Journal Submissions

 

Words Beats & Life Journal of Hip-Hop Culture: Dance Issue

DANCE CALL FOR PAPERS

This issue invites interviews, reviews, essays, and critical articles on the intersections of dance and hip-hop in the U.S. and around the world. Themes include hip-hop and social dance; hip-hop and concert dance; regional dance movements; documentation and dissemination of dance from music videos to social media; hip-hop dance as a competitive platform; and the aesthetics of hip-hop dance performance, gender and sexuality, racism, justice, and other themes that are both provocative and politically charged.

Manuscripts must be submitted online by January 31st, 2025.

Words Beats & Life Journal of Hip-Hop Culture: General Issue

GENERAL CALL FOR PAPERS

Words Beats & Life Journal of Hip-Hop Culture invites complete submissions for our next general issue.

This issue invites poetry, visual art, essays, and critical articles on hip-hop music and culture in the U.S. and around the world. Related themes include fashion, food, environment, the aesthetics of performance, politics, gender and sexuality, racism,  justice, and other themes that are both provocative and politically charged

Manuscripts must be submitted online by January 31st, 2025.

Show & Prove DC Mini Conference

Saturday, December 13th, 2025
MLK Library, DC

Call for Papers, Panels & Proposals

The Show & Prove Hip Hop Studies Conference Series (S&P) will host a mini-conference on Saturday, December 13, 2025 during WBL Fest: The Way You Move— a week-long celebration of movement, rhythm and community. The S&P mini-conference invites new and developing scholarship activated by the conference keywords: movement and generation.

Taken separately, these keywords offer several points of entry. Movement invokes the physical body, embodiment and the meaningfulness of what the body can teach you (think move-meant). This term also invokes social justice movements and the resilience, flexibility, and connections necessary to sustain them.

In contrast, generation is a concept that shifts our attention to a body of people, usually organized around age alongside other demographic markers. The term can signal something shared (e.g., generational aesthetics), stark departures from what was before, overlapping interests, cross-generational exchanges, and challenges to the status quo. Its root word emphasizes processes of bringing something into being or existence. Taken together, these two keywords can also speak to the creation of change in relation to time, place, and people, moving collectively and yet across differences, whether through social media or bodies on the ground.

S&P seeks papers and especially whole panel proposals, or other proposal ideas that resonate with the keywords— : movement and generation.

Submission Guidelines

  • Proposals are due September 15th

  • Submit via email to showproveconf@gmail.com

  • Final accepted proposals will be notified by late September 2025

Format Guidelines

  • Individual proposals: 300-word descriptions of papers/ideas

  • Panel proposals: 300-word panel description and up to 200-word descriptions of each part/ paper/ person in the panel.

  • All proposals should include: Your name and contact information, affiliations, and relevant a/v needs.

  • Do not include CVs or sample papers.

  • NOTE: This is a live gathering and we do not seek proposals for virtual participation (though a portion of a proposed panel may be online).

Questions & Contact:

WBL Fest: Mazi Mutafa— Mazi@wblinc.org

S&P: Imani Kai Johnson— showproveconf@gmail.com