CFP: Popular Print Cultures Past and Present, Local and Global (U of Alberta, Aug 26-31, 2008)

Posted on behalf of conference organizer Kirsten MacLeod. Please direct any questions to her.

Call for Papers and Presentations
Continuities and Innovations:
Popular Print Cultures Past and Present, Local and Global
University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
26 to 31 August 2008
Papers and presentations are invited for any aspect of the conference theme. Proposals should be 200 to 300 words in length and clearly state the central theme or argument, the kind of popular print or related media to be considered, and its social and cultural location in time and place. Please indicate any equipment requirements (data projector; conference computer; overhead projector; video or dvd player; audio player, etc). A brief résumé should accompany each proposal, stating the proposer s name, address, contact information, and relevant academic, professional, or personal background and knowledge of form of popular print culture discussed.

Send proposals and résumés by email as pasted-in documents or attachments in an up-to-date format to: popprint [@] ualberta.ca. Or mail hard copies to: Popprint, Kirsten MacLeod, Department of English and Film Studies, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada T6G 2E5. Questions to either address. Deadline for proposals is 30 May 2008. But space on the program is limited, and proposals will be considered on a first-come, first-accommodated basis.

This conference and creative arts program consider what most people read, here and elsewhere, now and in the past. Popular print characteristically includes both words and images, and is intertwined with music and performance. In these forms it has been and continues to be one of the most powerful cultural forces in history, morphing into new media and new technologies, from the phonograph record through radio, film, and television to video games and the internet. Popular print culture is now a global phenomenon, with striking similarities in what most people read, anywhere. Yet there are also striking local differences, inflections, and variations in what most people read, here or elsewhere.

Continuities and Innovations will bring together all those interested in popular print culture--readers and writers, publishers and fans, librarians and collectors, teachers and students, and of course researchers in many academic disciplines. Proposals are invited from all of these groups, directly addressing the conference theme, or taking up any aspect of "Popular Print Cultures, Past and Present, Local and Global." Topics can include relations between popular print and other media, between popular and high literatures, between words and images, between words and music, between past and present forms, and so on. Presentations may be from writers, readers, publishers, teachers, students, distributors, sellers, librarians, illustrators, opponents, promoters, adapters to other media, fans, collectors, et al. Papers and presentations can be on any relevant topic reading popular print and creating it, writing it and illustrating it, publishing it and selling it, counteracting it or transforming it, adapting it and influencing it, censoring it and living it, and more. Participants may consider popular print and politics, religion, sexuality, class, ethnicity, race, nationality, or any other theme.

Google "Edmonton Alberta" and "University of Alberta" for information on the venue. Program and other information, including travel and accommodation details, regularly updated, will be available on the conference website: www.ualberta.ca/popprint