The Fan Studies Network

The 3rd International Conference on Furry Studies
Location: Parramatta, New South Wales, Australia / Online Streaming
Date: July 2027, Wed-Thurs before Aurawra 2027


Theme: Feeling the ‘fur’

The furry community, once an Internet subculture with roots in animation and comics (Strike 2017), has seen individuals gain visibility in mainstream consciousness. For example, the consecutive esports champion player, SonicFox, asserts their nonbinary, Black and Asian, furry, and gay identity on social media, using these platforms to delegitimise hate (Wagner 2024). The acumen required to have healthy discussions under hyper-attention in the public eye is tricky to attain, as furries are often readily dismissed by society standards as “cringe”, unworthy of critical discussion on self-expression and acceptance (Wolf 2024).

In scholarship, furry can be understood as a “flexible and self-defined identity term” that signals a person’s participation in the furry community (Zaman and Anderson-Nathe 2025, 2). Furries here is used as an umbrella term that encompasses people who engage in imaginary anthropomorphic acts of creation and self-expression, as well as fans of other furries and their imaginations. Popular media depict furries with photos of fursuiters, or people wearing fursuits, often referred to by laypeople as mascot costumes. Fursuits have been described as “works of craftsmanship, typically made out of a foam base or resin with fur sewn atop it—designed to approximate the visage of an animal” (Esther 2025). Though studies show that most furries do not own a full or partial suit (Plante et al. 2023), their definitions are by no means singular nor fixed (Mount 2024). That is to say, definitions of furry continue to evolve as communities shift alongside complex fandom tendencies, hold space for individual expressions, and offer collective creative possibility.

Much academic research has been carried out by furries themselves interested in doing community-based projects. Specifically, FurScience has in the past focused on furry convention attendees in the United States (Plante et al. 2023). They have since begun to do research in international conventions like Eurofurence and Japan Meeting of Furries. More work is needed to centre furry communities both online and offline in Central and South America, Europe, Asia, and Africa. One example is the kemono communities that grew from Japanese roots, different from the North American cartoon animation scene, and have a distinct culture from western furry understandings (Inokuchi et al. 2024).

Outside researchers entering furry spaces tend to conflate furry communities as if it were a cohesive, singular community, overlooking the fact that each country, city, and neighbourhood has its own flavour of furry. To be clear, researching furries by non-furs is welcome, and anyone interested in furry culture can undertake rigorous academic inquiry and creative practice alongside furries. However, there is yet insufficient research that can effectively equip scholars to discuss furry. We argue that the internal terminologies, sociologies, technologies, and “significant emotional investment and deep personal feelings” (Freeman and Acena 2022, 9) from the furry community requires more than existing established methodologies, but methodologies that synthesise research analysis with one’s positionality and relationship to the furry community, taking into account “how furry ecologies are never just furry” (yerf 2020).


Call for Proposals

As organisers of the 3rd International Conference on Furry Studies, we call for new research that creatively engages with furry culture and community. Recalling that the theme of the first year asked, “What does it mean to be furry?”, and the second year focused on furry worldbuilding on the global stage, this third iteration of Furry Studies asks, “How do furries use fursuits, fursonas, and the feeling of ‘fur’ to navigate identity, belonging, and collective creativity?”

This call for proposals aims to shine a light on greater understanding of fursuits, fursonas (portmanteau of furry-personas) and other concepts specific or adjacent to furry. This includes research on therians and otherkins, though we recognise that they are distinct identities from furry with overlapping communities. Below are some topics to ground your thinking. This list is by no means exhaustive, and we encourage proposals that go beyond these suggestions: 

