Call for Papers

Disney Studies @ NEPCA

The Northeast Popular Culture Association (NEPCA) Disney Studies Area invites submissions for NEPCA’s annual conference to be held virtually October 9-11, 2024. Virtual sessions will take place via Zoom. Registration for the conference opens in mid-July. 

Disney Studies invites submissions from scholars and independent researchers for topics related to Disney. The intent behind this area is to foster dialogue about an entertainment corporation that has seeped and inspired many facets of popular culture. Submission topics are welcome for any Disney-related topic, including but not limited to: 

• Theme Parks and hyperreality 
• Animation (films, process) 
• Princesses, Pirates, and everything in between 
• Walt Disney 
• Imagineering and urban planning 
• Disney+, Disney Channel, Disney Junior, The Wonderful World of Disney 
• DisneyNature, the True Life Adventures, and Ecology 
• Diversity and Disney Hegemony 

NOTE: Proposals for acquired properties (e.g. Star Wars, The Muppets) are welcome, but need to connect to Disney. 

The call will be open until July 15, 2025. You can submit your proposal at this link (https://www.northeastpca.org/about-4).

For more information, please visit our 2025 Conference Page (https://www.northeastpca.org/call-for-papers) or e-mail Disney Studies Area Chair Priscilla Hobbs at p.hobbs-penn@snhu.edu.

Silly Old Bear? Adaptations, Appropriations, and Transformations of Winnie-the-Pooh

Silly Old Bear? Adaptations, Appropriations, and Transformations of Winnie-the-Pooh
Co-sponsored by the Monsters & the Monstrous Area and Disney Studies Area
Call for Papers for 2025 Virtual Conference of the Northeast Popular Culture Association (NEPCA)
Thursday, 9 October, to Saturday, 11 October, 2025
Submissions are open until Tuesday, 15 July by 5 PM EDT

A. A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh has always been a bit of a shapeshifter manifesting under various names and appearances since the start of his now over one-hundred-year career as a transmedia figure. Over the past century, Pooh and his associates from the Hundred Acre Wood have been adapted and appropriated to feature in artwork, cards, clothing, collectibles, comics, cookbooks, fiction, films, games, illustrations, memes, musical theater, original videos, philosophical treatises, plays, poems, radio broadcasts, self-help manuals, stuffed animals, songs, streaming video, television programs, theatrical productions, theme park attractions, and translations as well as critical commentaries and works of scholarship. These stories tell of their adventures across time and space, and each text offers a unique approach to the characters. Notably, Pooh and his band have often undergone radical transformations through various parodies and pastiches, with many more innovative approaches appearing since their move into the public domain beginning in 2022. 

In this session, we seek to catalog and critique some of these various takes on Winnie-the-Pooh and his companions. We ask you to explore how these adaptations, appropriations, and transformations of these familiar figures connect to and/or diverge from the Poohian tradition established by Milne and illustrator E. H. Shepard. We want you to uncover what these works might say about the gang from the Hundred Acre Wood, the creators of these new works, and, ultimately, ourselves as the receivers of these texts. We encourage you to make use of the resource guide provided at https://tinyurl.com/SillyOldBearRG in formulating your approach. 

To submit a proposal, please review the requirements and procedure from NEPCA’s main conference page at https://www.northeastpca.org/conference. Proposals should be approximately 250 words; an academic biographical statement (75 words or less) is also requested. Payment of registration and membership fees will be required to present. More details on exact costs will be forthcoming. 

Direct submissions to the Monsters & the Monstrous Area can be made at https://cfp.sched.com/speaker/sTP9T9X3cW/event. Address any questions or concerns to the area chair at popular.preternaturaliana@gmail.com. 

Further information on the Monsters & the Monstrous Area can be accessed on our blog Popular Preternaturaliana: Studying the Monstrous in Popular Culture at https://popularpreternaturaliana.blogspot.com/. 
Further information on the Northeast Popular Culture Association (NEPCA) can be accessed from our new website at https://www.northeastpca.org/.

We Live Again! Disney’s Gargoyles as an Evolving Transmedia Text

We Live Again! Disney’s Gargoyles as an Evolving Transmedia Text
Co-sponsored by the Monsters & the Monstrous Area and Disney Studies Area
Call for Papers for 2025 Virtual Conference of the Northeast Popular Culture Association (NEPCA)
Thursday, 9 October, to Saturday, 11 October, 2025
Submissions are open until Tuesday, 15 July by 5 PM EDT

Conceived by creator Greg Weisman, Disney’s Gargoyles began as a television series in the 1990s and has been expanded over the decades through action figures, books, clothing, collectibles, comics, conventions, fan art, fanfiction, games, puzzles, and recurrent rumors of a live-action reboot. Although now over thirty years old, Gargoyles has remained incredibly popular since its initial debut, yet, while other aspects of Disney Studies are flourishing, scholars have mostly neglected the series. Therefore, we seek in this session to offer some critical attention to Gargoyles and its various adaptations and continuations. 
Proposals should display some knowledge of the history and scope of the series, its adaptation history, and its ongoing evolution. We encourage you to make use of the resource guide provided at https://tinyurl.com/WeLiveAgainRG in formulating your approach. 

To submit a proposal, please review the requirements and procedure from NEPCA’s main conference page at https://www.northeastpca.org/conference. Proposals should be approximately 250 words; an academic biographical statement (75 words or less) is also requested. Payment of registration and membership fees will be required to present. More details on exact costs will be forthcoming. 

Direct submissions to the Monsters & the Monstrous Area can be made at https://cfp.sched.com/speaker/sTP9T9X3cW/event. Address any questions or concerns to the area chair at popular.preternaturaliana@gmail.com. 

Further information on the Monsters & the Monstrous Area can be accessed on our blog Popular Preternaturaliana: Studying the Monstrous in Popular Culture at https://popularpreternaturaliana.blogspot.com/. 
Further information on the Northeast Popular Culture Association (NEPCA) can be accessed from our new website at https://www.northeastpca.org/.

Walt Disney – An Icon of Children’s and Young Adult Culture

Although there have been many studies on the achievements of Walt Disney, his corporation, and the films and other cultural texts (series, books, toys) it has created, in the next issue of Dzieciństwo. Literatura i Kultura [Childhood: Literature and Culture] we would like to once again – also from new perspectives, inspired by the anniversary marking the studio’s 100 years celebrated two years ago – explore the influence of the studio’s founder and the media corporation that emerged from it on the shape of 20th-century and contemporary children’s and young adult culture (especially since this corporation continues to grow and undergoes constant transformations).