CFP Magics, Marvels, Metamorphoses, and Monsters: Horrors of the Medieval Past, Present, and Future (Virtual) (9/15/2025; ICMS Kalamazoo/Online 5/14-16/2026)

Magics, Marvels, Metamorphoses, and Monsters: Horrors of the Medieval Past, Present, and Future (Virtual)

Co-sponsored by Monsters & the Monstrous Area of the Northeast Popular Culture Association, Association for the Advancement of Scholarship and Teaching of the Medieval in Popular Culture, International Society for the Study of Medievalism


Organized by Michael A. Torregrossa, Bristol Community College, and June-Ann Greeley, Sacred Heart University



Medieval art, culture, and literature contain many elements we view as fantastical today. Images and stories are filled with displays of magic, appearances of marvels, occurrences of metamorphoses, and threats of monsters. All of these are now considered features of the horror genre, but did readers in the Middle Ages perceive them as such? Has our view of the preternatural changed so radically from the medieval era to now? In what ways have these aspects been transformed over time and in new places? We seek to answer these and similar questions in this session designed to unite medieval(ism)ists with colleagues across Monster Studies.


Possible topics:

Demons, dragons, Faerie, gargoyles, giants, the Green Knight, Grendelkin, magic, Melusine, Merlin (his origins/abilities), Morgan le Fay, the Questing Beast, revenants, sea monsters, transformations, vampires, werewolves, wild folk, witches, wonders of the East.


Please post paper submissions into the Confex site using the direct link https://icms.confex.com/icms/2026/prelim.cgi/Session/7279.

Do send any questions to the organizers at popular.preternaturaliana@gmail.com. Submissions are due no later than 15 September 2025.


Please be aware that those accepted to the panel must register for the conference in order to present. Past registration costs can be viewed at https://wmich.edu/medievalcongress/registration. The International Congress on Medieval Studies does offer limited funding as travel awards and subsidized registration costs; details are available at https://wmich.edu/medievalcongress/awards.


For more information about the Monsters & the Monstrous Area of the Northeast Popular Culture Association, do check out our website Popular Preternaturaliana: Studying the Monstrous in Popular Culture: https://popularpreternaturaliana.blogspot.com/.


For more information about the Association for the Advancement of Scholarship and Teaching of the Medieval in Popular Culture, do check out our website Mass Mediævalisms: The Middle Ages of Popular Culture: https://medievalinpopularculture.blogspot.com/.


For more information about the International Society for the Study of Medievalism, do check out our website at https://medievalisms.org/ and consider signing up for our listserv (details at https://medievalisms.org/issm-listserv/).

CFP Sponsored Session - Silly Old Bear? Adaptations, Appropriations, and Transformations of Winnie-the-Pooh (7/15/2025; NEPCA online 10/9-11/2025)

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/. 

CFP Sponsored Session - We Live Again! Disney's Gargoyles as an Evolving Transmedia Text (7/15/2025; NEPCA online 10/9-11/2025)

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/. 

CFP Medieval Monsters as Modern Monsters (virtual) (9/15/2024; ICMS Kalamazoo 5/8-10/2025)

Medieval Monsters as Modern Monsters: Exploring Continuums of the Monstrous (virtual)

Sponsored by Association for the Advancement of Scholarship and Teaching of the Medieval in Popular Culture and Monsters & the Monstrous Area of the Northeast Popular Culture Association

Organized by Michael A. Torregrossa


60th International Congress on Medieval Studies

Western Michigan University (Kalamazoo, Michigan)

Hybrid event: Thursday, 8 May, through Saturday, 10 May, 2025

Please Submit Proposals by 15 September 2024

Session Information

Medieval monsters and ideas about them remain at the base of many of our modern conceptions of monsters and the monstrous, but few studies have explored the tracks of these ongoing traditions for representing monstrosities in the post-medieval world. It is our intention in this session to shed some light on these creations and their impact today.

We seek in this panel to unite the fields of Medieval Studies, Medievalism Studies, Monster Studies, and Popular Culture Studies to highlight the links between medieval monstrosities and their post-medieval incarnations and successors.

We hope presenters will explore both continuity and change in addressing how terrors rooted in the medieval world have been portrayed beyond the Middle Ages and/or how modern monstrosities seem to draw indirectly from medieval traditions.



Thank you for your interest in our session. Please address questions and/or concerns to the organizers at MedievalinPopularCulture@gmail.com.

