A Special Session of the Children’s and YA Literature and Culture Area of the Popular Culture Association

Sponsored by Frankenstein and the Fantastic, an outreach effort of the Fantastic (Fantasy, Horror, and Science Fiction) Area of the Northeast Popular Culture/American Culture Association

For the 2018 Annual Conference of the Popular Culture Association meeting in Indianapolis, Indiana, from 28-31 March 2018 Proposals no later than 1 October 2017

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein celebrates its 200th anniversary in 2018. It is a work that has permeated popular culture, appearing in versions found across the globe, in all known media, and for all age groups. However, many aspects of this tradition remain underexplored by scholars. One of these is how the story and its characters have manifested in children’s and young adult culture.

Like Frankensteiniana for older audiences, versions of the story for young audiences offer interesting and important approaches to the novel and its textual progeny, and they deserve to be better known and analyzed, especially since, for many, works designed for the young represent their first encounters with Frankenstein and its characters.

Criticism on these works remains limited; though a growing number of scholars (see the selected bibliography appended to this call) have begun to offer more in the way of critical analysis, as opposed to just seeing them as curiosities. It is our hope that this session will continue this trend and foster further discussion and debate on these texts

In this session, we seek proposals that explore representations of Frankenstein, its story, and/or its characters in children’s and young adult culture. We are especially interested in how the Creature is received in these works, especially by children and young adult characters, but other approaches (and comments on other characters) are also valid.

SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS:

Please submit paper proposals (100 to 200 words) and a short biographic statement into the PCA Database by 1 October 2017. The site is accessible at https://conference.pcaaca.org/. Do include your university affiliation if you have one, your email address, your telephone number, and your audio-visual needs.

Upon submission, be sure, also, to send your details to the organizers (Michael A. Torregrossa, Fantastic [Fantasy, Horror, and Science Fiction] Area Chair, and Amie Doughty, Children’s and YA Literature and Culture Area Chair) at FrankensteinandtheFantastic@gmail.com, notifying them of your intentions to serve on the panel. Please use the subject ìFrankenstein at PCAî.

Presentations at the conference will be limited to 15 to 20 minutes, depending on final panel size.

Do address any inquiries about the session to FrankensteinandtheFantastic@gmail.com.

Further details on the Frankenstein and the Fantastic project can be accessed at https://frankensteinandthefantastic.blogspot.com/.

Further details on the Children’s and YA Literature and Culture Area can be found at http://pcaaca.org/childrens-literature-culture/.

Additional Information to Note:

The Popular Culture Association does not allow submissions to multiple areas and limits presenters to one paper per conference. (Further information on these policies appears at http://pcaaca.org/national-conference/proposing-a-presentation-at-the-conference/rules-exceptions-for-presenting/.)

Accepted presenters must register AND be members of the Popular Culture Association or join for 2018. (Details can be found at http://pcaaca.org/national-conference/membership-and-registration/.)

The Popular Culture Association does offer a limited number of travel grants for the conference; nevertheless, potential presenters, when submitting their proposal, should be sure to have the necessary funds to attend the conference, as no shows are noted.

CALL FOR PAPERS

The 2018 Popular Culture/American Culture Association Conference will be held in Indianapolis, Indiana, March 28-31, 2018. The New England Studies Area invites presentations on any aspect of New England popular culture: Architecture; Art; Ecology/Environment; Economics; Fashion; Film and Theater, especially films made in New England, and plays set in the region, e.g. ‘The Crucible’; Folklore; Food; Language and Literature; Politics; History; Music; Sports; Celebrities; Entertainment; Gambling/Casinos; Industries, e.g. Fishing; Regional Cultures; Sports and Recreation; Tourism and Travel; and numerous other topics. The subjects are endless. More New England-specific topics would include: Famous personalities, such as Bette Davis; Katherine Hepburn; John F. Kennedy and the Kennedy family; Rosalind Russell; Harriet Beecher Stowe; and New England crimes and criminals, e.g. Lizzie Borden in Fall River; Buddy Cianci in Providence.

Controversy will not be shunned!

Please submit a proposal to only one area at a time. All proposals and abstracts must be submitted through the PCA Database. See the website at ncp@pcaaca.org. . Presentations should be 15-20 minutes in length and lively in nature! The deadline for the submission of a 200-word abstract is October 1, 2018. Database is already open for submissions. Acceptance will be earlier than usual as well to enhance your ability to seek funding.

Although all proposals should be submitted to the PCA Database directly, please also cc: me; please include university or organization affiliation (if applicable), telephone number, and e-mail address. Graduate students welcome. Individual and full panel proposals are considered. Please feel confident about attendance if you are accepted.

If you give a paper, you must register for the conference. See: http://www.pcaaca.org. Site also includes information on travel grants and rates at the conference hotel.

