, museum, or archival work;
  • Challenges on materials and/or services, and related pressures on library/museum/archive workers;
  • Issues related to repatriation of materials in museums or archives;
  • Representations of libraries, librarians, museums, archivists, and related workers in popular culture and media;
  • The effects of emerging tech and generative AI on the field.

Proposals should be 150-200 words; typical presentations are 15-20 minutes. The deadline for submitting a proposal is October 31, 2026. 

Please direct any questions to the area chair.

Contact Information

Elizabeth “Beth” Downey, Mississippi State University

PCA Area Chair of Libraries, Archives and Museums

Contact Email

edowney@library.msstate.edu

URL

https://pcaaca.org/page/submissionguidelines

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