Bulletin Board of the Brain

2010 Pop Culture Conference Rundown

4 days, hundreds of professors, PhD/Grad/Undergraduate students and very short food breaks = the Southwest/Texas Popular and American Culture Association’s annual conference.



Ian Klein joined me in Albuquerque for another year of frying our brains with academic discourse on popular culture. We heard about 50 papers and drank a lot of smoothies. It was indescribably delightful.


Here’s the panels I attended and the papers I liked best (per panel- not overall):

Science Fiction & Fantasy 19: Battlestar Galactica and Narrative
Fave paper:
“I Came to Galactica to Tell a Story”: Battlestar Galactica and Transmedia Interactivity
Jennifer Fong, UCLA

Science Fiction & Fantasy: Twilight Fandom
Fave paper:
Undead Authors, Anne Rice, J.K. Rowling, and Stephenie Meyer Battle Roland Barthes on the Internet
Bridget R. Cowlishaw, Northeastern State University, Tahlequah

Science Fiction & Fantasy: Joss Whedon, Sexuality and Gender
Fave paper:
Anya’s “Disturbing Sex Talk”: Breaking the Pattern of Punished Female Sexuality in Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Tamy Burnett, University of Nebraska, Lincoln

Science Fiction & Fantasy: Sex and Violence in Twilight
(I presented on this panel)
Fave paper:
Rewriting the Byronic Hero: How the Twilight Saga Made “Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know” Acceptable Teenage Fiction
Jessica Groper, Claremont Graduate University

Religion: Conservative Christianity and Culture
Fave paper:
Sacred and Sexular: Ann Veal in Arrested Development
Brandon Barnes, Texas A&M University

Computer Culture: Game Studies 7
Fave paper:
Beyond the Button: The Nintendo Wiimote Interface and its Implications for Embodiment, Performance and Play
David O’Grady, UCLA

Science Fiction & Fantasy: The Dangers of Twilight
Fave paper:
Un-Biting the Apple and Killing the Womb: Genesis, Gender and Gynocide in Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight Saga
Colleen Orihill, Cleveland State University

Science Fiction & Fanstasy: Whedon and Genre
Fave paper:
Firefly: Between the Noir Frontier and the Final Frontier
E. Chrlotte Stevens, york University and Ryerson University

American History & Culture: Rethinking Suburban Sense of Self: Identity and Memory in the Suburbs
Face paper:
Everything’s Bigger in Texas: Mega-Religion in Lone Star Suburbia
Charity R. Carney, Stephen F. Austin State University

Computer Culture: Game Studies 11
Fave paper:
America’s First Person Shooters: Violent Interactions with Historical Narratives
Harrison Gish, UCLA

Horror (Literary & Cinmenatic): “Torture Porn”
Fave paper:
It’s all Liv Tyler’s Fault!: Male Shame and Protective Failure in The Strangers
Glen Donnar, RMIT University, Melbourne

Horror (Literary & Cinemantic): Affective and Imaginary Machines of Horror
Fave paper:
Manufacturing Images: Allegories of the Factory in Tomb Raider
Craig Bernardini, Hostos Community College



Punk: Punk Literature Philosophically and Rhetorically
Fave paper:
Punk’s Not Dead, it’s Un-Dead: The Vampire Spike as Punk Rock Expression
Bryan L. Jones, Northeatern State University, Oklahoma

Computer Culture: Ethnography, Writing, Second Life, and Film
Fave paper:
The Sex Life in your Second Life: An Ethnological Study of Women as Sexual Objects in Second Life
Alexis Waters, Northeastern Illinois University

Science Fiction & Fantasy: Whedon and the Body
Fave paper: Ian, of course!
“I Like My Scars”: Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse and the Narrative of Flesh
Ian Klein, Columbia University

Computer Culture: Theorizing Internet Forms
Fave paper:
“Wizards and Witchcraft in the Wired World”: Magical Thinking in Popular Culture
Nicholas Goodman, Northeastern State University

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Posted on Sat, Feb 20th, 2010 at 8:49 pm
Filed under Books, Cultural Shifts, Film, History, intertextuality, Lists, Pop Culture, Psychology/Being Human, Quotes, The Seattle School/MHGS, The Universe, theology.

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