Furry and identity: furry for self-expression and identity, furry as a cultural category that identifies a person who participates in furry spaces, and the exploration of difference.
Co-creation of fursonas and furry works: social creation and evolution of fursonas, collaboration among furry creators, and the co-development of creative furry works in visual art, music, film, games, writing, and more.
Fursuit feelings: theoretical and affective knowledge generated through making, wearing, acting, and interacting with, fursuits and their accessories.
Gender, sexuality, and fursona species: exploration of the self, and issues in intersectional regulatory boundaries, working towards social and self acceptance, and the affirmative practices within furry communities.
Furry representation: analysis and critique of popular depictions of individual furries and furry groups in media, fandom, and global cultures.
Furry technologies: inventions and reappropriations of materials and tools that can become an extension of the body for exploring furry expressions.
Furry cultures: studies of furry practices within specific regions in relation to international communities, recognising that furry communities vary greatly from country to country, and city to city.
Sex, kink, and furries: adult aspects, erotic pleasure and felt feelings in furry culture situated within wider societal contexts.
Queer, trans, and furry: putting furry in conversation with queer studies and trans studies toward the development of new research methods for furry studies, with an ear turned to the precarity of existing within a cis/heteronormative society.
Furry and fan culture: consumption of wider popular cultural media, production of furry-made fan fiction and media, and their economic interactions.
Furry and the state: researching political movements and narratives that attempt to target furry and its impact on individual furries and the larger furry community.
Race and racism in furry: critiques of racial narratives (or the perceived lack thereof) in furry spaces, media, and critical discussions, and strategies for inclusion, equity, and solidarity.
Furry spaces and events: understanding how furry spaces, such as furry convention hotels, room parties, raves, and furmeets, have shaped culture throughout time.
Furry Studies seeks to hold space for inclusive values and welcomes researchers and students at all stages of careers as well as independent scholars. We also encourage submissions from non-academic furries and welcome creative presentation formats such as photographic, audio, and video accounts.

The conference welcomes both in-person and remote presentations.


What we’re looking for

We categorise submissions into two types: 1) academic papers and 2) community talks. Submissions should use the template provided. As scholars ourselves, we recognise the issue with categorisation and welcome submissions that push these boundaries.

If you have any supplementary audio/visual files, you may host them elsewhere and share links directly in the document. Authors are responsible for hosting supplementary files for peer review.


Download Proposal Template



Submit a Proposal

Submission closes on 8 January 2027.

Upload your submission using the template in Word (.docx) or Open Document Format (.odt).


Academic papers

Academic papers are research presentations. Submissions should describe:

the research background context
motivation
aim
method
overview of findings
initial analyses
expected contributions
list of references
and a brief author biography
Academic papers are expected to be in conversation with prior literature and provide a list of references. Submissions must be new and have not been previously published elsewhere.

Creative practitioners with a research-oriented practice are encouraged to submit to this category.

Furry Studies is an interdisciplinary conference and welcomes authors’ home discipline citation style of choice, as long as they are consistent. Submissions must be at least 500 words and be no longer than 1000 words excluding references and author biographies. Panel submissions are welcome in the form of academic papers and should include a list of presenters and their presentation topics in brief.


Community talks

Community talk submissions should describe:

the topic
a brief background
main points of discussion
what the audience will take away
and a brief author biography
Community talks are in-depth presentations about furry culture, history, and communities, and not theoretical or practiced-based research in nature. Past presenters include Moms of Furries and Furries at Berkeley.

Furs who have experience in organising and producing furry community events, and have “furry knowledge” to share in an academic format are encouraged to submit to this category.

A good community talk is one that generates further questions and conversations throughout the Furry Studies conference and the communities beyond. Submissions must be at least 300 words and be no longer than 1000 words. References are optional.


Submission deadline

8 January 2027

All submissions will be put through a single-blind peer review process, meaning the submissions are not anonymised, with at least one reviewer from the furry studies community. You will be notified of the panel’s decision on 5 February 2027.

Furry Studies welcome submissions from artists, musicians, filmmakers, writers, and technologists and more forms of creative practice. If you’d like to speak to your practice in an academic setting, use either category that suits you the most.

For questions related to the call for proposals, please contact the Conference Chair, Dr Xavier Ho / Spaxe Austral, at xavier.ho@monash.edu.

General enquiries to Furry Studies and its activities can be made to the Furry Studies Board at hello@furrystudies.org.


