I don’t remember why I ended up going there but Revision Spiral explains what she experienced last year with 4Cs and why she didn’t go this year. She also wrote about how to fix 4Cs, which, according to the comment there, was also addressed at the conference.
BUT the best thing she did was recommend Popular Culture/American Culture’s conference, which she went to this year instead of 4Cs. It sounded good. So I went and looked it up. The call for papers is up at their site. And the topics are PHENOMENAL. Yes, I know I’m yelling. You can’t see it but I’m also doing a little jiggly dance in anticipation of all the fun papers I could write (if they let you submit more than one).
Here are some of the categories I have already started work on that would be fun to present:
Fairy Tales:
which included in the call “use and value of fairy tales” which was the paper I was supposed to be composing today. Instead I wrote my politics one for TYCASW.
Could use the modern retelling of fairy tales too, since I use them in my class to discuss point of view and narrator.
Culture Conflict and Women:
I have a paper on women’s response to sexual assault. It’s not a fun topic, but it’s an important one. I don’t know if this is the kind of thing that they are looking for because there is no link for that. It’s a rhetoric topic. Hmm.
Gothic Literature:
I wanted to put together a teaching unit, but that’s probably not the kind of thing they were talking about. Still I know I have lots of starting points in my notes.
This would also fit right in with what SLAC wants, which is an 18th century person. That would up my credibility there. But it is also an English field that already has lots of people working in it. Could I come up with something new and exciting enough to be accepted?
Literature and Science:
“Use of literature (narrative, metaphor) in scientific thought and coursework” or “Theoretical, methodological, historical, sociological, political, economic, international, intercultural, visual, textual, and rhetorical commonalities or conflicts between the two cultures” were two of the subheadings that I thought sounded interesting.
I have been collecting online scientific references to Frankenstein and Gulliver’s Travels for a while now. There aren’t enough to create a paper, but, again, it would be a start. And it would be interesting to look for other literary references in popular science works.
Politics in a Mediated World:
I am currently putting together a political rhetorical analysis. I’ve already contacted someone about creating a panel for MLA. But this would be a possibility.
I couldn’t do the same paper as what I want to do for MLA, but there are lots of disparate parts to the study I am working on that would make interesting pieces. Kind of whet the appetite.
The real question, for me, is whether I want to become the expert on that area. Or if I want to do lots of different things. (Which is why PCAACA is so great!)
Science Fiction and Fantasy:
This is my personal reading love. I have or did have lots of notes on topics and things I was working on. However, they don’t seem to be blogged anywhere. I guess I must have put them on paper. Gasp!
I didn’t really see anything in the call section that spoke to me about my ideas. I did find “genre,” which is one of my interests and “teaching,” which is another. But I haven’t taught a class on this, though I was thinking of putting one together for a continuing education course.
I know I wrote a note about going to a Con and someone making a comment about how academics didn’t appreciate sci fi and someone saying something about the Berkeley study. It was such a telling remark. But I didn’t write it on the blog. Drats.
I liked that it is a vibrant group. And they said it is one of the largest. But I am not sure that this would be the place for my work. I’ll have to find my notes and think about it a bit.
Romance:
Some of the options here were appealing as well. Genre-crossing authors (like Spencer, Sinclair, and Cast). Or I could look at the new forms, like the paranormal. Or individual works or authors. Or definitions and theoretical models. (That’s not quite the same thing as fun, but it would be interesting.)
While I haven’t been working on a paper in this area, I’ve been reading in this area for 35 years. I ought to be able to come up with something good.
Some other categories sounded interesting but I haven’t done any work on them. But I thought it might be fun to do work on them at some point.
Cemeteries and Graveyards
Since the conference is going to be in New Orleans it might be interesting to do the whole Marie Laveau thing.
Of course, those are major cemetery interests so probably someone else has done them. I only know about them because I was working on a romance novel, back a few years, and looked up a bunch of stuff on the lady/ladies.
Culture and Religion
Since I’m big into religion this might be an interesting paper to work on too. But there’s no clear call for papers and I’m not sure what would be in that category.
Children’s Pop Culture
Pokemon? And maybe I could do Butcher’s Fury series with it.
Books. Animorphs? The re-telling of fairy tales? Hey, that might be useful for the fairy tale paper. Am I an expert if I teach it? That would be cool.
Okay, children’s pop culture… Dora the Explorer. I could do interviews with my nieces and nephews friends. That might be fun. If I found an interesting angle.