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ArgumentPopular Culture has long been absent from the syllabus, eschewed by researchers and viewed condescendingly sometimes even by its most adept practitioners. It has come a long way to become the thriving academic discipline it is today. Just as the term Popular Culture describes the widest range of practices, Popular Culture Studies cover the most heterogeneous objects. While this very diversity makes it exciting as a research field, it presents a challenge in terms of methods and approaches.To promote scientific exchanges at international level, Popular Culture Studies need elements of comparability and theorization. The biennial conference of the Royal Irish Academy, hosted by the School of Modern Languages at Queen&#8217;s University Belfast, intends to offer a forum for discussion between academics, teaching and researching in the fields of Popular Cultures. It will consider the benefits of studying Popular Cultures in Modern Languages Studies and seek to map current areas of research. It presents a distinctive opportunity to discuss corpora and contrast approaches.Keynote Speaker&#160;Professor Diana Holmes (Leeds): &#8216;On Popular Cultures and the Middlebrow&#8217;ThemesTopics for discussion include but are not restricted to:Translation and interpretation of Popular CultureCultural icons and cultural iconicityPopular cultures as media culturesVisual and digital culturesTeaching Popular Cultures in their original languageCultural categories, normativity, canonicityConsensualism, sensationalism and mass appealGlobal mainstream cultures and resistanceFetishism, tosh and trashSelf-reflexivity and parodyMass educationSport cultures and the bodyDemocratic culture and satireFolk culturesSubmission guidelinesPapers (to be given in English) are welcome on topics relating to popular cultures in any area of Modern Languages Studies. Postgraduate research students are encouraged to submit proposals.Please send 200-word proposalsby the&#160;1st&#160;of October 2013&#160;to the conference organisers:Dr Tori Holmes, Spanish and Portuguese Studies, QUB :&#160;t.holmes@qub.ac.ukDr Dominique Jeannerod, French Studies, QUB :&#160;d.jeannerod@qub.ac.ukDr Federico Pagello, Institute for Collaborative Research in the Humanities, QUB :f.pagello@gmail.comFor further information and updates about the conference please visit http://blogs.qub.ac.uk/popularculture/.