Frequently asked questions

When are the exact dates for Furry Studies 2027?
Furry Studies will coincide with one of Australia’s major furcons, Aurawra, aiming on the Wednesday and Thursday before the convention around July 2027. When the official dates are announced, we will update the call for proposals, our website, and social media.

I’m new to furry research, and I’m not sure which category my submission fits in?
We plan on hosting a proposal workshop at a later date which will include resources and writing best practices, and an opportunity to ask questions to Furry Studies. Stay tuned for updates on https://furrystudies.org.

I have event ideas that I’d like to pitch, but it doesn’t fit either of the two submission categories?
Please email your idea to hello@furrystudies.org. As an academic conference run by furries for furries, we are always looking for ways to include folks. Please note that as a not-for-profit research organisation, we are unable to accept event ideas that are primarily commercial in nature.

My research is by creative practice and includes more than oral presentations. How do I submit?
Furry Studies welcomes non-traditional forms of research, which includes time-based media, live performance, interactive exhibition, and experimental works that may be interesting to attendees of furry studies. Please submit your work via the same template and include any technical requirements for your presentation.

I’m not a researcher. How can I help out Furry Studies?
Furry Studies presentations are open to the public. Follow us on Bluesky, YouTube, and Telegram for when registration opens.

I’ve read this far and I still don’t understand what Furry Studies is?
Take a look at our 2025 full conference recording on YouTube.


References

Esther, Alec. 2025. “Brushing Up Against Species: Transgender Feminist Worldbuilding through Fursuit Practices.” Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Furry Studies, 19.

Freeman, Guo, and Dane Acena. 2022. “‘Acting Out’ Queer Identity: The Embodied Visibility in Social Virtual Reality.” Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction 6 (CSCW2): 1–32. https://doi.org/10.1145/3555153.

Inokuchi, Tomohiro, Yunfan Mao, and Midoriko Hayashi. 2024. “The Past and the Present of the Fandom in East Asia: Cases of Japan and China.” Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Furry Studies, 14–15.

Mount, Reuben. 2024. “I Bark, Therefore I Am: The Creation of the Fursona and Its Representation of Identity in the Furry Fandom.” Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Furry Studies, 10–11.

Plante, Courtney, Stephen Reysen, and Sharon Roberts. 2023. Furscience: A Decade of Psychological Research on the Furry Fandom.

Strike, Joe. 2017. Furry Nation. Cleis Press.

Wagner, Travis L. 2024. “‘FUCK THIS CHARACTER I’M JUST GOING TO GET STRONGER’: SonicFox’s Hypermediation of Blackness and Queerness as Radical Archival Embodiment.” In Queer and Femme Gazes in AfroAsian American Visual Culture, edited by Rebecca Kumar and Seulghee Lee. Springer Nature Switzerland. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-67698-7_5.

Wolf, Chipper. 2024. “Furry History As Media Literacy.” Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Furry Studies, 25.

yerf. 2020. “On Furry: Technology, Subjectivity, and Narratives.” https://yerfology.wordpress.com/.

Zaman, Hazel A., and Ben Anderson-Nathe. 2025. “A Hermeneutic Phenomenological Exploration of Fursona Embodiment by TGE Youth of Color.” International Journal of LGBTQ+ Youth Studies, September 25, 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1080/29968992.2025.2564982.

CONSOLE-ING PASSIONS
International Conference on Television, Video, Audio, New Media, and Feminism
28-30 June 2027
University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands

“Provokaties zijn aanleidingen | Provocations are catalysts” 
Roel van Duyn, “Van palingoproer tot provohappening,”  Provo, no. 3 (22 September 1965)

Console-ing Passions was founded in 1989 by a group of feminist media scholars and artists looking to create a space to present work and foster feminist scholarship on issues of television, culture, and identity. Since its first conference at the University of Iowa in 1992, Console-ing Passions has expanded to become not only the most important conference for scholars studying gender in television but also among the top conferences for feminist scholars of media more broadly.

