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 studies 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 with DragonCon, 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).
Individual and group submissions should both be tailored to fit in one of the following tracks:
| Comics | Animation | |
| American SF Media | Digital Media | Diversity in Speculative Fiction |
| Electronic Frontiers Forum | Sci-Fi Literature | Star Trek |
| Tabletop Gaming | Horror | Paranormal Fiction |
| Video Gaming | Apocalyptic /Post-Apocalyptic | Alt History /Steampunk |
| American SFClassics | Urban Fantasy | Fantasy Literature |
| Military SciFi | Puppetry | Star Wars |
| Asian Cinema & Culture | High Fantasy | Young Adult Lit |
While there may be great intellectual merit in cross-track proposals, or proposals that include materials covered by various tracks, administratively, it can be very difficult to place such proposals. We prefer that you select one topic per proposal, though if your proposal would fully fit either track, you may select two.
We are interested in proposals for any of the above tracks, not only Comics.
Submission instructions: please follow the submission instructions for the kind of presentation as listed below. Prospective participants may submit multiple proposals, but only one per track.
For individual papers and presentations: please submit up to 500 word abstracts (not including preliminary bibliography) to the link below. While the conference is attended by a diverse audience, your abstract should be targeted towards academic peer reviewers.
For group panels and presentations: in addition to the up to 500 word abstract, you should submit a 1-2 page document that further explains the rationale for a group session and explains the format and the planned contributions of all panelists. Group panels should not be individual papers loosely organized around a theme, but genuinely collaborative presentations with a strong reason to be considered as a group as opposed to individually. While the conference is attended by a diverse audience, your abstract should be targeted towards academic peer reviewers.
For informal sessions such as roundtables, workshops, and book sessions: please submit an abstract of up to 500 words to the link below, plus a 1-2 page document that outlines the objective of the workshop or roundtable, or a brief description of the format of the book session including title and subject matter of the book (author meets critic, book discussion, etc).
For all proposals, because this is an interdisciplinary conference, and because the reviewers come from a variety of scholarly and intellectual backgrounds, it can be to your benefit to include explicit language describing your critical approach or references the literatures your work is drawing on and responding to.
Please submit your proposal via the following link:
Submissions Deadline: To receive the fullest consideration, proposals will be submitted by December 31, 2023 (deadline extended!)
This submission process is open to everyone, but we are especially interested in receiving submissions from members of those groups traditionally underrepresented in academia, such as women, LGTBQIA+ academics, and academics of color.
Send any questions to: organizers@comicspopularartsconference.org