Disney: A Companion
deadline for submissions:
January 1, 2026
full name / name of organization:
Lorna Piatti-farnell and Simon Bacon
contact email:
lpfarnell@gmail.com
source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2025/07/26/disney-a-companion
The editors invite abstracts for a forthcoming edited volume entitled Disney: A Companion, which will offer a comprehensive critical exploration of The Walt Disney Company’s cultural, historical, aesthetic, political, and industrial significance. The Companion is intended for the Peter Lang Genre Fiction and Film Companion series (https://www.peterlang.com/series/gffc), and aims to bring together a wide range of interdisciplinary perspectives that interrogate Disney’s enduring legacy and its evolving role in global media and culture.
Since its founding in the 1920s, The Walt Disney Company has shaped not only the animation industry but also broader cultural discourses around childhood, storytelling, consumerism, technology, representation, and national identity. Disney’s innovations in animation – from the early days of Steamboat Willie and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, to the more recent digital revolutions seen in Frozen and Encanto – have established it as a central player in the development of visual culture. However, Disney’s influence and reach extend well beyond animation, and its characteristic fairy-tale narrative set ups. They encompass live-action films of different genres, television, comics, theme parks, corporate acquisitions and partnerships (including Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm, and 20th Century Studios), streaming platforms, and merchandising. Disney has not only contributed to the development of the animated film as we know it, but also arguably shaped how generations of audiences have experience transmedia storytelling on a wider scale. All of these aspects of the ‘Disney phenomenon’ form a complex conglomerate deserving of sustained scholarly attention across disciplines and contexts.
Taking this as a point of departure, this Companion seeks to engage with Disney not merely as a brand or an entertainment company, but as a key site for creative, cultural, social, historical, political, and industrial negotiations.
Topics might include, but are not limited to:
- Aesthetics and Technologies: techniques and styles in traditional, digital, and hybrid animation; evolution of character design and character identities; Disney’s visual storytelling strategies; evolving digital technologies; collaboration with and influence on other studios; audio-visual and industrial considerations, including the use of music and songs; critical approaches to the aesthetic, industrial, and cultural category of the ‘Disney film’.
- Franchises, Adaptations, and Transmedia Storytelling: convergence culture and the evolution of serial storytelling within the Disney empire, including Disney+ and the Disney Channel; case studies on the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Star Wars, and beyond, through a Disney lens; transnational reimaginings; paratextual materials, fan practices, remix culture, and counter-discourses surrounding Disney texts.
- The Body and Embodiment: how bodies are animated, idealized, and regulated in Disney media; discourses of beauty, physical transformation, and anthropomorphism; disability, and the relationship between the body and mental health in Disney narratives; body transformations and the construction of the self.
- Representations of ‘Good and Evil’: ethical boundaries and moral binaries within the Disney multiverse; constructions of heroes and villains, and the virtues/values associated with them; politicised understandings of purpose and goals; magic and witchcraft as central Disney tropes; monsters and the monstrous.
- Race, Ethnicity, and Representation: critical approaches to racial and ethnic portrayals in Disney films and television; Indigeneity and complex representations of ‘Otherness’ within Disney properties.
- Gender and Sexuality: changing depictions of femininity and masculinity; Feminist critique and queer readings of Disney narratives; gender performativity in animation and live-action; representation in the Disney Princess franchises and beyond; LGBTQI+ representation in both Disney texts and Disney fan communities.
- Ecology and the Environment: environmental critique within Disney films; corporate practices and environmental considerations; Disney parks and environmental discourses.
- Historical Perspectives: Disney's role in the development of the American film industry; propaganda and nationalism in wartime productions; corporate history and its intersections with broader historical events.
- Consumerism, Childhood, Nostalgia, and Fandom: the commodification of childhood and family entertainment; Disney’s influence on children’s culture and education; nostalgia and intergenerational fandom; critical explorations of ‘Disney adult’ fan communities; Disney cosplay and fan-narratives (including fan-vids, fan-fiction, and beyond); Disney and pedagogical discourses.
- Merchandise, Toys, and Marketing: audience-specific merchandise lines, including critical considerations of ‘Disney Princesses’ products and properties; rare items, collectibles, and exclusivity; branding and marketing strategies in diverse international contexts; Disney parks and the consumer experience.
- Creativity, the Cultural Industries, and Globalization: Disney’s global reach, including localized content and international reception; considerations over creativity and intellectual property; the cultural impact of Disney properties as creative channels; Disney properties, including theme parks, as cultural institutions in the transnational landscape.
The editors invite abstracts of 250-300 words on or around any of the above topics. Final essays will be 3,000 words in length.
The deadline for submission of abstracts is 1st January 2026. Please email your abstracts (together with a short bio, 150 words max) for consideration to both editors: Lorna Piatti-Farnell, lorna.piatti-farnell@sae.ac.nz; and Simon Bacon, baconetti@googlemail.com.
Last updated July 28, 2025
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