CFP “Living in a Material World”: The 1980s in Popular Culture (7/31/2026; PopCRN 11/26-27/2026)

“Living in a Material World”: The 1980s in Popular Culture
deadline for submissions: July 31, 2026

full name / name of organization: 

PopCRN - The Popular Culture Research Network

contact email: 

popcrn@une.edu.au

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2025/04/02/%E2%80%9Cliving-in-a-material-world%E2%80%9D-the-1980s-in-popular-culture.

Call for Papers

“Living in a Material World”: The 1980s in Popular Culture

 

PopCRN (the Popular Culture Network) will be holding a free virtual symposium exploring the 1980s in popular culture to be held 26-27 November 2026.

The 1980s was the decade of excess, technological innovation, and political upheaval. This conference aims to explore both the popular culture of the 1980s and how the 1980s have been depicted in the popular culture of other eras.

The 1980s was the era of MTV, the personal computer, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the rise of neoliberalism, Live Aid, the Falklands War, the Iran-Contra affair, the assassination of John Lennon, the AIDS crisis, Chernobyl, the end of the Cold War, the birth of hip-hop, Madonna’s Like a Virgin, Michael Jackson’s Thriller, the Walkman, Rubik’s Cubes, shoulder pads, punk, glam metal, synthesizers, VHS tapes, The Breakfast Club, Top Gun, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Blade Runner, Pac-Man, the Challenger disaster, the rise of video game culture, The Simpsons, The Oprah Winfrey Show, 24-hour news networks, the invention of the World Wide Web, the election of Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher’s Britain, the Tiananmen Square protests, the creation of CNN, the rise of Japanese consumer technology, the Space Shuttle program, the rise of Wall Street culture, yuppies, the DeLorean, New Romanticism, breakdancing, Miami Vice, The Cosby Show, He-Man, Transformers, the emergence of cyberpunk, Ghostbusters, The Goonies, Nintendo, Trivial Pursuit, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, and many more.

We welcome papers from researchers across the academic spectrum and encourage submissions from postgraduate and early career researchers. We also welcome submissions for papers, panels and round tables. Papers from this conference will have the opportunity to be published in an edited book.

To whet your appetite, we have provided some topics below. We will also accept topics beyond this scope:

• "Greed is good." – The financial excess and corporate culture of the 1980s.
• "I want my MTV." – The rise of music television and the visualisation of pop music.
• "Nobody puts Baby in a corner." – Gender, romance, and independence in 1980s film.
• "I pity the fool!" – The rise of wrestling, action heroes, and hyper-masculinity.
• "Do you really want to hurt me?" – LGBTQ+ identities and culture in the 1980s.
• “The dream is alive.”– The Space Shuttle program and its impact on popular imagination.
• "Gotta catch ‘em all!" – Toys, video games, and marketing to children in the 1980s.
• "This is your brain on drugs." – The War on Drugs and moral panics.
• "We’re not gonna take it!" – Punk, rebellion, and counterculture.
• "Tear down this wall!" – The Cold War in popular culture.
• "The computer is personal." – The rise of home computing and digital culture.
• "The more you know." – Education, media, and the spread of information in the 1980s.
• "Life moves pretty fast." – Youth culture and coming-of-age narratives in 1980s cinema.
• "I ain’t afraid of no ghosts!" – Science fiction, horror, and the supernatural in 1980s media.
• "Power dressing." – Fashion, materialism, and aesthetics of the decade.

Please submit by your proposed abstract by 31st July 2026

• Submit here - https://tinyurl.com/2hyksxn8
• Register here - tinyurl.com/mrxeys35
• Queries to popcrn@une.edu.au

Stay up to date with PopCRN on our social pages & website

• www.popcrn.org
• X (ex-Twitter) - https://twitter.com/PopcultureUne
• Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100071540522655
• Bluesky - https://bsky.app/profile/popcrn.bsky.social
• LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/groups/14503409/

Last updated April 3, 2025

CFP PopCRN 1950s in Popular Culture Conference (1/31/2025; online 3/28-29/2025)

History and Nostalgia: The 1950s in popular culture

deadline for submissions:
January 31, 2025

full name / name of organization:
PopCRN - the Popular Culture Research Network

contact email:
PopCRN@une.edu.au

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2023/10/04/history-and-nostalgia-the-1950s-in-popular-culture

PopCRN (the Popular Culture Network) will be holding a free virtual symposium exploring the 1950s in popular culture. Held online on Thursday 28th and Friday 29th of March 2025.

