CFP No Longer for Kids: Children’s Literature and Higher Education (3/15/2023; MLA 2024)

No Longer for Kids: Children’s Literature and Higher Education

deadline for submissions:
March 15, 2023

full name / name of organization:
Noah Mullens / University of Florida

contact email:
noahmullens@ufl.edu

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2023/01/17/no-longer-for-kids-children%E2%80%99s-literature-and-higher-education.

Call for Papers: MLA 2024

Co-sponsored by the Children’s Literature Association and MLA Libraries and Research Forum (non-guaranteed)

Deadline Extended: March 15th

In March 2022, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed the “Parental Rights in Education” bill— dubbed the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill. The policy bars teachers from discussing “sexual orientation or gender identity” with students between kindergarten through the third grade. While LGBTQ+ picture books are not necessarily banned, the implication of the law is that queer literature will no longer be easily accessible to children in elementary schools. The passage of the law is another instance of the trend of banning texts that deal with race, gender, ethnicity, religion, and sexuality. Conversely, other texts are taken out of circulation due to antiquated or harmful depictions of gender, race, and/or sexuality. This process of curation and restriction has happened throughout history. However, this panel addresses the pedagogical questions undergirding these processes.

What happens to these texts? Many are relegated to one specialized area: higher education. But what occurs when a piece of children’s literature can only be taught in a university setting, and how has it occurred in the past? How do curators shape children’s books when archiving them as research objects for scholars? Why are certain texts canonized or applauded in higher education but do not share a similar popularity with parents or elementary educators? What are possible interventions for dealing with book bans in children’s literature?

With the recent publication of the 50th edition of Children’s Literature, the annual journal of the Children’s Literature Association and The Modern Language Association Division on Children’s Literature, this roundtable asks to reflect not only of the study on children’s literature in academia, but to consider the texts that can only be studied in higher educational contexts.

Possible topics include, but are not limited to:

• Syllabi of children’s literature courses and the tastes, sensibilities, and aesthetics scholars have privileged
• The various considerations and restrictions public librarians, school librarians, and archivists navigate when curating children’s books
• Historical examples of literature that was removed from child educational settings but persisted in higher education
• Policies that reframe particular children’s texts or crossover texts to a strictly adult audience
• Differences in how scholars in higher education and readers outside of the university perceive the intended audience of children’s literature
• Texts that make critical contributions to children’s literature scholarship and representation that do not gain traction outside of the academy
• The multiple qualifiers for when to take a book out of circulation and the controversies surrounding how these texts should be approached, researched, and taught in a higher educational context
• The differences or similarities between what Michelle Ann Abate calls a “children’s literature for adults” and children’s literature that becomes adult through political agendas

Please send a brief abstract (150-200 words) for short papers suitable for a roundtable discussion to Noah Mullens (noahmullens@ufl.edu) by March 15th, 2023.



Last updated February 27, 2023

CFP In Pursuit of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (9/9/2022; NEASA Fall Colloquium 11/12/2022 Worcester, MA)

In Pursuit of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Saturday, Nov. 12 | Clark University

Proposals Due by Sept. 9th | @neasacouncil@gmail.com

For the New England American Studies Association’s 2022 Fall Colloquium, we invite submissions for 1-hour long panels, workshops, roundtables, and facilitated conversations or 15-min interactive presentations that will explore how the pursuit of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) has shaped or could shape American higher education, history, culture, society, politics, and/or the field of American Studies. Submissions may explore histories, theories, and case studies surrounding DEI, but should focus on being strategy-generating rather than simply content-driven. In particular, we are interested in programming that will foster dialogue on possible DEI best practices in a variety of settings, and that will offer key takeaways for practical application.

We invite submissions that explore questions including but not limited to:

• How do we create a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive culture in academia and beyond?
• What strategies and methods do we employ to foster DEI in our work and teaching?
• Beyond theory, what does DEI in practice look like in various settings such as classrooms, universities, libraries, museums, community organizations, or other educational spaces?
• What are some obstacles in the pursuit of DEI and how can we overcome them?
• How can we bring an actual systemic change through DEI initiatives? Or what is the role of DEI initiatives in addressing systemic barriers?
• What are some challenges and limitations of the DEI framework and how can we overcome them?
• What is at stake when DEI efforts fail?