Submission Information

The process for proposing contributions to sessions of papers, roundtables and poster sessions for the International Congress on Medieval Studies uses an online submission system powered by Confex. Be advised that submissions cannot be accepted through email. Rather, access the direct link in Confex to our session at https://icms.confex.com/icms/2025/paper/papers/index.cgi?sessionid=6429. You can also view the full Call for Papers list at https://wmich.edu/medievalcongress/call.


Within Confex, proposals to sessions of papers, poster sessions and roundtables require the author's name, affiliation and contact information; an abstract (300 words) for consideration by session organizer(s); and a short description (50 words) that may be made public. Proposals to sessions of papers and poster sessions also require a title for the submission (contributions to roundtables are untitled).


Proposers of papers or contributions to roundtables for hybrid sessions should indicate in their abstracts whether they intend to present in person or virtually.


If you need help with your submissions, the Congress offers some resources at the Particpating in the Congress page at https://wmich.edu/medievalcongress/participating-congress. Click to open the section labeled “Propose a Paper” and scroll down for the Quick Guide handouts.



Be advised of the following policies for participating in the Congress:


You are invited to propose one paper (as a sole author or as a co-author) for one session of papers. You may propose a paper for a sponsored or special session or for the general sessions, but not both. You may propose an unlimited number of contributions to roundtables and poster sessions, but you will not be scheduled to actively participate (as paper presenter, roundtable discussant, poster author, presider, respondent, workshop leader, demonstrator or performer) in more than three sessions.


Further details on the Congress’s Policies can be found at https://wmich.edu/medievalcongress/policies-guidelines.



A reminder: Presenters accepted to the Congress must register for the full event. The registration fee is the same for on-site and virtual participants. For planning, the cost for the previous year’s event is posted at the Congress’s Registration page at https://wmich.edu/medievalcongress/registration.


If necessary, the Medieval Institute and Richard Rawlinson Center at Western Michigan University offer limited funding to presenters. These include both subsidized registration grants and travel awards. Please see the Awards page at the Congress site for details at https://wmich.edu/medievalcongress/awards.


For more information on the Association for the Advancement of Scholarship and Teaching of the Medieval in Popular Culture, please visit our website at https://medievalinpopularculture.blogspot.com/.

For more information on the Monsters & the Monstrous Area of the Northeast Popular Culture Association, please visit our website at https://popularpreternaturaliana.blogspot.com/.

CFP Monsters & Monstrous Bodies in American Culture and Society (3/13/2022; NEASA 6/10-11/2022)

Upcoming sponsored session. Sorry for the short notice.



CALL FOR PAPERS

MONSTERS & MONSTROUS BODIES IN AMERICAN CULTURE AND SOCIETY

SPONSORED BY THE MONSTERS & THE MONSTROUS AREA OF THE NORTHEAST POPULAR CULTURE/AMERICAN CULTURE ASSOCIATION


PROPOSALS BY 13 MARCH 2022


We seek paper proposals of 250 words or less to complete a panel on the theme of “Monsters & Monstrous Bodies in American Culture and Society.” Presentations might focus on the representations of monsters and the monstrous in American dramatic or literary texts, visual media, or works of popular culture (such as comics, films, games, or television programing) or on the ways that monsters and the monstrous are created and/or perceived in American society.


This session has been proposed for the 2022 meeting of The New England American Studies Association (NEASA) to convene at Berkshire Community College in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, from 10-11 June 2022.



Please send your proposals, contact information, and a brief academic biography to the session organizers at Popular.Preternaturaliana@gmail.com. We will share them with the conference committee for approval.


***Please Note: Vaccination and masks will be required of all presenters and attendees.***

Questions about the conference and the submission process can be sent to the NEASA Conference Committee at NEASAcouncil@gmail.com.


NEASA will be awarding prizes for the year’s best presentation by a graduate student or non-tenure track scholar (Mary Kelley Prize) and by an undergraduate presenter (Lisa McFarlane Prize). The Lois P. Rudnick prize for the best academic book in American Studies written by a New England scholar or about New England in 2020-21 will also be awarded. (Details and deadlines at https://networks.h-net.org/node/73374/announcements/9793082/new-england-american-studies-association-neasa-awards.)



Further details on The New England American Studies Association can be found at https://newenglandasa.wordpress.com/.


The Monsters & the Monstrous Area maintains a blog at https://popularpreternaturaliana.blogspot.com/ with more information about its objectives as well as resources for furthering the study of monsters.