The 1950s was the decade where the world began to recover from the tragedy of the Second World War. This conference aims to explore both the popular culture of the 1950s, and how the 1950s have been depicted in the popular culture of other eras.

The 1950s was the era of the teenager, the atomic bomb, the space race, the Queen’s coronation, the Cuban revolution, the Korean War, the French Fifth republic, Lego, colour television, the Montgomery Bus boycott, the finding of DNA, the founding of McDonalds, Rock n roll, jukeboxes, the Melbourne Olympics, Poodle Skirts, I love Lucy, birth of the credit card, Dr Seuss, James Bond’s Casino Royale, Disneyland opens, Sidney Poitier wins an Oscar, The Day the Music Died, 3D cinematography, Marilyn Monroe, The Twilight Zone, Jackson Pollock, Teddy Boys, Dior’s New Look, Formula One racing begins, McCarthyism, Science Fiction, the Munich air crash, the SS Andrea Doria, Ten Pound Poms, Hungarian Uprising, Univac – the first business computer, Paul McCartney meets John Lennon, the Xerox machine, death of Stalin, Hillary and Norgay climb Mount Everest, the Polio vaccine, the Warsaw Pact, Suez Crisis, introduction of transatlantic jetliners, China’s Giant Leap, the European Economic Community, the Malayan Emergency, the Algerian War, the Eurovision Song Contest, Peanuts comic strip, Fahrenheit 451, The Lord of the Flies, the Chevrolet Corvette, Barbie, Super Glue, Power Steering, first Video Tape Recorder, first Diet soft drinks, the Black Box, invention of Liquid Paper, the first computer game – Tennis for Two, and TV dinners to name just a few.

We welcome papers from researchers across the academic spectrum and encourage papers from postgraduate researchers and early career researchers. Papers from this conference will have the opportunity to be published.

To whet your appetite, we have provided some topics below. We will also accept topics beyond this scope:

• “I can't imagine there has ever been a more gratifying time or place to be alive than America in the 1950s. No country had ever known such prosperity.” – 1950s America in popular culture.
• “Some people would like the world to go back to the 1950s.” – Retromania and subcultur
• “In 1955, when I'd write a science-fiction novel, I'd set it in the year 2000. I realised around 1977 that, 'My God, it's getting exactly like those novels we used to write in the 1950s!' Everything's just turning out to be real.” – Science fiction of the 1950s
• “My law school class in the late 1950s numbered over 500. That class included less than 10 women.” – Women’s careers as depicted in 1950s films
• “But let's just say, I'm Irish. I grew up in the 1950s. Religion had a very tight iron fist.” – Associations of religion and the 1950s in popular culture.
• "Whoever you are, I have always depended on the kindness of strangers." – Neighbours, community and culture in the 1950s.
• We're gonna rock, gonna rock, around the clock tonight – The rock ‘n’ roll phenomenon.
• “You can't just walk out of a drive-in.” – Leisure activities of the 1950s
• “A revolution is not a bed of roses. A revolution is a struggle between the future and the past.” – Communism, socialism and capitalism of the 1950s in popular culture.
• “I could have gone on flying through space forever” – How the space race captured the public imagination.
• “I knew someone had to take the first step and I made up my mind not to move.” – Remembering racism and protest in the 1950s.
• “Ban the Bomb” - Nuclear weapons in popular culture
• "[Franklin] came very much closer to the discovery of the double helix than she has usually been credited with doing." – science, gender and women.
• “The second thing was they just wanted to lay a few fists and see a fair bit of Russian blood in the pool. And that's what happened. – Sport as a battleground for Cold War politics

Please email abstracts (200 words) to popcrn@une.edu.au by 31st January 2025. Please include your name, affiliation, email address, title of paper, orcid ID (where available), google scholar link (where available) and a short biography (100 words). Registration is free.