If you’re interested in organizing a panel or giving an individual presentation addressing these themes please send an email to neasacouncil@gmail.com by September 9th. This can be an informal email, including your name, affiliation if any, and a broad theme of your panel or presentation. For panels, please also include the names of other participants.

This event will be held in-person at Clark University in Worcester, MA on November 12, 2022. Registration will be free, but required. Full schedule will be available by October 17th. More details TBD.

Register for the colloquium using the link below.

Colloquium Registration

Survey/CFP MLA and Sherlock Holmes!

Contribute to an MLA Approaches Volume on Sherlock Holmes Stories 

Source: https://news.mla.hcommons.org/2021/03/01/contribute-to-an-mla-approaches-volume-on-sherlock-holmes-stories/

Posted 1 March 2021 by Benjamin Schacht

The volume Approaches to Teaching Sherlock Holmes Stories, edited by Tom Ue, is now in development in the MLA series Approaches to Teaching World Literature. Instructors who have taught works that feature Sherlock Holmes are encouraged to contribute to the volume by completing a survey about their experiences. Information about proposing an essay is available at the end of the survey.

 

CFP MLA's Teaching Science Fiction in the Literature Classroom (4/15/20)

Science Fiction in the Literature Classroom

The presence of science fiction in university classrooms is by now no longer shocking; the genre has become a mainstay not only in literature and philosophy classrooms but also in STEM fields, as its predictions and extrapolations pose memorable and concrete case studies to explore the societal and ethical implications of technological innovation, as well as interesting practical engineering problems to try to solve with real-world science. As the world around us becomes more and more science fictional with each passing year—often in ways that have eerie resonance with the dystopian and apocalyptic predictions of years past—the speculations of science fiction will only have more purchase in our attempts to prepare our students for a future that seems very much in flux.
But in film and literature departments science fiction still often suffers from a reputation as being easy, silly, and fundamentally undemanding, an essentially degraded form of artistic production unworthy of serious attention by serious critics. This reputation persists despite the canonization of major writers of science fiction—Kurt Vonnegut, Ursula K. Le Guin, Octavia E. Butler, Philip K. Dick, and J. G. Ballard, among many others—who are treated as exceptional deviations from the genre rather than emblematic of it, and also denies the science fictional dimensions of work by acclaimed writers such as Margaret Atwood, Kazuo Ishiguro, David Mitchell, and David Foster Wallace.

This volume, Teaching Science Fiction in the Literature Classroom, will be divided into three sections. The first, “Form and Genre,” will focus on teaching science fiction in its own terms, as a genre with rules, conventions, and principles quite specific to itself. The second, “Canonicity and Prestige,” will consider science fiction appearing in the classroom alongside more traditionally acclaimed literature and film, often on the same syllabus. The third, “Creation,” will consider pedagogy that invites students to create science fiction, with all the possibilities and pitfalls that can entail.

Scholars interested in contributing an essay of approximately 3,000–4,000 words are invited to submit a 250–500-word abstract outlining their chapter. The deadline for submissions of abstracts is 15 April 2020; please e-mail submissions and any questions for clarification to Gerry Canavan (gerry.canavan@marquette.edu). Permission from students must be obtained for any relevant quotations from student work in the essay; previously published essays cannot be considered. Learn more about the MLA guidelines for publication.

Panel Call for ICFA 2020: Expanding the Archive (10/11/2019; Orlando 3/2020))

Panel Call for ICFA 2020: Expanding the Archive
July 2, 2019
https://www.fantastic-arts.org/2019/panel-call-for-icfa-2020-expanding-the-archive/


Panel Call for ICFA 2020: Expanding the Archive

In 2019, the fanfiction site Archive of Our Own (AO3) was nominated for a Hugo award. This repository of nearly 5 million original works, representing over 30 thousand fandoms, stands out in the world of Science Fiction and Fantasy awards not only because of the sheer number of authors it represents, but also because it is the first nomination for unpublished fanfiction and many of the authors are young women. This nomination draws attention to what is “archived” and, by extension, what is valued. AO3’s nomination is not the year’s only example of the expanding canon of Speculative Fiction. The documentary film Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror, produced by Tananarive Due, directed by Xavier Burgin, and based on Dr. Robin R. Means Coleman’s book Horror Noire: Blacks in American Horror Films from the 1890s to Present (2011), begins with the assertion that “black history is black horror” and tracks how the genre can engage with questions of race and power. Similarly, Dr. Ebony Thomas’s The Dark Fantastic considers Black female characters Bonnie Bennett (CW’s The Vampire Diaries), Rue (The Hunger Games), Gwen (Merlin), and Angelina Johnson (Harry Potter), and explores how these characters mirror racist violence in the real world. Each of these examples makes a case for expanding the idea of the canon (and what we value enough to archive) to include different types of characters and voices.

