more cfp sharing: Tribe & Rite Conference at University of Victoria November 8-9

The University of Victoria English Department and Heavy Metal UVic invite paper submissions for

Tribe & Rite Conference at University of Victoria November 8-9 

Possible Topics:

The makings and markers of a metalhead | Metal as genre, subculture, counterculture, or tribe | Rites and rituals of regional/historical metal movements | The transformation of metal by academia and vice versa | Generational differences in metal | The influence of metal on other culturalmovements (e.g. punk, hippy), and vice versa | Comparison of metal with other cultural movements | Comparison of subcultures within metal (e.g. the radical politics of crust, the Satanism, neo-paganism, and occultism of black metal) | The future and fate of metal | Inclusive and exclusivebehavior among metalheads| The relationship between metal music and memorabilia

Metal culture celebrates the wild, the grotesque, and the forbidden. We invite papers on these themes from across the humanities, social sciences, fine arts, and related disciplines. Papers can draw on lyrics, musical technique, aesthetics (music, fashion, album art), innovations in metal, regional and historical metal movements, and more.

Please send proposals to: metalcon@uvic.ca in Word format by 10/3/14

Include author name(s), department and institution, email address, title of presentation, and an abstract of 50-100 words.

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Popular Culture, Academic Conferencing and Calgary

As you may already know, I'm involved in the Popular Culture Association of Canada, which is a scholarly organization devoted to promoting the study of popular culture in Canada. We define our terms broadly, and though we're based in Canada, we don't restrict our interests to Canadian culture or our membership to Canadian scholars, students, artists and other professionals.

In addition to curating any and all media arts submissions, this year I'm program committee co-chair. That means I've gotten a sneak peak at the proposals coming in, and I'm already getting excited! But I'd love to get more people involved. Conveniently, we have agreed to extend the submission deadline to January 10, giving folks a few extra weeks to think about what they might propose.

If you're interested in any aspect of popular culture and want to present your analysis or exhibit your art work(s), propose something! We're meeting in Calgary in May (just down the road from beautiful Banff, no less), and would love to have you there.

You can find more information at our website. All proposals should be sent to conference [at] canpop.ca.

Popular Culture Association of Canada Conference 2013 (third time's the charm!) - deadline extension to Jan 11, 2013

The call for papers and visual/multimedia presentations for the third annual Popular Culture Association of Canada conference has been out for a while now. But there's still time to send in a proposal before the EXTENDED JANUARY 11 DEADLINE.

Once again, the conference is taking place in Niagara Falls, Canada, in view of the Falls themselves and right around the corner from the amusements of Clifton Hill.

I highly recommend the conference for its high grade of intellectual stimulation and fun - sometimes all at once!

Here's part of the relevant PCAC blurb and pitch:

We invite proposals for papers and/or panels on theories of popular culture, research methods in popular culture, the teaching of popular culture, forms and genres of popular culture, and any epiphenomena of popular culture, past or present. We also welcome presentation and exhibition proposals from visual and multi-media artists whose work engages with popular culture.

Our broad definition of popular culture encompasses communicative texts, practices and experiences, mediated and unmediated, contemporary and historical, Canadian and non-Canadian (including the local and the global).

We share an interdisciplinary vision of this Association. We are interested in featuring papers from scholars and/or producers and practitioners of popular cultural phenomena from a wide variety of disciplines and cross-disciplinary perspectives in the humanities, social sciences and sciences.

If you're interested in submitting a proposal and/or attending, submission and conference details are all posted to the PCAC website.

See you there, I hope!

2012-2013 Conference Round-Up, Part 2: Metal, Music, and a Little (Non)Seriousness

Despite the overwhelming abundance of conferences and conventions listed in my last post on upcoming speculative fiction cons, it didn't come anywhere close to covering the interesting conference activities that have caught my eye recently. Part two here turns from science fiction, fantasy and horror to heavy metal, popular music studies, and a cultural studies approach to seriousness or the lack thereof. See you there, perhaps?

NOCTIS METAL MUSIC CONFERENCE

Part of the Noctis V Metal Fest
September 28-29, 2012

Ramada Hotel
Calgary, Alberta, Canada

Guest appearances include: Venom front-man and black-metal legend, CRONOS, music journalists JOEL MCIVER and MARTIN POPOFF, label head CHRIS BRUNI from Profound Lore, professor at Bowling Green University, DR. MATT DONAHUE, journalist and metal scholar SARAH KITTERINGHAM, and many more.

For more information on all the speakers, bands, venue and tickets please visit: www.noctisvalkyries.com

Heavy Metal and Popular Culture

Department of Popular Culture at Bowling Green State University, in collaboration with Heavy Fundametalisms: Metal, Music and Politics and the International Society for Metal Music Studies (ISMMS)

April 4-7, 2013
Bowling Green State University
Bowling Green, Ohio, USA

Featured at the conference will be keynote lectures by Robert Walser, Laina Dawes, and Keith Kahn-Harris, a screening of the film Motörhead Matters, three roundtables featuring Niall Scott, Steve Waksman, Deena Weinstein and other international metal scholars to be announced, and a special exhibit on facepaint and masks.

