cfp.english.upenn.edu

Call for Paper/Panel Proposals for the 31st Annual Meeting of the Southwest/Texas Popular & American Culture Association Feb 10-13, 2010 Hyatt Regency Albuquerque, New Mexico (330 Tijeras Ave. NW, Albuquerque, NM 87102, Phone: 505.842.1234, Fax: 1.505.766.6710).

Proposals for individual presentations are being accepted for the Collecting, Collectibles, Collectors, Collections Area and related topics. We also seek proposals for entire panels as well as roundtable discussions concerning Collecting, Collectibles, Collectors, and Collections.
Some areas of consideration include, but are not limited to:

• Collections/Collecting/Collectors/collectibles in popular culture
• Collections in libraries, archives or museums
• Collections/Collecting/Collectibles in Science Fiction and Fantasy
• Personal Collections
• Folk Art Collections and Collectibles
• Collections and collectors in literature, film, theatre
• The history of collecting
• Early American collections and Americana
• Collections of Native American, African American, Asian American, and Latina/o cultures(and others)
• Private or public collections
• The impulse to collect.
• Collecting and political correctness.
• Legal issues regarding collecting/collections.
• The business of collecting - buying and selling, mediating value - the dealer, the picker, the agent.
• The impact of the Internet (including eBay and like sites) on collecting.
• Relationships between collectors and curators.
• Collecting as community activity.
• Collecting as scholarship.
• Collectors' organizations (car clubs, stamp clubs, costume jewelry collectors' groups, etc.), their functions, their controversies.
• What is an "authentic" collectible?
• Collecting the immaterial (places, memories, people, websites, words, etc.)

Scholars, artists, curators, and other professionals are encouraged to participate. Graduate students are welcome, with award opportunities for the best graduate papers. Please visit the organization website for more information about this conference. www.swtxpca.org

Papers should be approximately 20 minutes long (8-10 pages) and should be original works of scholarship that have not been presented or published elsewhere. Proposals for entire panels should include 3-4 presentations/papers. Roundtables should be approximately 90 minutes long. Please send 200-250 word abstracts for papers, panels, and roundtables, to the Area Chair below, by December 15 2009:

Kathrin Dodds
Texas Tech University
MS0002
Lubbock, TX 79409
806-742-2300

Email: kathrin.dodds@ttu.edu
Visit the website at http://swtxpca.org/documents/elements.html