Call for Abstracts | Terror Camp

CALL FOR ABSTRACTS
& FAQ

Terror Camp 2025

Terror Camp 2025 Important Dates

June 1: Submissions for presentations opens
August 1: Submissions for posters close
September 1: Submissions for presentations close
November: Attendee registration opens
December 5-7: Terror Camp 2025

What's happening?

TERROR CAMP is a fan-run conference on polar themes. First created by fans of The Terror (2018), it's broken through four seasons in the ice and is back for a fifth year of celebrating the creativity and curiosity of this chilly community.

Whatever your polar passion, we want to hear from you! Your topic might be anything from a special interest to a full-time job, but the only things you need in order to take part are a love for learning about your topic in-depth, and a desire to share that enthusiasm with others. You do not need any formal qualifications to present.

In response to your feedback, we now have individual presentation slots of different lengths: 30 minutes (to tell us about Birdshit Island), 15 minutes (for the headlines of the meeting) and a 5-minute lightning talk (Ah, Edward! Mr Hornby’s dead). We’re also open to other formats - read on!

TERROR CAMP takes presentations seriously, but it’s also an opportunity to have some serious fun. Our lively, moderated Q&A and parallel Discord chat gives your work recognition and a chance to be discussed and shared in-depth. A full weekend of talks lets Terror and polar fans enjoy the structure of an academic conference, with all the informality, passion, and love of a fandom space!

This year, TERROR CAMP will be held on Zoom Friday to Sunday, December 5th to 7th, 2025. It’s free and open to anyone who’d like to attend, with keynote speakers TBD! And as of today, applications to present are now open.

What are we looking for?

Even though Terror fandom is the heart of Terror Camp, it’s not all that we do! Not only are we calling for presentations from anyone who wants to talk through their favorite ideas about The Terror, its themes, and its historical background, we would also like to hear from all of our polarhead friends who want to talk about Arctic and Antarctic history, culture, and science. That means anything from Terror meta, to real-life exploration history, and even depictions of the polar regions in other media. If it’s cold, we’re into it.

(Not sure if your idea would be a good topic for a presentation? Check out our past programs to see the range of stuff people have presented on. Or shoot us an email to discuss!)

Themes of presented work might include, but aren’t limited to:

Original historical and archival research on polar topics
The Terror, Franklin Expedition, and polar exploration-related history
Show meta, media theory, and criticism
Race, Indigenous studies, and colonialism
Polar geography, biology, conservation and other polar scientific topics
Fan works (art, fiction, cosplay, etc.)
General film, TV, and performance analysis
Gender and queerness
Fandom culture and communities
Archaeology and forensics
Character studies and biography
Museums, preservation, and digital humanities

This year, we’d especially love to hear from folks who are researching things related to

A) Indigenous Arctic history, culture, and contemporary issues, and

B) polar science—which might include geology, biology, wildlife conservation, glaciology, and more!

What will Terror Camp presentations look like?

Presentations will be held on Zoom. How they’ll look will depend on how long they are.

Speakers giving 30-minute presentations will speak for that time, along with any visuals they’d like to share.
Those giving 15-minute presentations will present as part of a panel along with a few other speakers whose work is similar to theirs.
Those with 5-minute slots will be grouped together with other 5-minute presenters in a “lightning round” but the topics of those presentations may not be as thematically related—more like a polar variety show.

No matter the length, each presentation will be moderated by a Terror Camp volunteer mod who will lead a short Q&A after the presentation(s).

We’re also bringing back our poster presentations: web-based, asynchronous presentations to be showcased in a digital poster alley. To enhance accessibility, we’ve put together some guidelines for potential poster presenters this year. Please review these before submitting a poster idea to ensure that you can comply with these guidelines.

Lastly, we’re bringing back workshops! Workshops are a more practical, skills-focused element of Terror Camp. In 90 minutes, you can teach the Terror Camp audience a skill such as bookbinding, cross-stitch, or the five best recipes for lead-poisoned mystery meat!

If you have an idea for a presentation that doesn’t fit into one of these formats, please email us! We’d love to hear your idea and see if it could be a good fit for the Terror Camp schedule.

Please note that the deadline for final poster presentation submissions will be earlier from other types of presentations, because we want to begin displaying them before the conference.

Submissions (of 300 words or less) for presentations or workshops will open via Google Form on June 1, 2025 and will close on September 1, 2025. Submissions for poster presentations will open via Google Form on June 1 and close on August 1st. To receive updates on submissions opening, follow us on X, Bluesky, Instagram, or Tumblr, and subscribe to the Terror Camp mailing list.

