cfp.english.upenn.edu

Popular Culture Assn/American Culture Assn 2010 National Conference
St. Louis, MO,
3/31/10 to 4/4/10
Comedy and Humor Area

Devilish Drollery: The Evil One as Comic Figure in
Modern and Contemporary Literature, the Arts, and Popular Culture.

We are seeking panel presentations that will examine Satan’s many contemporary representations and inflections in American popular culture. Our purpose will be to explore complex, comic representations of evil and the new meanings that such images of Satan create within our culture.

We’d like papers that discuss the ways in which Satan comedy’s transgressive and eccentric nature sheds light upon—and facilitates conversations about—the thorny questions surrounding current social, religious, and political debates, cultural taboos, and global boundary-crossings.

Possible topics include—but are by no means limited to:
• Satan (or a devilish-figure) on TV and/or in film.
• Satan in contemporary literature and/or graphic novels.
• Satan in the arts.
• Hell Houses and their parodies.
• The devil in consumer culture: t-shirts, bumper stickers, figurines, etc.
• Satan in popular music.
• Demonizing discourse in political and/or religious comedy.
• Demonization of the Other (perhaps even the self).
• Demonization and gender and sexuality
• Comic Satan in stand-up comedy.
• Comic Satan on the internet.
Please send 400-500 word abstracts and a brief CV in a .doc or .pdf format by October 15, 2009 to the Area Chair (final panel submissions will be due December 15, 2009):

Dr. Lori Lipoma llipoma@westga.edu Sr Lecturer in English;
Dir. of Arts and Sciences Discipline-Specific Writing Program
University of West Georgia