Popular Culture and World Politics V12: Popular Culture Matters!
16-18 January, 2020
University of Leeds, Leeds, UK
Deadline for submission of paper, panel, and roundtable abstracts: 6 December, 2019
The study of popular culture is at an important cross-roads. Whilst growing rapidly within the field of world politics, it is still often seen as fun, merely an adjunct to the serious work which do. Yet in an age of rising populism, in which the boundaries between the political, the popular, the cultural and world politics are increasingly blurred it is perhaps time to take stock and ask: where are we now and where should we go?
Increasingly our experiences of the ‘political’ are shaped and framed by understandings which we gain through and from popular culture. Few of us ever directly experience war yet we repeatedly engage with popular culture experiences of war and conflict. Our sense of other cultures, times and places is often shaped by popular culture in ways which we may not fully appreciate. Concerns are rising that nostalgia, popular culture and populism may be interceding in society in ways that are perhaps unknown and unknowable.
PCWP10 asked us to explore beyond disciplinary boundaries; whilst PCWP11 asked us to explore new agendas for PCWP. This conference has perhaps less lofty aims, instead seeking to simply celebrate the importance of popular culture and world politics in all its forms and build on the work which those conferences began. There remain important and urgent needs to increase the diversity of scholarly work on popular culture and world politics by increasing inter-disciplinary work, enhancing connections with practitioners, sharpening up our methods, and challenging the dominant focus which the global north has on our popular imaginary.
Our conference will bring together leading and emerging scholars who are currently exploring the state of the art in their respective disciplines with regards to the mutual constitution of popular culture and world politics.
A central concern of the conference is to empower researchers across disciplines and to foster dialogues across disciplinary and methodological boundaries. Thus, we aim to offer a supportive and developmental environment for researchers from all career stages, institutional homes, theoretical backgrounds, and methodological orientations. We are also very minded that many people may prefer to reduce their carbon footprint and participate remotely – please contact us direct if that would be appealing.
Submission Instructions:
Abstract submissions may include individual papers, panels, or roundtables. Each panel/roundtable submission should include 5 papers/presenters.
For individual papers please include your contact details. For panel and roundtable submissions please include the contact details for all participants as well as the convener.
Submissions should be sent to pcwpv12@gmail.com by the 6th December 2019.
Please include paper/panel/roundtable information in the body of the email and/or as an attachment in PDF format.
We aim to inform proposers on the status of their submissions by 18th December 2019.
We look forward to welcoming you to Leeds!