Call for Abstracts – Fifth Annual Terror Camp Online Conference on Interdisciplinary Polar Research

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Terror Camp 2025 – Important Dates

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

Call for Abstracts
Terror Camp Website
Terror Camp

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
Feature Image: “Franklin Expedition Map Based on British Admiralty Chart of 1927 Showing the Various Positions in Which Relics Have Been Found (1931)” by Manitoba Historical Maps is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
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Sarah Pickman

Sarah M. Pickman is an independent historian and freelance writer and editor who studies the intersections of expeditions, extreme environments, and material and visual culture in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Her work focuses particularly on British and American polar exploration. She is an Associate Editor for the history of science journal Endeavour.

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