In terms of physical archives, a recent open letter on the Reading While White blog called out the lack of context and white-washing of the University of Minnesota’s Children’s Literature Research Collection’s exhibit and corresponding book The ABC of It: Why Children’s Books Matter, demonstrating that even professional archives are not neutral—especially once their materials are extracted and exhibited for public consumption. In the wake of this controversy, curators of archives, whether in libraries, classrooms, or their own scholarly work, must address how the materials presented and their surrounding context represent choices that speak to the curator’s values and priorities.

When archives hold the power to exclude and include, to value and affirm both people and genre, then how do we as scholars decide what belongs and how do we think through the consequences of those choices for ourselves, our students, and our field? We encourage submissions that answer these questions and otherwise critically examine the speculative fiction archive, broadly defined.

Submissions may consider but are not limited to the following topics in relation to archives:

• Accessibility
• Materialism
• The worth/value estimation of collecting
• Teaching courses in the archives
• Archival pedagogy- constructing the archives for our courses/ asking students to construct their own archives
• Controversies and canon
• Digital collections
• Internet as archive
• Fan spaces
• Race and representation
• Award winners as archive

Please submit a 300-500 word abstract and preliminary bibliography to Emily Midkiff (midki003@umn.edu) or Sara Austin (austins4@miamioh.edu) by Oct 11, 2019. Abstracts will also be considered for a special issue of the Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts, for which we will be issuing a CFP in November.

Bookmark the Google Doc version of this call to keep on top of any updates: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1i1_izexTPz_vj8hfreDZjqaXc3yNN4zud5ifc6TV9QA/edit?usp=sharing

CFP The Pedagogy of Harry Potter (7/10/2018)

Another interesting call; sorry for posting it so close to the deadline.

The Pedagogy of Harry Potter
https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2018/05/15/the-pedagogy-of-harry-potter

deadline for submissions: July 10, 2018

full name / name of organization: Marcie Panutsos Rovan and Melissa Wehler

contact email: 2marcie@gmail.com



J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter is one of the most successful series of all time, and since its publication, has inspired scholars to analyze its engagement with gender, its relationship to mythology and fairy tales, and its literary and historical influences. Scholars have examined the impact that the books have had on popular culture, children’s literacy, and children’s literature. Collections have considered the series as a way of exploring politics, philosophy, religion, ethics, and psychology, among other fields. Yet, lost in all this scholarship has been a serious engagement with the way the series portrays education.

Before she was a renowned children’s author, J.K. Rowling was an educator. She taught English as a foreign language in Portugal, then trained as an educator in Edinburgh. She taught French part-time in Edinburgh while writing the Harry Potter series. Her educational background left an indelible mark on her books. Hogwarts, the central location of the series, is first and foremost, a boarding school. Most of the characters within the text are either students or professors. While scholars have looked at the series’ relationship to other boarding school stories or considered how the series can be used in the classroom, there has been no focused analysis of the educational theories and practices depicted within the walls of Hogwarts.

In assembling a collection of essays, we would like to see a variety of topics related to the various pedagogical approaches (both successful and unsuccessful) and educational concerns depicted in the Harry Potter series. While authors are invited to draw on the film adaptations, we ask that essays focus on the book series.

Possible subjects might include:

• Mentorship
• Discipline and punishment
• Responses to bullying
• Teaching without technology
• Active learning strategies
• Process-based learning
• Standardized testing & the O.W.L/N.E.W.T. exams
• Teaching styles displayed by various characters
• Student support
• Classroom management
• Ethics and inclusivity
• Assessment of student learning
• Issues related to first-generation/ muggle-born students

Brief author biographies and abstracts (of 300-500 words in length) should be submitted via email to: 2marcie@gmail.com and melissawehler@gmail.com by July 10, 2018. Essays must be in American English and spellings, fully cited in accordance with the current MLA style manual. The length of each contribution should be roughly 6,000 to 6,500 words. The deadline for final chapter submission is November 30, 2018. Peer review will be conducted after the collection is submitted, currently scheduled for March 2019. The collection is under contract with McFarland.