Last updated August 4, 2024

CFP History and Nostalgia: The 1950s in Popular Culture (1/31/2025; online 3/28-29/2024)

History and Nostalgia: The 1950s in popular culture

deadline for submissions: January 31, 2025

full name / name of organization: PopCRN - the Popular Culture Research Network

contact email: PopCRN@une.edu.au

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2023/10/04/history-and-nostalgia-the-1950s-in-popular-culture


PopCRN (the Popular Culture Network) will be holding a free virtual symposium exploring the 1950s in popular culture. Held online on Thursday 28th and Friday 29th of March 2025.

The 1950s was the decade where the world began to recover from the tragedy of the Second World War. This conference aims to explore both the popular culture of the 1950s, and how the 1950s have been depicted in the popular culture of other eras.

The 1950s was the era of the teenager, the atomic bomb, the space race, the Queen’s coronation, the Cuban revolution, the Korean War, the French Fifth republic, Lego, colour television, the Montgomery Bus boycott, the finding of DNA, the founding of McDonalds, Rock n roll, jukeboxes, the Melbourne Olympics, Poodle Skirts, I love Lucy, birth of the credit card, Dr Seuss, James Bond’s Casino Royale, Disneyland opens, Sidney Poitier wins an Oscar, The Day the Music Died, 3D cinematography, Marilyn Monroe, The Twilight Zone, Jackson Pollock, Teddy Boys, Dior’s New Look, Formula One racing begins, McCarthyism, Science Fiction, the Munich air crash, the SS Andrea Doria, Ten Pound Poms, Hungarian Uprising, Univac – the first business computer, Paul McCartney meets John Lennon, the Xerox machine, death of Stalin, Hillary and Norgay climb Mount Everest, the Polio vaccine, the Warsaw Pact, Suez Crisis, introduction of transatlantic jetliners, China’s Giant Leap, the European Economic Community, the Malayan Emergency, the Algerian War, the Eurovision Song Contest, Peanuts comic strip, Fahrenheit 451, The Lord of the Flies, the Chevrolet Corvette, Barbie, Super Glue, Power Steering, first Video Tape Recorder, first Diet soft drinks, the Black Box, invention of Liquid Paper, the first computer game – Tennis for Two, and TV dinners to name just a few.

We welcome papers from researchers across the academic spectrum and encourage papers from postgraduate researchers and early career researchers. Papers from this conference will have the opportunity to be published.

To whet your appetite, we have provided some topics below. We will also accept topics beyond this scope:

• “I can't imagine there has ever been a more gratifying time or place to be alive than America in the 1950s. No country had ever known such prosperity.” – 1950s America in popular culture.
• “Some people would like the world to go back to the 1950s.” – Retromania and subcultur
• “In 1955, when I'd write a science-fiction novel, I'd set it in the year 2000. I realised around 1977 that, 'My God, it's getting exactly like those novels we used to write in the 1950s!' Everything's just turning out to be real.” – Science fiction of the 1950s
• “My law school class in the late 1950s numbered over 500. That class included less than 10 women.” – Women’s careers as depicted in 1950s films
• “But let's just say, I'm Irish. I grew up in the 1950s. Religion had a very tight iron fist.” – Associations of religion and the 1950s in popular culture.
• "Whoever you are, I have always depended on the kindness of strangers." – Neighbours, community and culture in the 1950s.
• We're gonna rock, gonna rock, around the clock tonight – The rock ‘n’ roll phenomenon.
• “You can't just walk out of a drive-in.” – Leisure activities of the 1950s
• “A revolution is not a bed of roses. A revolution is a struggle between the future and the past.” – Communism, socialism and capitalism of the 1950s in popular culture.
• “I could have gone on flying through space forever” – How the space race captured the public imagination.
• “I knew someone had to take the first step and I made up my mind not to move.” – Remembering racism and protest in the 1950s.
• “Ban the Bomb” - Nuclear weapons in popular culture
• "[Franklin] came very much closer to the discovery of the double helix than she has usually been credited with doing." – science, gender and women.
• “The second thing was they just wanted to lay a few fists and see a fair bit of Russian blood in the pool. And that's what happened. – Sport as a battleground for Cold War politics

