Academia: Popular Culture and Sex, Metaphysical thought in SF and Utopia
Popular Culture. Sex. Fanfic. Surely there's a connection? ; )
Call for Panel Proposals/Papers: Popular Culture and Sex, 2011 SW/Texas 32nd Annual Regional Conference
2011 Southwest/Texas Popular Culture/American Culture Association April 20 - 23, 2011
Southwest/Texas Popular & American Culture Association’s
32nd Annual Conference in San Antonio, TX
Joint conference with National PCA/ACA
Proposals for both Panels and Individual Papers are now being accepted for the Popular Culture & Sex Special Topics Area. Listed below are some suggestions for possible presentations, but topics not included here are welcome and encouraged.
Join us as a returning or first-time participant, as we celebrate the 32nd year of this regional popular culture conference, this year combined with the National PCA/ACA. Further details regarding the conference (listing of all areas, hotel, registration, tours, etc.) can be found at http://swtxpca.org/index.html.
SUBMISSION DEADLINE DECEMBER 15, 2010.
• Mediated Sexualities
• Sexual Icons
• Popular Culture & Sex Laws
• Violence & Sex
• Mainstreaming Pornography/Porning the Mainstream
• Sex, Art & Culture
• Sex in/on TV
• Hypersexualization of youth
• Sex, Risk and Pop Culture
• Campus Sex
• Sexualization and MTV
• Sex & Reality TV
• The Romance Novel
• Horror Movies & The Scream Queen: Sexualization of women in horror
• Female Sexuality and Sports
• Radicalizing Sex
• More ideas encouraged!
Inquiries regarding this area and/or abstracts of 250 words may be sent to Dr. Sara Sutler-Cohen at the contact below. Please forward this email to people who would be interested in participating.
PLEASE NOTE: THE DEADLINE FOR CONFERENCE REGISTRATION IS DECEMBER 31, 2010.
Conference hotel: Marriott Rivercenter San Antonio
101 Bowie Street
San Antonio, Texas 78205 USA
Phone: 1-210-223-1000
Dr. Sara C. Sutler-Cohen
Area Chair, Popular Culture & Sex
PCA/ACA Annual Regional Conferences
sara.sutlercohen@bellevuecollege.edu
Interim Dean, Social Science Division
Bellevue College
3000 Landerholm Circle, SE
Bellevue, WA 98007
Email: sara.sutlercohen@bellevuecollege.edu
Call for Papers: Metaphysical thought in SF and Utopia (Society for Utopian Studies, Milwaukee, October 28-31, 2010)
Location: Wisconsin, United States
Papers are invited for one or more panels that explore relationships between the broad genre of sf and utopia and the broad category of metaphysical thought and belief. Historical or theoretical approaches from any discipline are welcome. Papers that touch on the theme of this year’s Society for Utopian Studies conference-civil rights, social justice, and the Midwest-are especially encouraged.
Relationships between religion and utopian intentional communities are well documented, and the importance of religion in pre-20th century literary utopias (beginning with More’s original) is clear. In the 20th century, religion and metaphysics came to be associated with the dangers of mass ideologies and frequently played a prominent role in dystopian literature. With the development of more nuanced genres at the end of the century-critical utopias, critical dystopias, post-apocalyptic utopias, and so on-the role of religion, spirituality, and metaphysical thought becomes more complicated.
Questions to address might include (but are not limited to): Does contemporary speculative fiction serve a cultural function similar to earlier writing in theology, mysticism, or other metaphysical modes? Do religion, spirituality, or metaphysical thought and belief of any kind have a “legitimate” place in “the desire called utopia”? What roles have metaphysical thought or belief played in sf and utopian genres (including dystopias) or in particular authors or texts? How are religious or spiritual concepts used to theorize the critical challenges of modern life and/or the principles of hope entailed by utopia, and what are the effects of this theoretical cross-fertilization?
Send proposals of 100 to 250 words by June 21, 2010 to Gib Prettyman at cgp3@psu.edu. Final papers will be limited to 20 minutes.