Editor Biographies

Marcie Rovan, Ph.D., serves as an Assistant Professor of English and Director of First-Year Writing at Central Penn College, Summerdale, PA. She has a Ph.D. in literature from Duquesne University with a specialization in Children’s Literature. Her publications include a journal article, “The ‘Broken Mirror’: Casualties of Nation-Building in Train to Pakistan,” in Impressions and a book chapter, "What to do with Supergirl?: Fairy Tales Tropes, Female Power, and Conflicted Feminist Discourse" in a forthcoming collection of essays on Supergirl to be published by McFarland.

Melissa Wehler, Ph.D. serves as the Dean of Humanities and Sciences, Central Penn College, Summerdale, PA. Her publications include book chapters in various edited collections, including “‘We are allies, my dear’: Defining British and American National Identity in Downton Abbey” in Exploring Downton Abbey (2018), “The Haunted Hero: The Performance of Trauma in Jessica Jones” in Jessica Jones, Scared Hero: Essays on Gender Trauma and Addiction in the Netflix Series (2018), “‘Be wise. Be brave. Be tricky’: Neil Gaiman’s Extraordinarily Ordinary Coraline,” in A Quest of Her Own (2014), among others. She has several forthcoming publications including, co-editing a collection of essays on the television show Supergirl where her article “The Super “It” Girl: A New Brand for a Classic Icon” will also appear.

CFP Not Just Kidding Around: On Teaching Children’s Media (8/18/2017; SCMS 2018)

Of potential interest, but do note the impending deadline:

Not Just Kidding Around: On Teaching Children’s Media (SCMS 2018)
https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2017/08/04/not-just-kidding-around-on-teaching-children%E2%80%99s-media-scms-2018

deadline for submissions: August 18, 2017

full name / name of organization: Andrew Scahill / University of Colorado Denver

contact email: adscahill@gmail.com


**CFP for the Society of Cinema and Media Studies (SCMS) 2018 Conference in Toronto**

In an academic setting, weighty or dramatic “adult” films are generally met with intellectual curiosity by students, or at least an acknowledgement that they are “worthy” of consideration. Genre films like horror or action are met with more resistance, but generally students are willing to admit they have some sort of ideological investments. Films aimed at children, however, are often dismissed as just entertainment. Surely we may analyze Bicycle Thieves, but Home Alone? Yes to Goodfellas, no to Goonies.

The assumption is often that younger audience equates to a simpler text. In teaching children’s media, professors also must deal with the legacy of media effects research, which often leads to knee-jerk and oversimplified assumptions (“Disney princesses are bad!”) and the construction of a completely passive child spectator. Rarely, too, do we discuss how children’s media is designed with a bilateral address to both children and adults, often serving as a meditation on what it means to be a parent as much as what it means to be a child. As a “low” or unworthy genre, professors may also have to deal with an administration unable to see the value in teaching a course on kids’ films.

Pedagogy is a neglected subject in media studies, and this workshop promises a positive, collaborative, and supportive atmosphere. This will be a “best practices”-style workshop, and our facilitators will bring teaching materials to distribute among attendees, including model syllabi, assignment prompts, and discussion prompts. Each facilitator will be asked to prepare a short testimony about a challenge they experienced teaching children’s media, and what steps they took to overcome it. This comes at an important time for our 2018 conference, as the “Children’s and Youth Media and Culture” scholarly interest group is merely a year old, and this workshop would aid in our community-building and recruitment efforts.