Please email abstracts (200 words) to popcrn@une.edu.au by 31st January 2025. Please include your name, affiliation, email address, title of paper, orcid ID (where available), google scholar link (where available) and a short biography (100 words). Registration is free.



Last updated February 13, 2024

CFP Pop Enlightenments: The Eighteenth Century Now (6/18/2021)

CFP: Pop Enlightenments: The Eighteenth Century Now

Source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2021/04/22/cfp-pop-enlightenments-the-eighteenth-century-now

deadline for submissions: June 18, 2021


full name / name of organization: Emrys Jones and Madeleine Pelling


contact email: mp656@york.ac.uk



Contemporary depictions of the long eighteenth century – whether drawn from historic sources or responding imaginatively to the era’s multifarious legacies – regularly captivate TV, film and theatre audiences and gamers alike. Increasingly, scholarly biographies provide the basis for big budget biopics, eighteenth-century narratives are adapted in new and experimental ways, objects from museum collections are replicated in cultures of fandom, and academics are invited onto sets as consultants. During a global moment in which the representation and deployment of history in the public sphere are subject to new and urgent scrutiny, we ask what function film, television, gaming, theatre and more can perform when depicting the eighteenth century in our modern world? Can such works speak to perceived eighteenth-century ideas and values and, simultaneously, the shifting paradigms of our own time? How, and why, should we engage?

Pop Enlightenments will bring together scholarly essays and interviews with creative industry professionals. Building on conversations begun in Emrys Jones’s Pop Enlightenments podcast, it takes a broad approach to explore how eighteenth-century forms and narratives are variously taken up, recycled and re-visioned in contemporary media. It asks which histories are being told and by whom.

We seek proposals for chapters from scholars, including early career researchers. Particular areas for analysis and discussion might include, but are not limited to:

• The eighteenth century’s imaginative currency in contemporary popular culture
• The representation (or misrepresentation) of historical crimes and traumas
• Intersections between eighteenth-century models of culture and our own
• Considerations of genre and audience expectation
• Contrasting international contexts for adaptation and re-creation
• Recent shifts in historiographical discourse, and industry responses to these

We welcome contributions discussing any cultural sources from the last twenty years. The list below, while not exhaustive, provides some examples of possible focus points.

Potential contributors are requested to send 300-word abstracts to emrys.jones@kcl.ac.uk and mp656@york.ac.uk by 17th June 2021.



Works of Interest

Television

• Bridgerton
• Outlander
• Poldark
• Harlots
• The Great
• Taboo
• The Scandalous Lady W
• Versailles
• Turn: Washington’s Spies
• Black Sails
• Roots
• Frontier
• Catherine the Great
• Banished
• Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell

Film

• Belle
• Amazing Grace
• The Favourite
• Portrait of a Lady on Fire
• Emma.
• The Duchess
• A Little Chaos
• Marie Antoinette
• Mary Shelley
• Bright Star
• Beauty and the Beast
• Last of the Mohicans
• The Patriot
• Pirates of the Caribbean
• Interview with a Vampire
• Sleepy Hollow
• John Adams
• Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
• The Royal Affair
• Love and Friendship
• Rob Roy
• Lady J
• Casanova

Theatre

• The Madness of King George
• Hamilton

Games

• Assassin’s Creed III, IV, Rogue and Unity
• The Council
• Return of the Obra Dinn
• We. The Revolution
• Banner of the Maid

Last updated April 23, 2021
This CFP has been viewed 16 times.