All materials must be electronically date-stamped by December 1, 2012 at midnight CST and emailed to Clifford@ucmo.edu with “HMPC Submission” in the subject line and required documents attached.

You Can’t Be Serious: An Exploration of the Idea, Importance and Influence of Seriousness and Nonseriousness in the Contemporary Humanities

The 2013 John Douglas Taylor Conference
May 15-17, 2013
McMaster University
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

Confirmed Keynotes: Jeremy Gilbert (University of East London), Julie Rak (University of Alberta).

Please submit all proposals (paper and roundtable) via e-mail attachment by October 15, 2012 to tayconf@mcmaster.ca with the subject line “Taylor Conference: Seriousness.” Attachments should be in .doc, .docx or .rtf formats.

Music and Labour

IASPM-Canada 30th Annual Conference
May 23-26, 2013

McMaster University

Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

From the earliest days of academic popular music studies, concepts of labour have been of paramount importance both for their intellectual richness and for their ability to link academic practices with broader patterns of social and political action. The site of this conference, in Hamilton, Ontario, resonates both with the history of labour in Canada and with the contemporary transformation and reinvention of those urban spaces which originally developed around heavy industry.

While proposals on any topic relating to popular music are welcome, the conference organizers especially invite proposals for individual presentations, panels, workshops or performances on topics related to the theme of the conference. Please submit your abstract in French or English, depending on the language in which the paper will be presented by 31 October 2012 to willliam_echard@carleton.ca.

Science fiction and fantasy (and horror) conferences galore

It's pretty frequent that I wish I had a couple extra versions of myself. It would be great for productivity.  And that way I might not have to miss so many excellent cons (conferences and conventions both). The coming eight months or so are full of science-fictional and fantastical conferencing and convening opportunities, and somehow I have to choose only a few to actually attend...

2012

FAN EXPO: Aug 23-26
I'm pleased to say I'll be heading out to this Toronto extravaganza for the first time in a few years, though I'll only get to experience a sliver of what's going on. As usual, it's the science fiction expo and the Festival of Fear that are the main draws for me.

SLSA (Society for Literature, Science and the Arts): Sep 27-30
Where literature and the arts meet science you inevitably find science fiction and SLSA always seems to have stimulating sf panels. This year the overarching theme is the nonhuman. I was slotted to attend, and wish I could, but a trip to Milwaukee at the end of September just isn't in my power.

NEPCA: Oct 26-27
This regional branch of the Popular Culture Association features a few science fiction & fantasy panels on its programming schedule, one of which will include a paper by me. This year the conference takes place at Saint John Fisher College in Rochester.

WORLD FANTASY CONVENTION: Nov 1-4
I've never been, but this year the con comes to Toronto, so I'm sorely tempted (though membership comes at a steep price). Announced guests include John Clute and Gary K. Wolfe, whose scholarship I admire, and authors like Charles de Lint, Tanya Huff, Patricia Briggs, and Mercedes Lackey.

2013

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE for the FANTASTIC in the ARTS – Fantastic Adaptations, Transformations, and Audiences: Mar 20-24

I've been to ICFA twice and had a great experience both times. This year promises to be even livelier than usual with Neil Gaiman featuring among the top-listed guests, along with author Kij Johnson and scholar Constance Penley. Does this fall after March break in 2013? In the past I've found myself making the return trip to Orlando in the midst of vacationing families. The hotel is in the middle of nowhere, but there's a good Asian restaurant and the pool is nice. If you want to participate you have until the end of October to put together a persuasive proposal.

Conference of the Popular and American Culture Association (PCA/ACA): Mar 27-30 

The Science Fiction & Fantasy and Horror areas of this huge conference are active and engaging, and well worth checking out (although not the only panels of interest, of course). This year folks are gathering in Washington, DC, for the main event. The SF/F section has set a Nov 30 deadline for proposals.

SFRA/EATON Science Fiction Conference: Apr 11-14

I haven't been to the conferences of either organization, although they sound like fascinating collections of people and ideas. This coming year people can check them both off in one shot. Proposals for this California conference are due on September 14, so time is running out.

Popular Culture Association of Canada (PCAC): May 9-11

Our call for presenters isn't out yet, and we don't have an official science fiction, fantasy or horror section, but these genres tend to feature fairly prominently in the programming schedule. Stay tuned for more info about next year's conference, the last slotted for Niagara Falls (at least in the immediate future).

WisCon 37: May 24-27
Billed as the "world's leading feminist science fiction convention," WisCon is featuring Joan Slonczewski and Jo Walton as Guests of Honor this year. This is another enticing event I have yet to check out.

And this isn't even all of them! 

(sigh)

pop culture meets academia in Canada (call for papers)

In some circles I'm known as an academic conference junkie. I've been trying to get a handle on my habit, but the constant temptation as I see one tantalizing call for papers after another come through my email in box... Well, I am learning to exhibit (what I would call admirable) restraint.

The first half of my 2012 is more for writing and teaching than presenting and networking, but I expect to make an exception for this event:

CFP: Popular Culture Association of Canada (PCAC) 2^nd Annual Conference, May 10-12, 2012

Last year's conference was a blast (intellectual stimulation included), so a follow-up visit seems entirely in order.