Call for Papers

Medievalisms Area

Southwest Popular / American Culture Association (SWPACA)

46th Annual Conference, February 19-22, 2025

Marriott Albuquerque

Albuquerque, New Mexico

https://www.southwestpca.org

Proposal submission deadline: October 31, 2024

Proposals for papers and panels are now being accepted for the 46th annual SWPACA conference. One of the nation’s largest interdisciplinary academic conferences, SWPACA offers nearly 70 subject areas, each typically featuring multiple panels.  For a full list of subject areas, area descriptions, and Area Chairs, please visit https://swpaca.org/subject-areas/

The Medievalisms area invites paper and session proposals on any and all topics relevant to medievalism, which is described by Tison Pugh and Angela Jane Weisl in Medievalisms: Making the Past in the Present (2013) as “the art, literature, scholarship, avocational pastimes, and sundry forms of entertainment and culture that turn to the Middle Ages for their subject matter or inspiration, and in doing so…comment on the artist’s contemporary sociocultural milieu” (1). Medievalism can be approached in many ways, including in terms of media (e.g., literature, architecture, cinema, music, games), chronology (e.g., Early Modern, Romantic, Victorian), geography, and from any number of disciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives (e.g., cultural studies, media studies, race and ethnic studies, gender and queer studies). Presentations that engage with current conversations in the field are particularly welcome.

Examples of topics relevant to the Medievalisms area include (but are not limited to):

• Literary Medievalisms
• Cinematic Medievalisms
• Medievalisms in Art, Architecture, Music, and Performance
• Medievalisms in Gaming, LARPing, and Role-Playing
• Medievalisms of Place and Space
• Gender, Sexuality, Race, Ethnicity, Class, etc. in Medievalisms
• Global Medievalisms
• Queer Medievalisms
• Political Medievalisms
• Medievalisms in the Classroom

All proposals must be submitted through the conference’s database at https://swpaca.org/app

For details on using the submission database and on the application process in general (including submitting proposals for roundtables and preformed panels), please see the FAQS & Resources tab on https://swpaca.org/

Individual proposals for 15-minute papers must include an abstract of approximately 200-500 words. Including a brief bio in the body of the proposal form is encouraged, but not required.  

For information on how to submit a proposal for a roundtable or a multi-paper panel, please view the above FAQs and Tips page.  

The deadline for submissions is October 31, 2024.  

SWPACA offers monetary awards for the best graduate student papers in a variety of categories. Submissions of accepted, full papers are due January 1, 2025. More details are here: https://swpaca.org/graduate-student-paper-awards/  SWPACA also offers travel fellowships for undergraduate and graduate students as well as contingent faculty: https://swpaca.org/travel-awards-students-faculty/

Registration and travel information for the conference is available at https://swpaca.org/albuquerque-conference/  For 2025, we will be returning to the Marriott Albuquerque (2101 Louisiana Blvd NE, Albuquerque, NM 87110), which boasts free parking and close proximity to dining, shopping, and other delights.

In addition, please check out the organization’s peer-reviewed, scholarly journal, Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy, at https://journaldialogue.org/

If you have any questions about the Medievalisms area, please contact its Area Chair, Amber Dunai, at adunai@tamuct.edu. If you have general questions about the conference, please contact us at support@southwestpca.org, and a member of the executive team will get back to you.

This will be a fully in-person conference. If you’re looking for an online option to present your work, keep an eye out for details about the 2025 SWPACA Summer Salon, a completely virtual conference to take place in June 2025.

We look forward to receiving your submissions!