Call for Papers: Philosophy and Popular Culture Area
2009 Southwest/Texas Popular Culture/American Culture Association

Priority Proposal Deadline: November 15, 2008
Final Deadline: December 1, 2008

30th Annual Conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico
February 25-28, 2009

This panel proposes to look at how several American texts in the 20th
century questioned “what is male/masculine?” in a century when feminism
drastically altered the answer to “what is female/feminine?” The
panelists will examine how their books/films undertook that task by
asking one central question: How does the creator construct what it means
to be masculine in an age when that is no longer a foregone
determination? What tools, roles, tasks and/or world views are depicted
in/by the male characters, either in strait-forward depiction or by
implication, that inform the reader of the author’s understanding of
being male in the modern world? Do these depictions continue unimpeded

This panel proposes to look at how several American texts in the 20th
century questioned “what is male/masculine?” in a century when feminism
drastically altered the answer to “what is female/feminine?” The
panelists will examine how their books/films undertook that task by
asking one central question: How does the creator construct what it means
to be masculine in an age when that is no longer a foregone
determination? What tools, roles, tasks and/or world views are depicted
in/by the male characters, either in strait-forward depiction or by
implication, that inform the reader of the author’s understanding of
being male in the modern world? Do these depictions continue unimpeded

This panel proposes to look at how several American texts in the 20th
century questioned “what is male/masculine?” in a century when feminism
drastically altered the answer to “what is female/feminine?” The
panelists will examine how their books/films undertook that task by
asking one central question: How does the creator construct what it means
to be masculine in an age when that is no longer a foregone
determination? What tools, roles, tasks and/or world views are depicted
in/by the male characters, either in strait-forward depiction or by
implication, that inform the reader of the author’s understanding of
being male in the modern world? Do these depictions continue unimpeded

Due to scheduling circumstances beyond our control, the entirety of the conference program will
take place Saturday, Oct. 18, not on the 18th and 19th as originally advertised.

The deadline for abstract submissions has also been extended to Monday, September 15, 2008.
Below you will find the updated CFP.

Please consider being part of a roundtable discussion I am hoping to
organize at the College English Association’s annual meeting in
Pittsburgh on March 26-28, 2009. The subject of the discussion will be
the challenges and rewards of teaching English at military colleges and
academies. It can be difficult to assert the importance of studying
literature and writing to any college student given that students have
become more focused on obtaining an education that will guarantee them a
job and financial stability. Certainly, teaching students whose primary
goal is to commission in the military can add additional challenges to
that task. Please join our discussion in order to share information about

The 4th annual conference of the British Society for Literature and Science will take place at the
University of Reading on 27th-29th March, 2009. Keynote speakers will include Dame Gillian Beer,
formerly King Edward VII Professor of English Literature at Cambridge; Patrick Parrinder, Professor
of English at the University of Reading; and Simon Conway Morris, Professor of Evolutionary
Palaeontology at Cambridge.