About the conference: Founded in 1975, The Society for Utopian Studies is an international, interdisciplinary association devoted to the study of utopianism in all its forms, with a particular emphasis on literary and experimental utopias. Scholars representing a wide variety of disciplines are active in the association, and approach utopian studies from such diverse backgrounds as American Studies, Architecture, the Arts, Classics, Cultural Studies, Economics, Engineering, Environmental Studies, Gender Studies, History, Languages and Literatures, Philosophy, Political Science, Psychology, Sociology and Urban Planning. The annual SUS conference is a stimulating and welcoming place for scholars of all levels to share their work. More information about this year’s conference in Milwaukee can be found on the Society’s website at http://www.utoronto.ca/utopia/meetings.html
CALL FOR PAPERS: THE NOIR SENSORIUM
a symposium to be held
October 7 - 9, 2010 at Trent University
Peterborough, Ontario, Canada
“shadow and light and shadow - but mostly shadow” (Edward Dmytryk)
Theme.
The origin and essence of ‘noir’ have proven elusive. Every ‘first’ seems to give way to an antecedent, and the ‘core’ meaning resists definition, evading attempts to pin it down. The manifestation of noir images has, nonetheless, been a notable feature of modern and postmodern culture since the first half of the twentieth century. This symposium addresses the emergence and circulation of noir images by focusing not on their origin and essence, but on the way they develop, fragment, and proliferate in diverse cultural sites. These of course include film noir and crime fiction, but they also involve other media, such as television, comics, graphic novels, and the Internet - together with other genres, such as science fiction and experimental fiction. The symposium poses the further question of how a cultural milieu of noir images combines with sense and sensation in what might be called a ‘noir sensorium’.
Paper proposals.
Proposals are invited for papers that address the symposium theme by examining the manifestation of noir images. Please submit paper proposals no later than June 30, 2010 by email to noirsensorium@gmail.com . Proposals should be a maximum of 350 words and should be accompanied by a brief bio of no more than 150 words.
Potential topics include, but are by no means limited to, the following: noir and literature, crime fiction, graphic novels and comics; film noir, neo-noir, postmodern noir, and influences on films and filmmakers; the commercialization of noir, the culture industry; noir and genre, noir and the gothic, science fiction noir; noir and gender, queer noir; noir and politics, the noir city.
Events.
The symposium will feature Vivian Sochack as the keynote speaker and will, in addition, include three paper panels, three film screenings, and a concluding roundtable on ‘Bodies in the Dark’.
Keynote speaker.
Vivian Sobchack, University of California at Los Angeles. A leading figure in film theory and criticism, Professor Sobchack has published many books, including Carnal Thoughts: Embodiment and Moving Image Culture (University of California Press, 2004) and The Address of the Eye: A Phenomenology of Film Experience (Princeton University Press, 1992), and has contributed a voice-over commentary for the Warner Bros. Film Noir Classic Collection, Vol. 3. Among various awards and distinctions, she has received the Society for Cinema and Media Studies Distinguished Service Award and has been a juror numerous times for the American Film Institute. She has also served as Associate Dean of the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television.
Time and Place. October 7-9, 2010 (Thursday afternoon and evening, Friday, Saturday), Traill College, Trent University (Peterborough, Ontario, Canada).
Organizing committee.
Veronica Hollinger, Professor, Cultural Studies Department.
Ian McLachlan, Professor Emeritus, Cultural Studies Department.
Davide Panagia, Associate Professor, Cultural Studies Department; Canada Research Chair in Cultural Studies.
Douglas Torgerson, Professor, Cultural Studies Department and Politics Department; Director, Centre for the Study of Theory, Culture and Politics.
Sponsors. The symposium is jointly sponsored by the Centre for the Study of Theory, Culture and Politics and the Cultural Images Project (under the auspices of the Canada Research Chair in Cultural Studies).
The Organizing Committee
noirsensorium@gmail.com
Email: noirsensorium@gmail.com