In 2027, Console-ing Passions comes to Amsterdam under the theme Provocations. Our motto takes inspiration from Amsterdam’s Provo movement and Roel van Duyn’s proposition that provocations are aanleidingen: they serve as catalysts to create occasions (or the Provos’ favorite word, “happenings”) in which pre-existing as well as emergent conflicts and contradictions become visible. Amsterdam offers a resonant history for thinking about provocation in these terms, from the Provos’ playful interventions in public life to feminist and queer actions that used disruption and media visibility to challenge established norms and inequalities. In line with this genealogy, we envision CP 2027 becoming such an occasion: a provocative space for feminist media scholarship to encounter, question, and rework its objects, histories, methods, and futures. 

The 2027 Conference Organizing Committee in the Department of Media Studies / Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis (ASCA) at the University of Amsterdam invites proposals for individual papers, pre-constituted panels, and pre-constituted roundtables addressing media, broadly conceived, through intersectional feminist perspectives, including questions of gender, sexuality, race, class, disability, coloniality, and other systems of power and inequality. Proposals need not address the conference theme, but we particularly welcome reflections on what provocation might mean for feminist media studies. How have media and media practices been provocative, and how do understandings of what is “provocative” change and collide? Who gets to provoke, and who is presumed to be provocative by speaking, appearing, desiring, refusing, embracing or making media? What happens when boundaries between media, disciplines, generations, publics, or forms of knowledge are disturbed? How might provocation operate epistemologically or methodologically, making different objects, archives, relations, pleasures, or ways of knowing perceptible? And what might such questions provoke us to reconsider about the histories, boundaries, and futures of feminist media scholarship itself?

CP 2027 will be an in-person conference because this is a better experience for everyone involved. Virtual participation can be accommodated, but only in exceptional circumstances and on a case-by-case basis. 
We are working to make childcare and mobility support available during CP 2027 and will provide further information as options are confirmed.

Submission Guidelines
We invite proposals in the following formats:

Individual papers
A title and abstract of up to 300 words.

Pre-constituted panels
Three papers plus one provocateur, who will offer a critical response and moderate the discussion. Proposals should include a panel title, a 150-word rationale, and a title and abstract of up to 300 words for each paper.

Pre-constituted roundtables 
Four or five participants and one provocateur, who will moderate and enliven the discussion. Roundtables should be designed around exchange rather than a sequence of short papers. Proposals should include a title and up to 400 words identifying the central question or tension, explaining the envisioned format and participants’ contributions, and indicating how the session will create space for wider discussion. Experimental and original formats are particularly welcome.

All proposals should include a brief biographical note of up to 100 words for each participant. Panels and roundtables bringing together different career stages, institutional locations, and perspectives are encouraged.
A delegate may participate in a maximum of two capacities across the conference programme.

Proposals should be submitted via this form by Tuesday, 1 December 2026, 23:59 Central European Time (CET). Submission link: https://forms.gle/1i62NU3NGJ3SYbwJ7
Notifications of acceptance will be sent in late January 2027.

For questions about the conference or the submission process, please contact the organizing committee at cp27-fgw@uva.nl.
Please watch for updates and news at http://www.console-ingpassions.org/ and on the conference website, which is expected to go live at the end of September.

Conference Organizers: Misha Kavka and Balázs Boross
Department of Media Studies / ASCA, University of Amsterdam

