Disasters, Apocalypses, and Catastrophes

Call for papers:

Disasters, Apocalypses, and Catastrophes (Ficociello and Bell)

Call for Proposals: Sessions, Panels, Papers

POPULAR CULTURE ASSOCIATION & AMERICAN CULTURE ASSOCIATION

2019 NATIONAL CONFERENCE

Wardman Park Marriot

Wednesday, April 17, to Saturday, April 20, 2019

For information on PCA/ACA, please go to http://www.pcaaca.org

For conference information, please go to http://www.pcaaca.org/national-conference/

PROPOSAL DEADLINE: OCTOBER 1, 2018

In a hyper-mediated global culture, disaster events reach us with great speed and digital detail, and we begin forming, interpreting, and historicizing catastrophes simultaneously with people worldwide. Are we inside the era of disasters or are we merely inundated by mediated accounts of events categorized as catastrophic? How do these mediated accounts affect policy, poverty, and the public? Of particular interest is the question of what role do academics play in disaster culture and policy?

Disasters, Apocalypses, and Catastrophes offers a forum for these questions and critical approaches surrounding the culture of disasters, catastrophes, accidents, and apocalypses in global art, literature, media, film, and popular culture. Disasters, Apocalypses, and Catastrophes will address broader disciplinary topics and innovative intersections of humanities, musicology, social science, literature, film, visual art, psychology, game studies, material culture, media studies, ecology, and information technology.

General Topics

Eco Criticism, Eco Culture
Teaching ecocriticism and disasters
Trump Administration and Climate Policy
Global Warming, Climate Change
Deniers of climate change
Disaster capitalism
War Ecology
Slow Violence
Hyperobjects
Native Cultures and Eco-policies
TV and Film: The Walking Dead, The Leftovers, Falling Skies, The Dome, etc.
Zombie and Apocalyptic imaginaries
Social Media and disasters
Doomsday preppers
History and disasters
Eco/Culture Events
Disasters in popular culture
Time and temporalities of disasters
Representations and narration of disaster
Disasters and personal narratives
Disaster aesthetics
Disaster metaphors, concepts and symbolic forms
Ethics and politics of disasters
Natural disasters in climate rhetoric
Disaster literature and art
Notions of national identity through disaster representation
Portraying suffering in news, digital culture, literature, and TV
Affective responses to disaster in local, national, and global contexts
Celebrity humanitarianism and disaster engagement
Distinctions between man-made and natural disaster
Public, private, and nonprofit responses to disaster
Epidemics, pandemics, and disease

Interested individuals are asked to submit an abstract of no more than 250 words (including presentation title) and complete contact information to http://conference.pcaaca.org.

Although the site is pretty user friendly, find general instructions at

http://pcaaca.org/national-conference/proposing-a-presentation-at-the-conference/

Travel and research grants are available: http://pcaaca.org/grants/

Here is the schedule of deadlines and relevant dates:

1 July Database Opens for Submissions

1 October Registration Opens

1 October Deadline for Paper Proposals

15 November Early Bird Registration Rate Ends

1 December Preliminary Program Available

15 December “Drop Dead”: Participants Not Registered Removed from Program

3 January 2019 Final Program to the Publisher

17-20 April 2019 Washington, D.C.!