[Reader-list] International conference: "Continuities and Innovations: Popular Print--Past and Present, Local and Global."

[OISHIK SIRCAR]

The conference website (under development) is at:
http://www.arts.ualberta.ca/popprint



Call for Papers and Presentations
Continuities and Innovations: Popular Print Cultures – Past and
Present, Local and Global
University of Alberta
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
27-30 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 resumé 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 resumés by email as pasted-in
documents or attachments in an up-to-date format to:
popprint at 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 popular arts festival 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.arts.ualberta.ca/popprint







--
Gary Kelly  FRSC
University Professor
Department of English and Film Studies
University of Alberta
Edmonton, AB
T6G 2E5
Canada
(780) 492-0561
gkelly at ualberta.ca




-- 
OISHIK SIRCAR

Scholar in Women's Rights
Faculty of Law, University of Toronto

60 Harbord Street
Room 016 B
Toronto, ON M5S 3L1

oishiksircar at gmail.com
oishik.sircar at utoronto.ca

416.876.7926