popular culture

Under Western Skies:
Climate, Culture and Change
in Western North America
Mount Royal University
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
October 13 – 16, 2010

This interdisciplinary and cross-cultural gathering welcomes presentations on the environmental challenges now faced by diverse populations, human and nonhuman, in the Western lands of Canada, the United States, and Mexico.

Academics and other stakeholders from the wider community are invited to participate in this urgent and compelling dialogue. The conference invites academics from the humanities, social and natural sciences, as well as activists, businesses, artists, and others to speak across the boundaries that conventionally divide them.

"In Media Res: Gender, Race, and Popular Culture"
November 13th-14th 2009
Bucknell University
Call For Papers/Abstracts

Spirits Rapping: Spiritualism in Anglo-American Fiction

41st Convention, Northeast Modern Language Association (NeMLA)

April 7-11, 2010

Montreal, Quebec

Guest Editor: Frank Stevenson
Deadline for Submissions: February 28, 2010
Website: http://www.concentric-literature.url.tw/

We seek essays of 4,000 to 8,000 words for an anthology that explores the work of writer-actor-director-comedian Terry Gilliam. For decades Gilliam has been a leading film auteur, both a comic and a social critic, and a historical, critical survey of his work is needed. While he has never wholly departed from his Monty Python roots, he has forged his own distinct vision. Gilliam cinematically creates worlds that are AT once familiar AND unwelcome. He triumphs the mundane and the absurd. His anachronistic and off-kilter vision consistently throws off our ability to find a stable or common foundation on which to ground our approach to his films.

CALL FOR PAPERS:
GENERATION X AND THE ACADEMY

We are soliciting proposals for a collection of essays that examine the life of Generation X academics. The anthology is tentatively titled Generation X And The Academy. Generation X faculty from all disciplines are welcomed to submit abstracts.

All topics will be considered; however, essays that examine personal experiences be they issues of race, marriage, divorce, sexuality , religion, life in the academy, life post academia, personal politics and disabilities are particularly welcomed.

Chapter proposals are invited for an edited book on the themes and films of Claire Denis. As Denis' films are rich in subject matter, story, theme and contemporary concerns, the preference is for a cross-disciplinary perspective, which may include film studies but does not have to concentrate solely on or derive from it.

Final call for papers on House Work: Masters and Servants in Post-Modern Culture.

While many people might assume that contemporary fascination with servant characters is limited to British TV and literature (i.e., "Upstairs, Downstairs," "1900 House," The Remains of the Day, Gosford Park), even the Americans have gotten in on the game. 1980s American television was fascinated with the importation of servant characters in shows like "Benson," "Mr. Belvedere," and Fran Drescher's "The Nanny." This panel will explore post-modern representations of servants and servant culture.

Please send 300 word abstracts to akmcclellan@plymouth.edu.
Deadline: September 30, 2009

Greetings fellow scholars,

This is a CFP for the Fall 2009 Humanities Review, a literary journal for the St. John's University English Department in Queens, NY.

Our current theme focuses on the contemporary construction of American Identity.

We are also strongly requesting art submissions that best exemplify the theme. Limited color or mono-chrome are preferred. Please submit .TIFF FILES ONLY @ 800 dpi to the email address below.

Some matters to consider:

How has the social practice of culture formed / continue to form the ideological condition of "being American?" With that said, what does it mean to be an American in the 21st Century? What are the ontological pieces that plait our parsonage?

The Literature and Science Area of the American Culture Association invites submissions for the 2010 PCA/ACA National Conference, to be held in St. Louis, MO from Mar. 31 through Apr. 3.

Interpretive papers focusing on the representation or integration of science in specific literary texts are especially encouraged. However, proposals dealing with any aspect of the interdisciplinary field of Literature and Science are welcome.

Please submit 150-200 word abstracts of panel or 15-minute paper proposal electronically (including name, institutional affiliation, brief bio, and email address) by Dec. 15 to:

specs, a journal of arts and culture, invites submissions of critical and/or creative work for the 3rd volume on the theme of "Toys." We seek works of fiction, non-fiction, cultural criticism, artwork, poetry, and pieces that blur genre boundaries. The editorial board consists of writers and academics from various fields. Articles are peer-reviewed. We are excited by specialty, an excess of detail, fragments, narratives, meta-narratives, and more. We are particularly interested in works that examine contemporary culture and/or cross the critical/creative divide while riffing on the theme of "Toys" in multiple ways (philosophy, anthropology, mythology):

Schuylkill graduate journal is seeking submissions from all disciplines for our 8th volume of critical essays and book reviews to be published in Spring of 2010 (online and in print). We are seeking papers on ecocritical and environmental topics, 10-15 pages in length; double spaced; MLA format; no footnotes. Current graduate students should send their work to Dana Harrison at skook@temple.edu by October 15, 2009. No simultaneous submissions please.

In her 2008 article "Queering Ecocultural Studies," Catriona Mortimer-Sandilands appeals for "a critical practice of ecocultural analysis that challenges […] the ways in which natural and ecological relations have been read and organized to normalize and naturalize power." Queer ecology, at its core, challenges the binary of natural/unnatural, which has sought to diminish both queerness and the more-than-human world. This panel, in the spirit of promoting and continuing the discourse from the NEMLA 2009 Queer Ecocriticism and Theory panel, will examine the state of the academic field of queer ecocriticism and the modes of inquiry prompted by the blending of sexuality studies, queer theory, and ecocriticism.

CALL FOR PAPERS (Deadline: October 1, 2009) for a Special Section in
JOURNAL OF DRAMATIC THEORY AND CRITICISM's SPRING 2010 ISSUE

AS SEEN ON TV

Brian Herrera and Henry Bial, Guest Editors
For this special section of the Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism, we invite essays of 20-25 manuscript pages, exclusive of notes, exploring the intersection of broadcast television with live theatre and performance.