CFP: SWPACA Children’s/Young Adult Literature and Culture Area (11/1/15; 2/10-13/16)

Diana Dominguez Announcement
Location
New Mexico, United States
Subject Fields
Childhood and Education, Digital Humanities, Humanities, Literature, Popular Culture Studies

SWPACA Children’s/Young Adult Literature and Culture Area
37th Annual Southwest Popular/American Culture Association Conference
February 10-13, 2016
Albuquerque, NM

http://southwestpca.org/

 

Submission deadline: November 1, 2015

Submit proposals to: http://conference2016.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 2016 for the 37th annual Southwest Popular/American Culture Association Conference. Come celebrate popular culture in all its glory, for, as our association says: if it’s not popular, it’s not culture.

This year, the Children’s and Young Adult Literature and Culture area would like to explore the theme “Evolving Messages, Meanings, and Mediums 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 might address the following:

  • How does digital media allow for more access to historical and contemporary children’s and YA literature and cultural production?
  • What is the role of the digital archives in furthering scholarship concerning children’s and YA literature and culture?
  • How has the emergence of digital mediums affected publishing opportunities for children’s and YA literature authors?
  • How do children and young adults respond to digital literature in comparison to print literature?
  • What opportunities does digital publishing provide for children and young adults to author their own literature?
  • How do children and young adults process their own digital reading/producing culture?

Other issues of interest might be the writing of fanfiction (by children, young adults, and adults), social media culture as it pertains to children and young adults, young adult narratives of activism and what mediums are used to practice that activism, and how children and young adults express gender, race, and sexuality (as well as other identity markers) in digital mediums.

However, we also welcome papers and presentations that address other mediums aside from the digital. Children’s and YA literature and culture has undergone a number of evolutions in mediums, formats, and styles: 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.

While papers addressing the 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.

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, we 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, 2015.

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. More information for international attendees can be found here: http://southwestpca.org/conference/registration/international-invitation-letter-request/

All proposals need to be submitted using our conference submission database at http://conference2016.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://conference2016.southwestpca.org.

Proposal submission deadline: November 1, 2015

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.)

For questions, or if you encounter problems with submitting proposals to the database, please contact Diana Dominguez, Area Chair, and Kathleen Lacey, SWPACA Leadership Institute Fellow / Assistant Area Chair.  Please put SWPACA in the subject line so we can filter the messages effectively. 

 

Contact Information

Contact info:

Diana Dominguez
Associate Professor,
University of Texas Rio Grande Valley
Area Chair: Children’s and Young Adult Literature and Culture
gypsyscholar60@rgv.rr.com
 

Kathleen Lacey
SWPACA Michael K. Schoenecke Leadership Institute Fellow
Assistant Area Chair: Children’s and Young Adult Literature and Culture
klacey@southwestpca.org
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
 

Contact Email
gypsyscholar60@rgv.rr.com