2011 Conference of the Mid-Atlantic Popular / American Culture Association (MAP/ACA)

MAP/ACA War Area

Call for Papers

Thursday, November 3 -- Saturday, November 5, 2011
Radisson Warwick Hotel, Philadelphia, PA

War has been one of the few constants in human history, waged by nations, tribes, and other factions for numerous reasons—some valid and noble, some questionable. This area will feature papers that explore the ways that wars—declared and undeclared, just and unjust, sacred and profane, fictional and "real"—have impacted the social, economic, technological, ideological, and other aspects of culture.

Special Panels for the 2011 Conference

Ten Years After the Planes: September 11th, 2001, the War on Terror, and Popular Culture.

This panel will feature papers discussing the lasting impact of the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks and the "War on Terror" on American popular culture. How has the world changed in the ten years since 9/11? How has the representation of the attacks—and their political and cultural aftermath—changed or evolved? What new problems of representation regarding the attacks are writers, film-makers, artists, or television producers struggling with? Have Americans, as a culture, adopted any particular strategies over the past ten years for narrating personal and cultural trauma of the attacks?

Papers addressing any aspect of September 11th's cultural legacy will be considered. Essays can examine the attacks' representation in any medium: discussions of film, fiction / non-fiction prose, poetry, drama, television, music, graphic novels, visual or performance art, critical theory, or other media are welcome.

Looking at War: The War Film in American Culture.

American film has been since its earliest phases obsessed with not only the act of making war, but its representation as well. From The Birth of a Nation¸ The Best Years of our Lives, and Sands of Iwo Jima to Avatar, Stop-Loss, and even Battle: Los Angeles, wars, both fictional and real, have been relentlessly committed to celluloid, marketed, and disseminated to an eager American public. But what, then, constitutes a "war film?" Is this genre defined by its most popular iteration, the "combat film"? Or are there other types of "war films" that can offer an alternative vision of war? This panel seeks to examine the "war film" as a genre—particularly as it exists today—and the cultural assumptions or ideologies that structure it. Analyses on American films on any war—real or fictional—and from any period or any critical perspective are welcome.

The War Area also welcomes general proposals including, but not limited to, the following topics for the 2011 conference:

War on television

War in prose fiction, poetry, or drama

Documentaries and war

Technology and war

War and gender

Aspects of journalistic coverage of war

The "War on Terror" and popular culture

War and popular music

Cultural productions of protest / anti-war movements

War and race

War and ethnicity

War in minority discourses

Marxist approaches to war

War and psychoanalysis

Trauma and war

Language and war

Oral histories of war experiences (both "combat" and "home front")

War in science fiction or fantasy

Queer approaches to war

Visual art and war (including historical approaches)

War in video or role-playing games

Blogging / Social Networking / New Media and war

War as metaphor

War and museums

War memorials



Please send 250-300 word proposals via email to Matthew Hill, MAP/ACA War Area chair, at redmanx999@gmail.com . Proposals must be received by June 15th, 2011 to be considered for the conference.

Information on the Mid-Atlantic Popular and American Culture Association (MAP/ACA) is available at http:/www.mapaca.net. The website for the 2011 conference is http://www.mapaca.net/confer/conferHome.html