October 28–30, 2024 | Indiana University Cinema | Bloomington, IN

Blockbuster films have been instrumental to the evolution of the art and economics of the film industry for decades. What Charles Acland (2020) calls the “blockbuster strategy”— “the rationale that embraces the big-budget cross-media production at the expense of other industrial and artistic approaches” (8)—underpins contemporary industrial, technological, and aesthetic models of global blockbuster filmmaking. Yet, blockbusters are on the precipice of change, and in the U.S., they are showing their first signs of sustained destabilization. Black Widow and The Eternals (both 2021) were the first two Marvel Cinematic Universe films to fail to make back their costs in theatrical release. Several box-office failures from established franchises landed in 2023, including The Marvels, Shazam: Fury of the Gods, The Flash, Ant-Man and Wasp: Quantumania, and Transformers: Rise of the Beasts. That same year, Disney announced a decrease in funding and content development in the Star Wars and Marvel franchises. High-profile film cancellations like Batgirl, Black Adam 2, and Wonder Woman 3, combined with company streaming losses from subscriber plateaus and high-cost-low-return blockbuster franchise TV production, signal a growing caution around the form. Simultaneously, Hollywood continues to depend on international markets as the primary revenue drivers even while global blockbusters are thriving outside of Hollywood’s influence. Indeed, the global success of India’s RRR (2022) and China’s homegrown blockbusters like The Battle at Lake Changjin II (2022) and Moon Man (2022) generated hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue.     

Despite the complexity of these variables and the associated turbulence they engender, it’s clear blockbusters won’t be abandoned by global film industries anytime soon. As we approach the next phase of the blockbuster, this conference is interested and invested in thinking through the past and present of global blockbusters, broadly constructed, to imagine blockbuster futures across medium, industries, geographies, time, business models, genres, forms, and aesthetics.

Encouraged topics can include but are not limited to:

• Intersections of blockbusters and race, representation, gender, and/or sexuality
• Blockbusters as sites of transnational flows of financial and cultural capital
• Blockbusters and geopolitical impacts on cultural creation
• Blockbusters and postcolonialism/neocolonialism
• Inclusive film production
• Technological and aesthetic developments in effects-based filmmaking
• Permutations in the development, use, and utility of the term “blockbuster”
• Genre blockbusters/genre and blockbusters
• Impacts of blockbuster filmmaking on exhibition
• Indie blockbusters/independent film and blockbuster strategies
• Blockbusters and streaming
• Blockbusters and television
• Intersections of games (electronic and other) and blockbusters
• Risk in blockbuster filmmaking/financing
• Work on specific franchises (MCU, DC Cinematic Universe, Fast and Furious franchise, Mission:
  Impossible franchise, etc.)
• Below-the-line blockbuster labor (including unionization)
• Blockbuster franchises as star systems
• Blockbuster aesthetics
• Queering blockbusters
• Cripping blockbusters
• Blockbuster filmmaking as industrial strategy and practice

This conference will serve as the foundation of a special issue of The Journal of Popular Culture focused on blockbuster futures.

Conference submissions are due by JUNE 1, 2024 11:59pm EDT. We strongly encourage practitioners—
filmmakers, programmers, and exhibitors—to participate in the conference to help connect blockbusters to their broader impacts on film ecosystems. Submissions can take the form of preconstituted panels (min of 3 and max of 4 participants) or individual submissions.

Submission Requirements for Preconstituted Panels:

• panel abstract (1300 min-1500 max characters without spaces)
• paper abstracts for each presenter (1300 min-1500 max characters without spaces)
• bio for each presenter (300 min-400 max characters without spaces)
• 3 keywords that best describe your panel

Submission Requirements for Individual Submissions

• paper abstract (1300 min-3000 max characters without spaces)
• presenter bio (300 min-400 max characters without spaces)
• 3 keywords that best describe your panel

Blockbuster Futures will include a keynote by Robin R. Means Coleman and Novotny Lawrence (editors, The Oxford Handbook of Black Horror Film, 2024) on race, genre filmmaking, and blockbuster resistance. Additional keynotes to be announced.

Blockbuster Futures includes a pre-conference weekend marathon screening of the Fast and Furious franchise (films 1 through 10: Part 1) on October 26 and 27.

SUBMIT

Questions? Email: bfconf24@iu.edu

Blockbuster Futures Partners is funded in part by a grant from the IU Bloomington Public Arts & Humanities project and is presented in partnership with The Media School at IU Bloomington.

July 1-3, 2024

University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam

Routledge, Celebrity Studies Journal, and the University of Amsterdam are pleased to announce the fifth Celebrity Studies conference. The conference will take place in Amsterdam, July 1^st to 3^rd.