If you would like some guidance, we’re offering a Zoom session on how to put together an abstract. The workshop will take place on June 29th, 18:00 CET (12:00 EST/17:00 BST). You can RSVP here. If you can’t attend live, don’t worry - we’re going to record the session and anyone who RSVPs will get a link to watch the recording. (Your chances of being selected do not depend on participation in the workshop. It is meant purely as an aid to you if you are unsure about the shape or format of your proposal.)

Aaaand, if you just want to attend to watch and join in the discussion, never fear and hang tight – attendee registration will open later in the year, so you don’t have to do anything right now (except let people know!)

Do you have any questions about Terror Camp, how to write and submit an abstract, or whether your presentation idea would be a good fit? Check out our FAQ, where you’ll probably find the answer you’re looking for. If your question wasn’t answered there, you have access needs, or want to be further involved, you can drop us a line at programming@terror.camp!

SUBMIT YOUR ABSTRACT

Frequently asked questions

I’ve never written an abstract before. What does it look like?

An abstract is really just a short proposal of what you want to talk about. If you’ve never written one before, check out our past programs to see some of the successful abstracts for presentations. A good Terror Camp abstract doesn’t need any academic jargon or citations. What we’re looking for is:

What is the idea you want to share with the Terror Camp audience?
How did you come up with this idea, and what’s your evidence—analyzing moments from The Terror? Reading something in a historic document? Spotting something in paintings, poems, or photographs?
What got you so excited about this thing/character/way of thinking?
Why is this idea something the Terror Camp community should know about?

Looking for some inspiration? You can check out an idea for how to structure an abstract here. We’ve also highlighted a few abstracts for presentations from past Terror Camps that are great examples.

Your chances of being selected do not depend on participation in the workshop. It is meant purely as an aid to you if you are unsure about the shape or format of your proposal.

I’m not great with writing out my ideas. Will you accept proposals in other formats?

Yes! We will be accepting audio- and video-based pitches for presentations. You’ll use the same Google Form as other submissions, but there will be a spot where you can link us to your short (3 minutes max) audio or video recording where you describe your presentation idea. We’d really love it if you could share a link to your recording from your Google Drive.

What happens after I submit?

You’ll hear from us around two weeks after the submission deadline of September 1 about the status of your proposal. Then, if you are accepted into the conference, you’ll have two months to create your presentation, before presenting at the conference in December.

We’ll have a few regular check-ins to ask how you’re doing and make sure you’re on track. If you encounter any problems, please let us know at the earliest possible date, and we can figure things out together.

I’ve never been to an academic conference before and I’m not a student! Is this for me?

Absolutely! This event, though academically inspired, is fans-first, always. We’re putting this together to celebrate the amazing research, discussion, and community building that happens every day in our fandom spaces. You do NOT need to be in the academic world or have any kind of academic degree to attend or present at Terror Camp - just a desire to join the conversation!

Academic conferences give structure for in-depth presentations, group discussions, and socializing. Fan conventions bring enthusiastic fans together to share in the joy of their favorite things, make friends, and hear from creators and performers. Terror Camp is the best of both worlds—a fan conference, if you will.

Our event is meant to be as accessible as possible, so we’re very open to a wide range of presentation and discussion formats based on people’s comfort and access needs. Informal language, ridiculous PowerPoints, academic pastiching, and fanart Zoom backgrounds are VERY encouraged!

I’ve been to a LOT of academic conferences before! Is this still for me?

Also absolutely! We’re lucky enough in our corner of the internet to not only have fans and academics hanging out, but plenty of fans who ARE academics. Your expertise will find an enthusiastic audience, and you’ll be able to provide mentoring, encouragement, and appreciation to a very diverse group, from professional researchers to people who have just recently fallen into the polar vortex.

I’ve presented at Terror Camp before. I’ve read through this page, but is there anything else that’s different about this year’s Terror Camp?

We’re thrilled that Terror Camp is now in its fifth year and we love seeing so many folks coming back year after year. But, we’re also mindful that we want to keep the Terror Camp program full of new faces and ideas and make sure the conference is welcoming to new fans. For this year, we’re introducing longer talks AND shorter talks alongside our usual 15-minute slots, in order to give more people a chance to present in a variety of formats. And as usual, we will be giving a slight preference to those who have not presented at Terror Camp before, especially those who did not present last year. But whether you’ve presented before or not, we want to see your abstracts!