Send inquiries to :

Martin J. Manning

4701 South Park Court

Woodbridge, VA 222193

ManningMJ@state.gov

PH: (202) 590-2512

We are pleased to invite you and your institution to participate in in the 5th International OXFORD SYMPOSIUM ON POPULATION, MIGRATION, AND THE ENVIRONMENT.  The summer session will be held 3 and 4 August 2017 at St Anne’s College, Oxford, U.K. Alternately, you may prefer to attend the 6^th International meeting that takes place 7 and 8 December at St Hugh’s College, Oxford.

Attendees are welcome to either present a paper or participate as a panel member/observer. Participants of the Symposium may submit complete papers six weeks after the conclusion of the meeting to be peer-reviewed by external readers for possible publication in Symposium Books or sponsored academic journals.

Conference Oxford has hundreds of affordable bedrooms in Oxford colleges available, offering splendid views of college quadrangles and gardens.  Further accommodation information can be found here. https://www.oxford-population-and-environment-symposium.com/venue/travel-and-lodging/

·         Keynote speaker – David Coleman, Emeritus Professor of Demography; Associate Fellow, Department of Social Policy, University of Oxford.

          We welcome papers that take an interdisciplinary view of the main themes of the conference: world population increase, human migration and environmental sustainability.

·         The Symposium seeks to cover a broad agenda that includes disciplines such as economics, education, environmental studies, agriculture, law, political science, religion, and social studies.

 ·         Topics for presentation may reach beyond these areas; our website contains an extensive list of suggested topics.

 ·         Participant abstracts will be published online in the conference proceedings. Papers presented at the meeting will be subsequently peer-reviewed by external readers for possible inclusion in Symposium Books or sponsored academic journals.

 ·         See abstract submission and registration deadlines below:

Email  contact@oxford-population-and-environment-symposium.com if you have questions.

CALL FOR PAPERS: FRANKENSTEIN AND THE AMERICAN DREAM?

SESSION PROPOSED FOR 2017 ANNUAL CONFERENCE OF THE AMERICAN LITERATURE ASSOCIATION

TO BE HELD AT THE WESTIN COPLEY PLACE, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS FROM 25 TO 28 MAY 2017

PAPER PROPOSALS DUE BY 28 JANUARY 2017

Frankenstein and the American Dream?

Frankenstein and the Fantastic, an outreach effort of the Fantastic (Fantasy, Horror, and Science Fiction) Area of the Northeast Popular Culture/American Culture Association seeks proposals for a panel in commemoration of the endurance of Frankenstein and the Frankenstein tradition. The session is being submitted for consideration at the 2017 meeting of the American Literature Association to be held in Boston, Massachusetts, from 25-28 May 2017.

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein celebrates the two-hundredth anniversary of its publication in 2018, and, over the almost two centuries of the story’s existence, Frankenstein, its characters, and its themes have inspired a myriad range of creative responses, including retellings, adaptions, linked texts (i.e. prequels, midquels and sequels), recastings, and allusions. American creators seem to have been especially fascinated by Frankenstein and its textual progeny, and American-made productions have offered many thought-provoking transformations of Shelley’s work.

What is most interesting is that some of these American works promote happy (or at least happier) endings to the tale that permit the creator and/or his creation to live beyond the ending prescribed by Shelley’s narrative. This has allowed them, the creature most importantly, to achieve (at least to some extent) the privileges, available to all Americans, of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. In seeking and claiming aspects of the American dream for Shelley’s characters the Frankensteiniana of the United States provides insight in how one nation in particular has adopted and appropriated Shelley’s story and made it its own.

We are especially interested in proposals that explore how American-made texts relate to Shelley’s novel and the larger tradition of Frankenstein-related texts in popular culture. Possible options would include works by American production companies (film and television studios, publishing houses, comic book companies, etc.), American-born creators working either in the United States or abroad, and foreign-born creators working for American companies. Additional options might explore Frankenstein and Frankenstein-related texts in an American context/setting.

Please submit proposals to FrankensteinandtheFantastic@gmail.com no later than 28 January 2017. A complete proposal should include the following: your complete contact information, a clear and useful title of your paper, an abstract of your paper (approximately 250 to 600 words), a brief biographical statement explaining your academic status and authority to speak about your proposed topic, and a note on any audio/visual requirements.

Further details on the Fantastic (Fantasy, Horror, and Science Fiction) Area can be found at https://nepcafantastic.blogspot.com. The Frankenstein and the Fantastic project has its own dedicated site at https://frankensteinandthefantastic.blogspot.com/ that will be expanded in 2017.

Complete details on the American Literature Association and its conference can be found at http://americanliteratureassociation.org/ala-conferences/ala-annual-conference/.