The 5^th International Celebrity Studies Conference will be themed ‘Celebrity Crises and Conflicts’. This subject will run through our plenaries and form a strand running throughout the conference.

Fame is fickle, as the saying goes, but in current times, celebrity appears to be more in crisis than ever. The #MeToo movement has brought to light disturbing facts about the reality behind the celebrity façade. The conspicuous consumption associated with stardom is attracting increasing criticisms in an era of pandemic lockdown, austerity, and environmental crisis.  Developments in artificial intelligence are feeding an existential crisis of celebrity, too: is stardom now becoming a post-human phenomenon? Additionally, geopolitical conflicts, as well as polarizing debates on class, race and gender differences, have put stars under increased political pressures, and have resulted in vicious attacks on – and by – celebrities. Finally, more and more public figures are opening up about their mental health crises, raising awareness about the negative effects of fame – burn-out, depression, anxiety, the impact of hate speech, fat-shaming, or performance pressure.

Together, these developments raise urgent questions about the current and past status of celebrity, such as: what do celebrity crises and conflicts tell us about the social, political, economic, and cultural dimensions of stardom? What can we learn about current, as well as historical, celebrity crises and conflicts? What impacts do they have on the study of celebrity as an academic endeavor?

The conference welcomes submissions from a broad range of disciplines that generate new ways of thinking and understanding celebrity: from film, television, literary, digital media, (art) history and theatre studies through to psychology, sociology, politics, etc.

Keynote speakers will soon be announced on https://celebritystudiesconference.com/

Possible topics include, but are not limited to:

Contemporary celebrity crises and conflicts / historical celebrity crises and conflicts / stardom and technological developments / virtual stardom / celebrity feuds / stardom and mental health / political conflicts and celebrity / economic conflicts and celebrity / celebrity divorces and break-ups / attacks on celebrities / legal conflicts and stardom / celebrity scandals / celebrity and intersecting oppressions / stardom and sexism / disgraced celebrities / conflicted celebrity / downsides of stardom / ‘cancel culture’ and celebrity / celebrity and the ‘cultural wars’ / celebrity and generationality/inter-generational conflict / celebrity deep fakes / celebrity and gamification / celebrity brand management / celebrity and platformisation / fan conflicts and celebrity / fan wars / fandom and celebrity conflict / celebrity and the pandemic / stars on lockdown / celebrity and industrial relations / celebrity and unions / stardom and synthetic media / celebrity and political crises / celebrity and climate crises / celebrity and war / celebrity and anti-fans / toxic fandom / destabilizing definition of celebrity / excessive media interest / social impact of political celebrities / weaponized celebrity / the conference team is open to other topics and themes, please get in touch if you have questions about potential approaches or topics.

The conference committee invites proposals for :

·         Individual 20-minute papers:

o   350 word abstract + 50-word biography in a single Word document

·         Pre-constituted panels comprising 3 x 20 minute papers:

o   150-word overview + 3 x 350-word abstracts + 3 x 50-word bios + name of lead contact and panel chair in a single Word document

·         Masterclasses for Early Career Researchers (ERC) (advanced PhDs or early-stage postdocs): sessions, moderated by members of the conference organization team, will include informal discussion on work provided by the ERC and sharing of ideas in a safe and constructive environment; feedback will be offered from keynote speakers and relevant senior academics:

o   Short outline of work (PhD thesis, chapter, project…) in progress: 150-350 words + 50-word biography in a single Word document. 

Please abide by the maximum word limits.

Stipends will be awarded to most promising abstract and best conference presentation by postgraduate students. Please indicate on your abstract if you wish to be considered for these.

A special issue of the best papers from the conference will be published in Celebrity Studies Journal in 2026

Deadline for all proposals: December 8th, 2023.

Successful abstracts will be notified by: December 22nd, 2023.

Enquiries/abstracts to: celebritystudies@gmail.com

More information (on conference fees etc.): https://celebritystudiesconference.com/