To express interest, please contact Andrew Scahill (University of Colorado Denver) at adscahill@gmail.com by August 18 and explain how you would be able to contribute to this workshop.


keywords: pedagogy workshop children media animation film cinema kids academia

Last updated August 7, 2017 

CFP Colllection on “You’re Not Cool Just Because You Teach with Comics”: Studies on the Integration of Popular Culture in Teaching and Learning About Education (proposals by 1/31/2016)

I don't know the context here, but it seems a worthwhile endeavor:

“You’re Not Cool Just Because You Teach with Comics”:  Studies on the Integration of Popular Culture in Teaching and Learning About Education
Call for Chapter Proposals
https://networks.h-net.org/node/GROUP_NID/discussions/83751/call-chapter-proposals

Discussion published by Edward Janak on Wednesday, September 16, 2015

Rationale:

A group of high school history teachers attended the 2015 meeting of the Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association.  After each of the first two days, they were enthused and excited to meet a group of like-minded people.  However, after one session, one of the teachers walked up looking dejected.  When asked what was wrong, he fumbled for words for a moment or two, then finally said “Just because you teach using comic books does NOT make you a cool teacher!  And it DEFINITELY doesn’t mean you know what to do with those comics.”

The purpose of this edited volume is to address that frustration.  It is intended to serve as a place for teachers and scholars to begin seeking ways in which popular culture has been tapped for research and teaching purposes in effective means around the country.  The book will be divided into two parts:

Part I will allow teachers and scholars who perform research using popular culture to provide a discussion on any methodological issue or other related topic;
Part II will allow teachers and scholars who have great success teaching via popular culture to discuss the pedagogy/andragogy they tap.

Submission Areas:

Predicted possible topics for papers include, but are not limited to:

• Reflections/linkages between schooling and popular culture in the United States;
• Theoretical perspectives to using popular culture in education, teaching, or preservice teacher education in the United States;
• Use of popular culture in both formal and informal settings;
• International/multinational/cross-border lenses through which popular culture/popular perception of schooling can be viewed;
• The role of history in education, teaching, or preservice teacher education in the United States and/or re-integrating historical foundations into education;
• Successful use(s) of popular culture in education, teaching, or preservice teacher education in the United States;
• Representation(s) of teaching and/or schooling in popular culture through history;
• How education has impacted/has been impacted by popular culture;
• The impact/emergence of LGBTQ studies in schooling and education;
• Queering any of the represented fields/multidisciplinary approaches to the represented fields (education, schooling, history, archival studies, teaching, preservice teacher education);
• Otherization/de-otherization of immigrants via their representation(s) in popular culture (Hollywood, Television);
• Tapping into (or resisting) popular technology to improve education; and/or
• Exploring the intersections of social media, social identity and education.

Proposals:

We thus invite educational scholars to submit the following to both of the editors appearing below:

An abstract of 500 words (excluding sources cited) providing an overview of the chapter in its entirety
A list of tentative sources cited/data points; and
Brief (1-2 page) curriculum vitae of each contributor including, when relevant: affiliation/position, publication history, and educational history.

Please note:  Graduate students, K-12 teachers and independent scholars are all highly encouraged to submit. When possible, we encourage collaboration with a university faculty member.

Submissions:

If accepted, contributors will be responsible for producing manuscripts that meet the following criteria:

• be relevant to the field and further the conversation;
• be a minimum of 5,000 words (20-35 pages) in length;
• follow all formatting and style guidelines from the Chicago Manual of Style;
• contain all original material (not have been previously published); and
• not contain any copyrighted material (images, lengthy passages, etc).

Important Deadlines and Dates:

• Submission of abstracts to editors: January 31, 2016
• Notification of decisions to contributors: April 2016
• Submission of proposal to Lexington Press: May 2016
• Chapter submission to editors: August 2016
• Revision/redraft of chapters from editors: November 2017
• Revision re-submission from contributors: January 2017
• Submission to press: June 1, 2017
• Tentative publication date: November 2017

Editor Information:

All enquiries should be directed to:

Dr. Edward Janak, Chair          
Educational Foundations and Leadership
Judith Herb College of Education
University of Toledo
5000-C Gillham Hall, Mail Stop 921
2801 West Bancroft Street
Toledo, OH  43606-3390
Phone: (419) 530-4114
Email: Edward.janak@utoledo.edu


Dr. Ludovic A. Sourdot
Associate Professor, Curriculum & Instruction
Department of Teacher Education
Texas Woman’s University
P.O. Box 425769
Denton, TX 76204-5769
Phone:(940) 898-2216
Email: lsourdot@mail.twu.edu

CFP Essays for MLA Volume on Teaching Young Adult Literature (proposals by 11/1/2015)

Call for Essay Proposal for Volume on Teaching Young Adult Literature (1 November 2015)
full name / name of organization: MLA Publications
contact email: kscoat2@ilstu.edu
http://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/node/63154

Proposals are invited for a volume entitled Teaching Young Adult Literature to be edited by Karen Coats, Mike Cadden, and Roberta Seelinger Trites. This volume in the MLA’s Options for Teaching series aims to bring together a range of articles describing innovative and successful approaches to designing and teaching stand-alone Young Adult Literature courses at the post-secondary level, as well as incorporating YA texts into other undergraduate and graduate courses relevant to MLA members and Education and Library Science faculty.

