Call for Papers

Stardom and Fandom

Southwest Popular / American Culture Association (SWPACA)

47th Annual Conference, February 25-28, 2026

Marriott Albuquerque

Albuquerque, New Mexico

https://www.southwestpca.org

Submissions open: September 1, 2025

Proposal submission deadline: October 31, 2025

This panel explores the regenerative power of early modern drama and travel narratives, focusing on how these texts reimagine cultural encounters, expand geographic and imaginative boundaries, and challenge traditional understandings of self and the other, with particular emphasis on the Mediterranean as a vital site of exchange. In harmony with the conference theme of (Re)generation, this panel invites papers that investigate how Shakespeare and his contemporaries engaged with the Mediterranean as a space of constant (re)formation, where diverse cultures, languages, and religions converged, influencing both dramatic form and narrative structure.

Topics may include, but are not limited to:

In an era defined by rapid social, technological, and environmental change, the concept of (Re)generation offers a vital framework for reimagining general education. This panel invites scholars, educators, and academic leaders to explore how the principles of (Re)generation can revitalize curricula, pedagogy, and institutional practices in ways that not only respond to the challenges of the present but also prepare us for the future.

“Blacks in Boston” is a series of conferences conceived of by former Boston College Black

Studies Director Amanda V. Houston. Previous conferences have addressed subjects such as blacks in metropolitan Boston, the struggle for equal education, the relationships between Irish

and black Bostonians, the role of immigrants of African descent in the development, and evolution of Boston’s black communities, and black Bostonians and the media.

Abundant Silences: Artistic Strategies of Witness in Public Narratives    

This seminar builds on successful past seminars on the roles and limits of narrative silences in showing care toward  trauma and injustice.