The Popular Arts Conference (PAC) invites submissions for our 19th Annual meeting in Atlanta, Georgia, September 3-7, 2026.
PAC is an annual academic conference for the studies of the popular arts, including science/speculative fiction and fantasy literature, film, and other media; comic books and graphic novels; anime and manga; tabletop and video 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 engagement between scholars and fans in order to deepen our understanding of the popular arts. PAC presentations are peer reviewed, based on scholarly research.
Please submit a proposal that engages in substantial scholarly examinations of comic books/graphic novels, anime, manga, science/speculative fiction, fantasy, fandoms, or other parts of popular culture.
A broad range of disciplinary and theoretical perspectives is sought, including but not limited to proposals pertaining to literary and art criticism, cultural studies, history, communications, philosophy, linguistics, pedagogy, law, and scientific studies. Some examples of appropriate subjects include: discussions of the nature of the comics medium; how to utilize pop culture in the classroom; analyses of particular works or authors; cross-cultural and cross-medium comparisons; social-scientific studies of fandom cultures; 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. Because DragonCon involves tens of thousands of fans descending on downtown Atlanta presenters from out of town are encouraged to make lodging arrangements far in advance and may wish to consider booking refundable tickets before receiving a decision on their proposal. Membership fees also increase periodically throughout the year, becoming more expensive closer to the event.
Please note that PAC is an in-person conference. Applicants should make arrangements to be available to present on any of the conference’s five days, including Monday. 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), and we may not know the final date and time of presentations until only a few weeks before the conference.
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 submission type. Note that all submissions require a PDF file upload as specified below. All submission types should be prepared for anonymous review.
For individual papers and presentations: Please submit up to 500 word abstracts plus preliminary bibliography. Your abstract should be pasted into the submission form and your abstract and bibliography should be uploaded as a PDF.
For group panels and presentations: In addition to the up to a 500 word abstract pasted into the submission form, you should submit a 1-2 page PDF document that further explains the rationale for a group session and explains the format and the planned contributions of all panelists. Group panels do typically consist of each panelist giving a formal talk, but they should not be individual papers loosely organized around a theme. The proposal should be a genuinely collaborative, synthetic panel with a strong reason for the presenters to be considered as a group as opposed to individually. (Note that sessions will generally be limited to a 1-hour time slot.)
For informal sessions such as roundtables, workshops, and book sessions: Please submit an abstract of up to 500 words pasted into the submission form, 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, summary of the book, and session format (author meets critic, book discussion, etc). (Note that sessions will generally be limited to a 1-hour time slot.)
For all proposals, because this is an interdisciplinary conference, and because the reviewers come from a variety of scholarly and intellectual backgrounds, it is to your benefit to include explicit language describing your critical approach or references to the literatures your work is drawing on and responding to.
While the conference is attended by a diverse audience, your abstract should be targeted towards academic peer reviewers.
Please submit your proposal via the following link:
Submissions Deadline: To receive the fullest consideration, proposals will be submitted by January 12, 2026. Submissions that come in after this deadline may still be considered, on a case-by-case basis.
Presenters should tentatively expect to receive notification regarding their submission to PAC 2026 before the end of February. Please note: final acceptance to the conference is contingent upon DragonCon track scheduling which will come closer to the convention.
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: info@populararts.org