Quotes from CFPs: Reading, Pop Culture, Medievalism, Gay Marriage

Laura Vivanco

Reading has had numerous meanings for different people at different times and places. From reading an animal’s tracks, or a street sign, to reading Derrida, the act of reading has referred to a wide range of activities. People have read for practical purposes (for information, for knowledge, or for material gain), for holy ends (the Quran said “Read in the name of your Lord”), for political and social reasons (“Once you learn to read, you will be forever free,” said Frederick Douglass), for entertainment, etc. In the age of computers, cell phones, and the Internet, traditional notions about the significance of reading, its function, and value seem to be challenged in various ways. (From Cover to Cover: Reading Readers, Ankara, Turkey, November 7 – 9, 2012)

In recent years, popular culture has come to be considered a valid and fruitful point of academic inquiry, helping to infuse more established disciplines, including English studies, with fresh life. Scholars have become increasingly aware of the broader implications of popular culture, which encompasses such diverse media as magazines, books, film, television, comic books/graphic novels, and internet content, for discourses mis/unrepresented or marginalized within the mainstream. (Motley, An English Studies Journal for Diversity)

At the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century, popular culture finds itself at a crossroads: has the concept been drained of its meaning because of its overwhelming popularity? After the euphoria around the popular, what afterlife can be expected from it? Should we still be discussing the popular as opposed to high and folk culture? (International Conference "Report from the Pop Line: On the Life and Afterlife of Popular": 3-4 December 2012, Lisbon)

Medievalism – the reception and adaptation of the politics, history, art and literature of the Middle Ages – has burgeoned over the past decade, and is now coming of age as a subject of serious academic enquiry. (The Middle Ages in the Modern World, University of St Andrews, UK, 25-28 June, 2013)

the recent debate regarding the defense of marriage and the realities of queer, bisexual, transgender, asexual, same-sex, and nonmonogamous identities and experiences, have sometimes forced a reconceptualization of marriage and at other times uncritically perpetuated a heteronormative model linked to ideals and compulsions toward consumerism, entitlement, and conformity. (Panel titled Critical Representations of Marriage 44th Annual Convention, Northeast Modern Language Association (NeMLA) March 21-24, 2013)