Call for papers: Terror and Political Violence in Popular Culture

OPCA Conference Panel: Terror and Political Violence in Popular Culture

Oceanic Popular Culture Association Conference in Honolulu, HI, May 22-23 at Chaminade University of Honolulu

Although not mentioned in the original conference CFP, we are now accepting proposals on the topic of “Terror and Political Violence in Popular Culture.” Presentation content need not focus on the Hawai’i-Pacific region. The panel will be organized on a thematic rather than regional basis, so research on Europe, Latin America, the United States, or the Middle East (as well as other geographic areas) would be welcome. Papers that examine either current or historical portrayals of terrorism and/or political violence in popular culture are particularly encouraged.

Please send 150-200 word abstracts/proposals for individual papers on this topic to alan.rosenfeld@hawaii.edu by January 5, 2009.
Please consult the following link for complete details on the conference

Call for papers: A World of Popular Entertainments

International Conference, 10 & 11 June 2009, the University of Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia

The title of the conference embraces the “globality” of popular entertainments. Yet the meaning and definition of both ‘popular’ and ‘entertainment’ remain widely contested as well as retaining pejorative connotations that are at odds with their transnational significance. We would welcome participants from a range of complementary disciplines: theatre and performance studies, health, history, psychology, fine art and music as well as performing arts curators and archivists to engage in the analysis as well as the celebration of popular entertainments.

The conference will explore, but not necessarily be confined to, such issues as:

• the role of popular entertainments in community and personal well-being
• spaces and spatiality of the popular: the unbounded venue
• popular entertainments and tourism, travel and leisure
• popular entertainments in a mediatised culture
• circulation, exchange and transmission: cosmopolitanism, trans-nationalism and mobility
• censorship, surveillance, regulation and control
• tradition, memory and nostalgia
• ‘the popular’ reinvented
• popular audiences
• audience / spectator agency
• historiography of the popular
• popular entertainments and the archive: presence and absence
• nation-building, national identity, and popular entertainments
• spectacle and celebration
• popular science and history
• skills and their transmission: the practices of the popular
• economics of the popular
• risky business: violence, cruelty, aggression, risk and danger
• performing the popular

Abstracts of papers to be considered should be submitted to the convenors electronically by no later than FRIDAY, JANUARY 30 2009.

All abstracts of papers accepted for the conference will be published in hard copy. Participants will be invited to submit their papers for publication in a peer-reviewed e-journal devoted to popular entertainments that will be launched in 2009.

Conference convenors:
Gillian Arrighi
Victor Emeljanow
Rosalind Halton

The School of Drama Fine Art & Music has a close association with the Arts Health Centre for Research & Practice at the University of Newcastle

Call for papers: Euro-Pop: The Consumption and Production of a European Popular Culture in the 20th Century

Whereas Europe as a political, economic, and social project has received much scholarly attention, the European dimension of popular culture has been neglected. This is somewhat surprising as popular culture is generally perceived as a prime medium of social integration and the construction of identity.

Against this backdrop, the planned conference suggests to scrutinise the consumption and production of a European popular culture and its socialising effects. It wants to assess its historical developments in the 20th century, explore its potential for European social integration and identify factors that have facilitated or impeded its Europeanization.

We invite researchers at post-doc stage or near completion of their doctoral thesis to present studies that deal with the consumption and/or production of popular culture in one area from music, food, tourism, sport, fashion and news/fiction in mass media. We are interested in presentations that compare patterns of consumption in different European countries, follow the transfer of culture or trace networks and constraints of cultural production within the EU, all in the light of the question whether and how this may contribute to Europe’s integration.

Aspects to be covered might be:
- Encounters of consumers (Europeans on vacation, event tourism)
- Similarities and differences in taste (European high street fashion, popular music)
- Non transferable and transferable genres or format in Europe (The German “Heimatfilm”, Big Brother reality television)
- Appropriation and adoption of cultural products (translation and dubbing, the NFL Europe)
- The inscription of local or European meaning into global products (coffee as an “Italian” product, English humour)
- The role of the media in the transfer and adaptation of cultural imports (European news agencies, publishers and broadcasting networks)
- Networks of producers, creative hubs and transfer routes (pop and art fairs, the education and the labour market for cultural workers in Europe)
- Specifics of European cultural industries (the music industry in Europe and the US compared)
- The impact of cultural policy on popular culture (Eurovision, European film awards).

Subject to financing, the conference is going to take place June, 8-11, 2009, at the German-Italian Centre Villa Vigoni (Lake Como). Applicants may send an exposé of their paper of no more than 600 words until November, 30th, to Patrick Merziger (p.merziger@fu-berlin) or Klaus Nathaus (klaus.nathaus@uni-bielefeld.de) who coordinate the conference. Please add a brief CV and a list of publications.