This volume will be a resource for new and experienced teachers of young adult texts. It will provide suggestions for supplementary materials and pedagogical activities for a variety of student audiences in a range of college settings. Abstracts that use specific YA texts as examples to demonstrate how to teach genres within YA literature (e.g. graphic narrative, historical fiction, the verse novel, etc.) are welcome, as are abstracts that focus on themes, topics, methods, and problems in teaching Young Adult literature in various settings.

Your abstract should clarify your intended topic, setting, its relevance to the subject of Young Adult literature pedagogy, the texts, genre(s) or theories you expect to explore, and the value of your intended topic to a broad range of instructors and students. Please note that any quotations from student papers will require written permission from the students. Contributors to a volume must be members of the MLA when their contribution is submitted in the final, approved manuscript, through publication.
If you are interested in contributing an essay of between 2000–3000 words, please submit an abstract of 350–500 words to Karen Coats at kscoat2@ilstu.edu by 1 November 2015.


By web submission at 07/25/2015 - 18:49

CFP Pedagogy & Popular Culture Area (11/1/2015; SWPACA Albuquerque 2/10-13/2016)

Pedagogy & Popular Culture - SW Popular & American Culture Association, CFP Deadline: 11/1/15, Conference: 02/10 - 02/13/16
full name / name of organization: Southwest Popular & American Culture Association
contact email: kudepner@nmsu.edu
http://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/node/63451

We are happy to announce the 37th annual Southwest Popular & American Culture conference in beautiful downtown Albuquerque, New Mexico!

This is a Call for Proposals (CFP) to submit paper presentations and panels on any topic involving successful or innovative approaches for teaching literature, media studies, film, cultural studies, history, television, rhetoric and composition, technical writing, technology, etc. We also welcome proposals that identify and discuss the existence or implication of specific pedagogical problems or issues, whether or not these advance any new methodologies. Proposals regarding using popular culture in the classroom are particularly encouraged.

Teachers from any type of school or curriculum are encouraged to submit proposals. Graduate students with teaching experience are particularly welcome, with award opportunities for the best graduate papers in a variety of categories, including the Phil Heldrich Award for Popular Culture Pedagogy. Please see the following link for more details: http://southwestpca.org/conference/graduate-student-awards/. Deadline for Submitting for the Phil Heldrich Award: December 1.

We also welcome submissions for our organization’s new, peer-reviewed journal, Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy http://journaldialogue.org. While we encourage and welcome all topics involving pedagogy and/or curriculum development, some suggestions for possible papers or panels are listed below:

• Combining unusual disciplines in Writing Across the Curriculum courses
• Utilizing new media technologies or Web 2.0 tools
• Multimodal learning
• Discussing the benefits and challenges of online teaching; best practice presentations are gleefully welcome!
• Integrating popular television, films, novels, graphic novels, or music for meaningful classroom lesson planning
• Teaching games and game theory
• Utilizing social networking tools in the classroom
• Using Wikis or Blogs in the classroom
• Teaching with podcasts and videocasts
• Editing family letters and/or journals in student projects
• Promoting active learning by co-opting structures typically associated with webpages
• Integrating service learning with traditional curricula
• Constructing student projects as museum exhibits
• Challenging standard pedagogical assumptions

Each paper proposal must include:

1. 100-250 word abstract
2. Brief biographical statement of 50 words or less for each applicant

Please check the Conference Audiovisual Policies page at http://southwestpca.org/conference/audiovideo-policy/ regarding what A/V equipment will be available in the conference rooms. Please submit your proposals to the submission database (http://conference2016.southwestpca.org).

Thank you for submission and we look forward to your participation in the 37th annual Southwest PCA/ACA Conference!

