UPDATE: SWPACA Children's/Young Adult Literature and Culture Area (11/1/14; 2/11-14/15)

full name / name of organization: 
Southwest Popular/American Culture Association Conference
contact email: 

Submission Deadline: November 1, 2014

SWPACA Children's/Young Adult Literature and Culture Area
36th Annual Southwest Popular/American Culture Association Conference
February 11-14, 2015
Albuquerque, NM
http://southwestpca.org/

Submission deadline: November 1, 2014
Submit proposals to: http://conference2015.southwestpca.org

Conference hotel:
Hyatt Regency Albuquerque
300 Tijeras Avenue NW
Albuquerque, NM 87102
Further conference details are available at http://southwestpca.org/

Please join us in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in February 2015 for the 36th annual Southwest Popular/American Culture Association Conference. The overall theme for this year's conference is "Many Faces, Many Voices: Intersecting Borders in Popular and American Culture."

Playing off the overall conference theme, the Children's and Young Adult Literature and Culture area has taken as its theme "Breaking Boundaries, Blurring Lines in Children's and Young Adult Literature and Culture." We highly encourage "thinking outside the box" with this theme. We would especially be interested in papers that look at how children's and young adult authors and works push, break, or blur narrative, form, genre, language, gender, ethnicity, racial, and other societal boundaries. How do children's and young adult literature and culture make room for the many faces and many voices in popular and American culture? Are there any clear-cut lines between what constitutes "children's" and "young adult" literature, or even literature "for adults" for that matter?

While papers addressing the conference or area theme will be given preference, papers addressing other aspects in children's and young adult literature and culture will also be read with interest.

This area covers a wide variety of possible mediums: traditional book/literature culture, but also comics, graphic novels, film, television, music, video games, toys, internet environment, fan fiction, advertising, marketing tie-ins to books and films, just to name a few. Proposals on fiction, non-fiction, poetry, picture books, wordless picture books, or cross-genre topics are welcome. Interdisciplinary approaches are especially welcome, as are presentations that go beyond the traditional scholarly paper format.

Scholars, researchers, professionals, teachers, graduate students and others interested in this area are encouraged to submit an abstract. Graduate students are especially encouraged and will be assisted in accessing any and all award opportunities the conference and/or associations provide. Award categories can be found here: http://southwestpca.org/conference/graduate-student-awards/. Upon acceptance of a proposal, I will send out information on which awards would be most suited to the subject matter of the presentation. Submission deadline for all award categories is December 1, 2014.

We would like to encourage scholars and students outside of the United States to submit proposals. However, all potential presenters need to be aware that our conference rules state that participants must present their papers in person at the conference. Given the more complex nature of international travel these days, we encourage international proposals be submitted as early as possible so as to provide enough time to make those travel arrangements.

All proposals need to be submitted using our conference submission database at http://conference2015.southwestpca.org/. This database is used to send out acceptance notifications, organize panels, and put the conference program together. It is important for all submitters to enter their contact information and presentation proposal information into the database to avoid confusion.

Please submit proposals of 250 words and a brief bio (100 words) for individual presentations, or a proposal for a full panel (3-4 papers on a panel – please note that each person on the panel must submit his/her own contact information, abstract, and brief bio on a separate proposal form) to our conference database at http://conference2015.southwestpca.org/.

Proposal submission deadline: November 1, 2014

In addition, please check out the organization's new peer-reviewed, quarterly journal: Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy. (Find more information at http://journaldialogue.org.)

We are pleased to announce a new component to the Southwest PCA experience! On Wednesday morning, prior to the official start of the conference, we will be offering several workshop opportunities, hosted by Lynn Bartholome, Gary Hoppenstand, Cynthia Miller, Levi Romero, and others. Additional plans include dining excursions throughout the week, a reprise of the Breaking Bad tour, and outings in the city of Albuquerque. Begin making plans now to join us for these exciting events.

For questions, or if you encounter problems with submitting proposals to the database, please contact Diana Dominguez, Area Chair. Please put SWPACA in the subject line so I can filter the messages effectively.

Contact info:
Diana Dominguez
Area Chair: Children's and Young Adult Literature and Culture
gypsyscholar@rgv.rr.com
The University of Texas at Brownsville