Revolutions & Revisions in Popular Culture-Collecting and Collectibles Area (2027 PCA 57th National Conference)
Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Organization: Popular Culture Association PCA/ACA
Event: 2027 PCA 57th National Conference
PCA Annual Conference, March 24-27, 2027: Boston, Massachusetts
The Collecting and Collectibles Area invites proposals exploring how “collecting” has become an embodiment of the economic, political, environmental, and digital precarities that shape contemporary popular culture. Collecting now operates as a dynamic source for epistemic production, constantly redefining how popular culture is constructed, construed, mediated, valorized, historicized, and even contested.
The 2027 PCA conference theme is “Revolutions & Revisions in Popular Culture.” Presenters in Collecting and Collectibles Area are invited to consider how their work might engage with questions of transformation, reinterpretation, innovation, resistance, adaptation, or cultural change. Theme-related proposals are welcome but not required, and all submissions relevant to the area will receive full consideration.
We welcome contributions that integrate practice-based, collaborative, comparative, transnational and cross-cultural approaches and involve innovative methods, community engagement, public and digital humanities to address topics including, but not limited to:
--Emerging Technologies of Collecting: AI and collecting cultures, virtual archives, NFTs and blockchain collectibles, social media collecting communities, online marketplaces and economies, smart museums, mixed- reality collections, and AI-enabled smart twins of museums
--Participatory Collecting Culture: Gaming memorabilia and sports collections, comic books, manga, anime, and graphic novels, fan archives, and exclusive/ limited editions
--Popular Media collecting: Film and television memorabilia, music and vinyl records, cassettes, CDs, concert and artist-branded merchandise, celebrity memorabilia, fast-food promotional premiums, licensed toys, action figure and doll sets, LEGO, and theme park merchandise
-- Heritage and Transcultural collecting: counter archives and collectibles, indigenous collections, digitality and heritage preservation, migration and portable collectibles, cultural diplomacy collections
-- Crisis Collecting: Climate change and at-risk collections, pandemic collecting, trauma and collecting, sustainable and ethical colleting, resilient collections, commemorative coins and medals, satirical magazines, post-collapse souvenirs, war memorabilia
-- Consumer Culture and Collecting: Auctions and collector markets and communities, investment collecting, branding and nostalgic collecting, resale platforms
-- Materiality of Collecting: household collectibles, stamps, travel souvenirs, and their digital adaptations
We welcome individual papers, complete panels, creative presentations, and interdisciplinary collaborations. Scholars, independent researchers, graduate students, and undergraduate students are encouraged to submit.
Membership in the PCA is needed to submit a proposal.
Submit a title and 150–200 word abstract through the PCA submission system.
https://pcaaca.org/page/submissionguidelines
Presentations are typically 15–20 minutes. For complete panels, each participant should submit individually.
For questions, please contact the Area Chair:
Majda R. Atieh, Sultan Qaboos University, m.atieh@squ.edu.om
Important Dates to Remember:
· Database opens for Submissions - Aug. 1, 2026
· Early Bird Registration Begins - Aug. 1, 2026
· Deadline for Paper Proposals - Oct. 31, 2026
· Travel Grant Applications Due - Nov. 15, 2026
· Early Bird Registration Ends for Presenters - Dec. 31, 2026
· Travel Grant Decisions / Notifications - Dec. 31, 2026
· Regular Registration Begins for Presenters - Jan. 1, 2027
· Preliminary Program draft available - Jan. 6, 2027
· Regular Registration Ends for Presenters - Jan. 31, 2027
· Late Registration Starts for Presenters - Feb. 1, 2027
Those Presenters Not Registered by Feb. 15 Will be Dropped from the Program
CONFERENCE IN BOSTON, MA - March 24-27, 2027
Majda R. Atieh