Deadline: October 31, 2026
Contact: Jeffrey Barber, Area Chair, Popular Culture Association
Email: jeffreyisforum@gmail.com
Phone: 3015885550
“Like the other great revolutions, the coming sustainability revolution will also change the face of the land and the foundations of human identities, institutions, and cultures. Like the previous revolutions, it will take centuries to unfold fully–though it is already under way.”
– Donnella Meadows
The Ecology & Culture Area of the Popular Culture Association is soliciting abstracts for papers/presentations at the 2027 National Conference, March 24-27 in Boston. Our Ecology & Culture Area theme this year is “Ecocultural Sensibility and the Sustainability Revolution” (other ecology & culture topics are welcome).
For centuries, popular culture has generated stories and visions of life across the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions. As humanity and the planet transition into the next major historical, socio-technological transformation, described in hopeful and determined terms as a Sustainability Revolution, this too falls to popular culture to interrogate, imagine and reflect on the many implications for individuals and communities in notions such as the Anthropocene, the Great Acceleration, climate change, plastic and chemical pollution, species extinction, and other anthropocentric legacies.
The works of writers such as Kim Stanley Robinson, Ursula LeGuin, Richard Powers, Ernest Callenbach are often noted. Challenging the dominant political and economic mainstream, highlighting the consequences of fossil fuels, hyper-consumerism, pesticides, poverty and the neo-colonial ambitions and assumptions of endless economic growth, empire-building, and environmental exploitation, how has popular culture responded? In what ways has popular culture explored, interrogated, reflected upon the nature and challenges of this movement of people, practices and visions, documenting the gradual shift in perception, values, ethics, aesthetics and identity of an emerging ecocultural sensibility?
We welcome presentations exploring any of the many dimensions and examples in popular culture of this historical transformation taking place. We welcome individual papers, complete panels, roundtables, workshops, creative presentations and interdisciplinary collaborations. Scholars, independent researchers, graduate and undergraduate students are encouraged to submit.
Sessions are scheduled in 1½ hour slots, typically with four papers or speakers per standard session. Submit a title and 150–200 word abstract through the PCA submission system. Presentations are typically 15 minutes. For complete panels, each participant should submit individually, and one organizer should contact the area co-chairs with the panel title and participant list.
Proposal submission deadline: October 31.
Travel grant application deadline: November 15.
Travel grant notification by December 31.
Early registration deadline: December 31.
Regular registration deadline: January 31.
PCA Annual Conference: March 24-27.
Interested individuals are asked to submit an abstract of no more than 250 words (including presentation title) and complete contact information (name, institutional affiliation, mail and e-mail addresses, and contact telephone number) through https://pcaaca.org/page/submissionguidelines. Please be sure to note this abstract is for the Ecology & Culture Area.
Posted on August 31, 2026
