I've gotten a couple of e-mails asking me about the Popular Culture Association conference, and whether I am going this year. Yes, I will be attending the conference this year in Atlanta, and I'll be presenting a paper entitled "Old English and Samwise Gamgee's Genealogy: Eden and the Unfallen Hobbit" on Friday, April 14th. The truth is that the whole thing is pre-written in my mind; I just have to find the free time from editing Global Perspectives on Medieval Literature and Culture to type the thing up.
I was initially planning simply to drive in on the 14th and drive out the same day, but I've had so many people ask to get together that I'm considering staying one night, or at least driving in the next Saturday.
PCA, for those who haven't been, can be a menagerie, everything from dense scholarly counting of angels on pinheads to fanboy/girl pieces. As a result, some years I find it deeply rewarding, and some years a total waste of my time and energy. With this in mind, I go whenever it is in a convenient location, or when specifically recruited. This year, it is in Atlanta AND I was recruited to organize a session (my own), so I'll be there with every expectation of having a good time. If you go, I can't make promises about the conference as a whole (it depends on what sessions you attend), but I can promise that the other papers in my session, Jim Davis's "Peter Jackson's Visions of Industrialization" and Glen Gill's "Metaphor and Cosmology in The Lord of the Rings" will be worth your time.
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I would sooooooooo love to listen to your session! If you get a moment (what with all of you masses of free time) after you type the talk up, would you mind sharing it? It sounds fascinating. And maybe you could ask Glen Gill if he wouldn't mind having his talk shared, too. His sounds totally up my alley!
ReplyDeleteI think we're all going to knock these things into publishable form later, so I probably won't be able to post the text of the presentation online (as that is often considered a form of publication, and creates a barrier to later peer-reviewed publication), but as for myself, I'd be willing to e-mail you a copy after it is done.
ReplyDeleteAs for Dr. Gill, you can get a taste of his thinking at his very infrequently updated blog Logo Kai Erga.
And as the chair of the Medieval Popular Culture Area, I should mention that 1) there are other fine medieval-themed panels and 2) we have had some interest from publishers to put together a collection esp. with an eye to teaching. I assume you might want to be part of that?
ReplyDeleteKate,
ReplyDeleteSure, though my paper might not be very pedagogical in nature.
Well, it may be of use to people who are thinking in pedagogical terms. We'll talk!
ReplyDelete