CFP Indiana Jones and the Edited Collection of Critical Essays (9/1/2018)

A great idea for a collection:

Indiana Jones and the Edited Collection of Critical Essays
https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2018/05/20/indiana-jones-and-the-edited-collection-of-critical-essays

deadline for submissions: September 1, 2018

full name / name of organization: Randy Laist / McFarland

contact email: rlaist@goodwin.edu


With his signature bullwhip and fedora, the familiar sounds of his orchestral anthem, and his eventful explorations into the arcana of world religions, Indiana Jones – archeologist, adventurer, and ophidiophobe – has become one of the most recognizable heroes of the silver screen. Since his debut in 1981’s Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones has appeared in three sequels, and Steven Spielberg has recently announced that he will soon begin production on a fifth Indiana Jones film. Along the way, the character has spawned a raft of children’s novels, cartoon and live-action television series, and video and role-playing games. Despite the longevity and popularity of the Indiana Jones franchise, however, it has rarely been the focus of academic criticism, a fact which is surprising considering the critical attention enjoyed by other early George Lucas and Steven Spielberg films. As stories about archeology, the Indiana Jones tales reflect an array of ethical questions and representational issues regarding the nature of the past. As stories about an American man globe-trotting in the middle of the twentieth century, Indiana Jones’s adventures intersect with a wide range of cultural narratives about World War II, the late colonial era, and late-century nostalgia for perceived mid-century ideals. As stories about the sacred, Indiana Jones’s quests engage questions about the nature of the sublime, the representation of the otherworldly, and the role of narrative in constructing reality.

McFarland is interested in publishing a multiauthor volume about the Indiana Jones franchise. While the study will approach the subject from a wide range of perspectives, the book will be centered around the theme of the quest. Indiana Jones narratives are propelled by the pursuit of what Hitchcock called the MacGuffin and what Lacan called objet petit a, and they dramatize and comment upon the nature of loss, desire, and ambiguous retrieval, as well as upon the dynamics of acquisitiveness, appropriation, and possession. Indiana Jones’s reclamation of sacred objects illustrates cultural attitudes about how the past is remembered and preserved (or not), how historical truth is defined and organized, and how socio-political power becomes invested in physical artifacts. At the same time, Indiana Jones films are themselves historical artifacts, glowing with the same shimmering aura of signification that Spielberg’s camera imparts to Indy’s quarries. The theme of the quest, therefore, unites the analysis of individual Indiana Jones texts with the wider analysis of Indiana Jones as a cultural reference point.

Chapter topics may include, but are by no means limited to, such subjects as:

• Representations of: archeology, Nazism, the sacred, the past, colonialism, non-Western cultures, mid-century America, World War II, heroism, paternity, globalization, geography, etc.
• Indiana Jones and cinematic pastiche: the inheritance of Gunga Din (1929), King Solomon's Mines (1950), The Secret of the Incas (1954), film noir, etc.
• The relationship between the Indiana Jones films and Spielberg’s other films
• Indiana Jones and the “hard body” action hero of the 1980s
• The extended franchise: children’s novels, Choose Your Own Adventure books, role-playing games, video games, “The Young Indiana Jones,” etc.
• Representations of women: plucky sidekicks, damsels in distress, femmes fatales
• Fan culture, from the Gen-X nostalgia of Raiders! The Story of the Greatest Fan Film Ever Made (2015) to the hostile reception of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)
• Narratology of the artifact: the MacGuffin, le petit object a, the Holy Grail, etc.
• Cultural appropriation and the controversial legacy of Hiram Bingham
• Indiana’s fear of snakes and the theme of threatening encounters with different animal species throughout the series

Please send 300-word abstracts to Randy Laist at rlaist@goodwin.edu by September 1, 2018, or feel free to contact me with queries at any time.

