Porn Studies Early Career Scholar Essay Award

In association with the SCMS Adult Film and Media Scholarly Interest Group 

VISIT JOURNAL

About the prize

Porn Studies, in association with the SCMS Adult Film and Media Scholarly Interest Group, recognizes exceptional work from emerging researchers of pornographic and adult media through their Early Career Scholar Essay Award.  

 The Adult Film and Media Scholarly Interest Group provides a forum for scholars working on time-based visual media featuring nudity, pornography, and human sexuality to collaborate, share information or archival sources, debate issues within the field, and promote high caliber research. AF&M research encompasses diverse focal areas including (but not limited to) stag and sexploitation films, erotic archives, erotic genres, adult video and pornography, sex education, and much more.  

 Submissions may be from early career scholars including: grad students and recent graduates, postdoctoral researchers, independent scholars, contingent faculty and pre-tenure faculty members. 

 The 2023 prize was awarded to Nikola Stepic (Concordia University) for their article, ‘Erotic Countermapping and Queer Urban Publics: The Hard-Core Cinema of Arthur J. Bressan, Jr’. 

 The 2024 prize was awarded to Sena Duran (University of Michigan) for their article, ‘The hijab as technology: Arab women’s gendered racialization in “hijab” porn’. 

We will be seeking further submissions in early 2025. 

Guidelines for Submission 

  • The winning submission will be published in Porn Studies following successful peer-review. 

  • The author will receive personalized feedback around the peer-review/publishing process from an editorial mentor at Porn Studies. 

  • The published paper will be promoted across AF&M SIG and Porn Studies communication channels. 

  • The publication will be supplemented by an interview with the author, also featured in Porn Studies.

To qualify, submitting authors must  

  1. Have membership in good standing with SCMS at the time of competition, and list affiliation with the Adult Film and Media SIG (no additional cost) in the SCMS member portal. 

  2. Papers must be presented as a complete article of no more than 8000 words, inclusive of an abstract (200 words), 4-6 keywords, and any notes, figures and references. 

  3. All entries must be submitted with a cover page indicating author name, academic position, affiliated institution and short bio. 

  4. Excepting the cover page, the submitted paper must be edited to exclude any identifying details, to allow for anonymous peer-review.  

  5. Submissions must be original works, and not under review or previously published elsewhere.  

Submissions are shortlisted by an AF&M review committee and a winning selection determined in consultation with the Porn Studies editorial team, who will then conduct a rigorous peer-review prior to final publication.