Call for Abstracts for Special Issue “Cultural Memories in Southeast Asian Media and Popular Culture”

Guest Editors
Arnoud Arps, University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Jason Paolo Telles, Monash College, Australia

The Southeast Asian Media Studies Journal (SEAMSJ) invites submissions for a special issue on Cultural Memories in Southeast Asian Media and Popular Culture.

Media and popular culture have long contributed to the remembrance, interpretation, narration, contestation, and reimagining of the past. In Southeast Asia, these processes are particularly evident and significant due to the region’s experiences of colonialism, war, occupation, authoritarian rule, political transition, migration, social conflict, rapid economic change, and transformations in media and communication. Memories of these experiences continue to appear in and are shaped by films, television programmes, radio broadcasts, journalism, music, literature, comics, photography, digital media, museums, commemorative practices, and other forms of cultural production. Such cultural memories, constructed through media and popular culture, may be on a diversity of topics.  

This special issue aims to feature critical studies of particular cultural memories, namely memories of culture and history in Southeast Asian media and popular culture. Here, memories of culture refer to memories of culture and cultural artefacts, including ways of life, customs, traditions, practices, beliefs, values, rituals, performances, artistic expressions, social relations, material culture, and forms of collective identity. Meanwhile, memories of history refer to memories of the past, including those of historical events, periods, figures, political conditions, social transformations, and everyday life. We welcome submissions that examine the ways these forms of memories are formed, expressed, represented, circulated, preserved, transformed, disputed/contested, marginalised, or forgotten through media and popular culture.

Possible topics include, but are not limited to:

• memories of cultural practices and expressions, including remembered traditions, rituals, festivals, performances, languages, religions, cuisines, forms of dress, crafts, music, and dance
• memories of local, national, regional, Indigenous, ethnic, and community cultures
• environmental nostalgia on Southeast Asian media
• family, kinship, community, intergenerational, childhood, and youth memories of cultural and historical experiences
• memories of film, television, radio, music, literature, comics, celebrity culture, fandom, and other forms of popular culture
• memories of colonialism, postcolonial societies, decolonisation, war, occupation, conflict, political violence, authoritarianism, dictatorship, political transition, protest, resistance, and social movements
• queer and gendered memories, including memories of LGBTQIA+ identities, femininity, masculinity, gender roles, gender relations, and gendered cultural and historical experiences
• diasporic memories of migration, displacement, exile, transnational belonging, homeland, and cultural reconnection
• archives, collections, recordings, photographs, and other materials through which cultural and historical memories are preserved and transmitted
• social media and digital practices of remembering
• memory, identity, community, belonging, place, power, and everyday cultural participation

Submissions may focus on a single Southeast Asian country, locality, community, media form, historical event, or cultural text. Comparative and transnational studies are also welcome. The special issue particularly encourages research grounded in specific Southeast Asian historical, political, social, and cultural contexts.

Manuscripts should present an original scholarly argument and follow the submission and formatting guidelines of the SEAMSJ. All research articles will undergo the journal’s peer-review process.

Reviews
We also welcome reviews of scholarly books, films, exhibitions, festivals, conferences, and other events relevant to the special issue’s theme.

Important dates
Abstract submission deadline: 15 October 2026
Notification of abstract decisions: 30 October 2026
Full manuscript deadline: 30 December 2026
Expected publication: mid-2027

Abstract submission

Prospective contributors are invited to submit an abstract of approximately 250–300 words, accompanied by a short author biography of approximately 100 words. Abstracts should clearly identify the proposed article’s topic, research problem or argument, case or material, methodological approach, and relevance to the special issue.

Abstracts should be sent to editor.seamsj@gmail.com with the subject line “SEAMSJ Special Issue: Cultural Memories.”

For further information about SEAMSJ, visit https://seamsj.online.