Pedagogy and Popular Culture Chair:
Kurt Depner kudepner@nmsu.edu, New Mexico State University - Dona Ana


By web submission at 08/15/2015 - 22:57

CFP Harry Potter Generation in Retrospect (1/15/15)

Edited Collection -- Into the Pensieve: The Harry Potter Generation in Retrospect. [DEADLINE: Jan 15, 2015]
full name / name of organization:
Balaka Basu, Emily Lauer
contact email:
hpgeneration.book@gmail.com

There now exists a generation who have grown up in a culture thoroughly permeated by Harry Potter, from the books to the movies and beyond. Now that the series has come to a close, it is time to take stock: how exactly has this generation of new adults been shaped and constructed by the cultural zeitgeist that is the Harry Potter universe? What future is there for Harry Potter studies? Are we still in the Harry Potter Age, or have we entered a Post-Potter age?

We seek essays of 6,000 - 7,000 words for this collection that address the idea of a Harry Potter Generation broadly, with perspectives including fan studies, pedagogy, and traditional theoretical lenses.

Possible themes might include, but are not limited to:

- Fan studies, including fandom communities and productions, and those authors writing now whose work was inspired by the Harry Potter phenomenon.
- The narrative and genre concerns of the series and how they may affect a generation of readers.
- The role(s) of history and the present in the series itself.
- Pedagogical concerns - as professors, how do we engage with an assumption of cultural knowledge of Harry Potter in the classroom?
- Global approaches, especially post-colonial - how has the Harry Potter phenomenon shaped experience outside of Great Britain and North America?
- Merchandising and versioning - how have the movies or the shopping opportunities shaped the idea of what role Harry Potter can play in consumers’ lives?
- Experiences of children who did not read the books, or who were discouraged from doing so.

Email queries are very welcome at any time; send completed papers as attachments in Word format to Balaka Basu and Emily Lauer at hpgeneration.book@gmail.com by January 15, 2015.


By web submission at 05/13/2014 - 23:58

CFP YA Literature and Composition (7/1/14)

YA Literature and Composition
full name / name of organization:
Dr. Tamara Girardi and Dr. Abigail Scheg
contact email:
YALitCollection@gmail.com

While adult book sales have been down for the past few years, sales of young adult titles have increased as much as 30% according to some reports. The turn of the millennium brought an explosion of YA sales with the most notable Harry Potter, Twilight, Hunger Games, and Divergent series. YA sections grew from a few shelves to prominent areas in libraries and major bookstores. In fact, a recent Pew Survey reported that 16-29 year-olds check out library books more than any other group.

Despite assumptions that kids don’t read, young adults entering college classrooms are reading recreationally more so than any generation before them. Additionally, many popular films and television shows are based on young adult novels and series. With the prevalence of contemporary young adult literature in their lives, it is logical to question how a connection can be made to their learning in academia.

This collection will explore such connections, specifically in the college composition classroom, although some references to literature and creative writing classrooms are also welcome. While the heart of the exploration involves the reading and writing of young adult literature, the ultimate goal should be to discuss how one or both might inform composition pedagogy.

Possible topics include, but are not limited to:
-Early young adult texts such as Maureen Daly’s Seventeenth Summer, S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders, and works by Judy Blume, Lois Duncan, and Robert Cormier and how these texts relate to contemporary YA literature.
-Why specific themes or tropes connect well with high school and college students.
-Contradictions between YA reader’s interests in dark issues such as addiction, suicide, terminal illness, sexuality, abuse and their parents and/or teachers anticipation that such issues are too serious for them.
-Variations in genres within the YA framework and how knowledge of genre differences might influence greater understanding and appreciation for non-traditional literary works.
-Comparison between new adult and young adult genres.
-Popularity of YA literature with adults.
-The cathartic experience of writing and reading about challenges faced during one of the most formative times in a student’s life.
-Composition assignments and pedagogy that feature YA literature in some way.

Please send inquiries or abstracts of approximately 250 words to YALitCollection@gmail.com by July 1, 2014. Editors for this collection are: Dr. Tamara Girardi (@TamaraGirardi), Harrisburg Area Community College, and Dr. Abigail Scheg (@ag_scheg), Elizabeth City State University.


By web submission at 05/14/2014 - 02:26