CFP Americana: The Journal of American Popular Culture, 1900 to present for Fall 2018 (10/01/2018)

Americana: The Journal of American Popular Culture, 1900 to present
https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2018/05/30/americana-the-journal-of-american-popular-culture-1900-to-present

deadline for submissions: October 1, 2018

full name / name of organization: Americana

contact email: editor@americanpopularculture.com



Americana at americanpopularculture.com invites submissions in Media Studies, Cultural Studies, American Studies, and American history -- especially as it pertains to Americana popular culture, 1900 to present

DEADLINE: 1 October 2018 for the Fall 2018 edition of Americana: The Journal of American Popular Culture, 1900 to present -- published late December 2018

We welcome a variety of critical approaches on subject matter such as film, television, streaming shows, YouTube shows/channels, sports, bestsellers, venues, fashion, emerging popular culture trends, pop culture and technology, music, politics, style, and other related pop culture topics.

All work is peer reviewed by our Advisory Board readers: http://www.americanpopularculture.com/journal/advisory_board.htm

Please do keep your name off the submission itself as we use the double blind peer review process.

We encourage you to read past issues as well as the current issue if you would like to get a sense of the kind of work we have published: http://www.americanpopularculture.com/journal/index.htm

Guidelines for submission are here: http://www.americanpopularculture.com/journal/call_for_papers.htm

Email submissions to editor@americanpopularculture.com

Thank you. We look forward to reading your research and writing.

CFP 1997 – The Year that Made the Future: A Symposium (expired; Edhe Hill Univeristy, UK 10/26-28-2018)

This seems of potential interest; sorry for the late posting:

1997 – The Year that made the Future: A symposium
https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2018/04/18/1997-%E2%80%93-the-year-that-made-the-future-a-symposium

deadline for submissions: June 8, 2018

full name / name of organization: Matthew Pateman Edge Hill University

contact email: matthew.pateman@edgehill.ac.uk



October 26 - 28, Edhe Hill Univeristy, UK


1997 was a hugely significant year in terms of shaping the modern world. There are iconic popular culture game-changers such as Harry Potter and Buffy the Vampire Slayer; Teletubbies and Titanic. Bollywood continued to make global inroads with films such as Dil To Pagal Hai,and video games became massive with the release of Grand Theft Auto. Fashion saw the murder of Vesrace, the rise of Alexander McQueen and Stella McCartney. The British Empire was being re-defined through appropriation in the Cool Britannia music scene (with McQueen’s complex union flag frock coat and Geri Helliwell’s nationalistic mini-dress), while the UK transferred Hong Kong back to mainland china. Tony Blair spoke of Princess Diana’s death and ushered in the centrist consensus, while a ceasefire in Northern Ireland suggested the chance of peace. The Deep Blue computer beat Grand Master Gary Kasparov at chess, and the domain names Google, Facebook and Netflix were registered; DVD players went on sale in the US for the first time. Stephen Lawrence was murdered in London and there was an overwhelming vote in the UK to ban handguns after the Dunblane massacre to mention nothing of global shifts in politics and trade, EU expansion, climate change agreements and so much else.


This symposium will seek to address, celebrate, critique and understand 1997; to situate it at the birth of the 21st century in terms of the economic, political, cultural and technological events that it witnessed and produced. Wildly multi- and inter-disciplinary in nature, we welcome papers, panels, posters and presentations from any and all subject area as long as the key theme of the importance of 1997 in future developments related to the paper’s subject is addressed. Given the hoped for wide mix of subjects, we ask that you avoid overly-technical papers and assume an informed but non-specialist audience. Papers should be 20 minutes in length, and panel proposals should aim to last for one hour.


It is hoped that there will be screenings / soundings of some of the most memorable visual and audio culture from the year, as well as fashion and other memorabilia. Please feel free to bring your own.


Proposals should be sent to Professor Matthew Pateman by 8th June 2018. I hope to confirm acceptance or otherwise by July 12 with a final programme to be circulated by early September.

Proposals should be sent to matthew.pateman@edgehill.ac.uk.