Deadline for submissions:  June 15, 2024

Contact email: angela.whyland6@gmail.com

The Northeast Popular Culture Association (NEPCA) The Body, Fashion, and Popular Culture Area invites submissions for NEPCA’s annual conference to be held online October 3 – 5, 2024, and in person at Nichols College, MA. Virtual sessions will take place on Thursday evening and Friday morning via Zoom. In-person sessions will take place on Friday evening and Saturday morning with broadcast via Zoom.

Body and Culture is concerned with the human body as text, both literal and discursive, and how the body’s production of meaning is socially, culturally, historically, psychologically, economically, affectively, and/or politically located. The meanings that culture writes onto bodies, the origins and constructions of those meanings, and the impact those meanings have on bodies so inscribed, become pertinent questions. We welcome topics of any nature dealing with the body — in the body’s most diverse meanings — including the absence of such.

Fashion and Culture is concerned with what covers and surrounds the body. All areas and aspects of style, fashion, clothing, design, and related trends, as well as appearances and/or consumption including the: history, aesthetics, online marketing/branding including celebrity/influencer retailing, youth stylings, psychological/ sociological aspects of dress, image, including construction of personal and cultural identities, in addition to areas relating to purchasing, shopping or alternative sourcing of fashion.

Topics can include, but are not restricted to: 

• The fashion of costumes: Performing characters across genres and eras
• The Body within Fashion: Identity, Slippages, and More
• The business of the body: Age, Skincare, and ‘cosmetic’ surgeries
• Celebrity Influencers, Trend-setters, and the Fashion Mongers 
• Youthful Fashion and the Adolescent Body in Popular YA Literature 

The call will be open until June 15, 2024. You can submit your proposal at this link, which will ask the following questions about your proposal:

• Proposal Type (Single Presentation, Panel, or Roundtable)
• Subject Area
• Working Title
• Academic Affiliation (if any)
• Abstract (250 words)
• Short bio (50-200 words)

If you have questions about the NEPCA Conference please see:  2024 Conference Page or feel free to reach out to NEPCA’S The Body, Fashion, and Popular Culture Area Chairs: Angela Whyland at Angela.whyland6@gmail.com; Hannah Sophie Schiffner, Zeppelin University at h.schiffner@zeppelin-university.net; Protichi Chatterjee, MA, Jawaharlal Nehru University at protichichatterjee@gmail.com. 

ROUNDTABLES: Roundtables allow a group of participants to convene with the goal of generating discussion around a shared concern. Roundtables typically involve shorter position or dialogue statements (5-10 minutes) in response to questions distributed in advance by the organizer. Most of the roundtable session time should be expected to be discussion.