CFP: Popular Arts Conference 2024

The Popular Arts Conference (PAC) invites submissions for our 17th Annual meeting in Atlanta, Georgia, August 30 – September 2, 2024.

PAC is an annual academic conference for the study of comics and the popular arts, including science/speculative fiction and fantasy literature, film, and other media; comic books; manga; graphic novels; anime; gaming; etc., presented to a mixed audience of scholars and fans. The mission of PAC is to promote scholarship on popular culture and to encourage the engagement between scholars and fans in order to deepen our understanding of the popular arts. PAC presentations are peer reviewed, based in scholarly research.

(PAC is formerly known as the Comics and Popular Arts Conference or CPAC. We have changed our name to better represent the breadth of our work as well as to avoid confusion with groups and events with similar names or acronyms. While comics scholarship continues to be an exciting part of each year's conference, we believe that this change better represents the diverse range of scholarly topics and approaches for which our Conference is known.)

Please submit a proposal that engages in substantial scholarly examinations of comic books/graphic novels, anime, manga, science/speculative fiction, fantasy, or other parts of popular culture.

A broad range of disciplinary and theoretical perspectives is being sought, including, but not limited to, proposals pertaining to literary and art criticism, philosophy, linguistics, history, communications, law, pedagogy, and natural and social sciences. Some examples of appropriate subjects include: discussions of the nature of the comics medium; the science of a particular franchise; how to utilize pop culture in the classroom; analyses of particular works or authors; cross-cultural and cross-medium comparisons; etc. 

PAC talks are presented to a mixed audience of academics and fans, and take place in conjunction withDragonCon, a large multi-media, popular culture convention. Presentations should be prepared with a general audience in mind. Presenters must register for DragonCon if their paper is accepted in order to present. Presenters from out of town should make lodging arrangements far in advance.

Please note that PAC is an in-person conference. Applicants should make arrangements to be available to present on any of the conference’s four days. Due to the unique nature of PAC and its venue, organizers are generally not able to accommodate requests from presenters to select their presentation day(s).

Submissions Deadline: To receive the fullest consideration, proposals will be submitted by December 15, 2023.

For more information and to submit, please visit our website at https://populararts.org/2024-cfp/