CFP: "Post-Fossil Fuel Futures & Utopian Imaginaries in Popular Culture"
jeffreyhbarber
Call for Proposals/Presentations on
Post-Fossil Fuel Futures and Ecotopian Imaginaries
in Popular Culture
Ecology & Culture Area
Popular Culture Association 56th National Conference
Atlanta on April 8-11, 2026
Submissions open September 1 until November 30
The Ecology and Culture Area of the Popular Culture/American Culture Association is soliciting papers that address different aspects of this broad theme of the ways popular culture (movies, fiction, theater, futurism, environmental initiatives, climate justice, and other ecological and ecocultural initiatives) imagine (or fail to imagine) a world no longer dominated by fossil fuels.
While the climate crisis, rising temperatures and sea levels, relentlessly challenge our civilization and human ability and willingness to move beyond our current existential geopolitical and cultural stalemate, popular culture offers the means to play out possible scenarios, practices, policies, and imaginaries of how a better future world might unfold.
How does popular cultural, through movies, novels, comics, theater, games, music, and other forms express, reflect, and explore different ecocultural problems, aspirations, obstacles, and possibilities in efforts to create sustainable futures?
Other themes and topics on ecology and culture are also welcome. Some examples include:
· Changing media representations of nature
· Ecofeminist imaginaries
· Ecocritical reviews and essays
· Projects and campaigns to protect wilderness and other natural places
· Climate fiction and its audiences
· Solar punk futures and aesthetics
· Postcolonial ecologies and literature
· Hollywood’s obsession with eco-terrorism
· Post-apocalyptic realism and environmental catastrophe
· Ecological worldbuilding in gaming/VR
· The emergence and impact of the environmental humanities
· Eco-spirituality and faith-based activism
· Typologies of utopia/dystopia discourse
· Contemporary and classic eco-fiction
· Nature and settler colonialism in film & television history
· Diversity, equity & inclusion in ecocultural perspectives
· Eco-criticism/eco-critical theory
· Anthropocene narrative theory
· Cultural, social, and political ecologies
· Documentaries on future ecological impacts and proposals
· Eco-activist podcasting
Sessions are scheduled in 1½ hour slots, typically with four papers or speakers per standard session. Presentations should not exceed 15 minutes. Working professionals, scholars, educators, and graduate students are all encouraged to submit.
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 http://pcaaca.org.
Please be sure to specify this is for the Ecology and Culture Area.
Jeffrey Barber
Integrative Strategies Forum
Chair, Ecology & Culture Area