This is the early June MAPACA newsletter. Our next conference is November 10-13, 2021 and will be held online.
In This Newsletter, We Have:
Our Call for Papers
Special Area Calls from SF/Fantasy and True Crime
A Call for Papers from Response
Join Us on LinkedIn
Our 2021 Call for Papers
Mid-Atlantic Popular & American Culture Association (MAPACA)
2021 Virtual Conference
November 10-13, 2021
Online
Call for papers:
Proposals are welcome on all aspects of popular and American culture for inclusion in the 2021 Mid-Atlantic Popular & American Culture Association (MAPACA) virtual conference. Single papers, panels, roundtables, and alternative formats are welcome. This conference will be held completely online.
Proposals should take the form of 300-word abstracts, and may only be submitted to one appropriate area. For a list of areas and area chair contact information, visit mapaca.net/areas. General questions can be directed to mapaca@mapaca.net. The deadline for submission is Thursday July 15, 2021.
MAPACA’s membership is comprised of college and university faculty, independent scholars and artists, and graduate and undergraduate students. MAPACA is an inclusive professional organization dedicated to the study of popular and American culture in all their multi-disciplinary manifestations. It is a regional division of the Popular Culture and American Culture Association, which, in the words of Popular Culture Association founder Ray Browne, is a “multi-disciplinary association interested in new approaches to the expressions, mass media and all other phenomena of everyday life.”
For more information, visit mapaca.net.
To submit to this year’s conference, please go to https://mapaca.net/conference/submission. You’ll need to be signed in to your account to create a submission. If you do not already have a MAPACA account, you will be prompted to create one.
Special Area Calls for Papers
Special Area Roundtable Call from SF/Fantasy
SF/Fantasy Awards: Recognition, Inclusion, and Controversy
This year the Hugo Awards ceremony will be held in the Mid-Atlantic region, at DisCon III in Washington, DC. The nominees for Best Novel are all written by women, including two BIPOC authors and one lesbian. While no selection process is perfect, this is a positive sign of the way representation is diversifying among creators and fans. On the other hand, one of the nominations for Best Related Work — “George R.R. Martin Can Fuck Off Into the Sun, Or: The 2020 Hugo Awards Ceremony (Rageblog Edition)” by Natalie Luhrs — highlights the work still needed in the industry and the community.
This roundtable will offer a moderated conversation among a diverse group of SF/Fantasy scholars, creators, and fans. Using the major genre awards as a lens, participants will reflect on the current state of representation and resistance in the genre, work that needs to be done, and the potential available to us when more people are at the table.
For consideration, please email 150 to 300 words describing your experience with the SF/Fantasy genres and the perspective you would bring to the conversation to lhmcreynolds@gmail.com by JUNE 30.
BIPOC, LGBTQ+, disabled, and neurodivergent participants are particularly encouraged to apply.
Special Area Call for True Crime
The new True Crime Area is seeking submissions for the 2021 conference on any topics of true crime, including but not limited to presentations on:
Gender/demographics of audiences, perpetrators or victims;
Sensationalizing high profile cases;
Criminology, victimology, and forensics;
Wrongful convictions and advocacy;
Crimes against POC, indigenous groups, or marginalized peoples;
…or any other approaches to true crime, including interdisciplinarity.
Presentations should be aware of and respectful to victims and their families as applicable to the specific topic being explored. For more information about the True Crime area, see: https://mapaca.net/areas/true-crime
Call for Papers from Response
MAPACA’s online, peer-reviewed journal Response: The Journal of Popular and American Culture is accepting article submissions for the Fall 2021 issue. We encourage 5,000 to 8,000 word manuscripts that speak to any of the MAPACA areas. Email your submission to response@mapaca.net by JUNE 30. See the full CFP here: https://responsejournal.net/cfp
Join Us on LinkedIn
We would love to connect with you on LinkedIn! Please join us there to network with other people from MAPACA. You can find us at https://www.linkedin.com/company/mapaca.
Mid-Atlantic Popular & American Culture Association (MAPACA)
PO Box 1358, Lansdowne, PA 19050