[Comicsstudiessociety] CFP for the 17th Material Culture Symposium for Emerging Scholars

[Sydni Ratliff-Phillips]

Dear Colleagues,

Please see the CFP for the University of Delaware's 17th Material Culture
Symposium for Emerging Scholars on April 21-22, 2023, entitled "From
Hogarth to Hypebeast: The Materiality of Popular Cultures." Though it
broadly focuses on popular culture, we welcome any and all proposals in
comics studies!

*From Hogarth to Hypebeast: The Materiality of Popular Cultures*
Seventeenth Material Culture Symposium for Emerging Scholars
University of Delaware
April 21-22, 2023
Submit by: December 5, 2022

The Center for Material Culture Studies at the University of Delaware
invites submissions for papers by graduate students that examine the
relationship between material and popular cultures for its biennial
Emerging Scholars Symposium (April 21–22, 2023). This symposium will trace
the materiality of popular culture from earlier periods to the present in
order to think expansively about long historical arcs and key differences
over time. We are especially interested in how popular culture’s
materiality persists even digitally. What does it mean to be a viral material
in the past,  present, and future? By merging the interdisciplinary study
of popular media with material culture studies, we invite participants to
reflect on the politics of popular culture; cultural trends and material
practice; and virtual space and mass media technology.

The symposium will explore the dynamic relationship between popular and
material cultures across time, place, and medium. By emphasizing the
fluidity between material and popular cultures, we encourage critical
thinking about the ways people share their ideas and cultural fascinations.
This conference suggests that "popular culture" is a cumulative archive of
human experience. In this way, popular culture is always material, even
when it appears otherwise.

How do cycles of popularity allow us to re-evaluate and negotiate the
historical significance of material cultures as they move through our
collective consciousness? We now navigate trends, fads, and shifting
markets at unprecedented rates, but have yet to understand fully how this
shapes and changes our perception of the offline material world. The
volatility of the present demands that we look backward to consider how
popular and material cultures have shaped our societies and that we look
forward to imagining what the future might bring.

In addition to exploring the materiality of historical and contemporary
popular culture, we aim to consider how the discipline of material culture
studies can illuminate our present cultural environment, from porcelains
and scrapbooks to Pyrex and slime. How does popular culture inform the
stories we tell about our material past? How can those stories shape our
understanding of the present and future? We look forward to exploring the
distinctions and ambiguities between popular and material that inform our
current moment.

Generative Questions May Include:


   - How can studying popular culture as material, and material culture as
   popular, shape our understanding of both?
   - How do popular material cultures reach across, complicate, and
   generate global systems, digital landscapes, and new worlds?
   - How does studying popular material cultures influence our
   understanding of decorative arts in the modern age?
   - How do popular digital practices intersect with materiality? How far
   can we (or must we)  expand our definition of the material?
   - How can we understand our popular material lives as both a product of,
   and a challenge to, global capitalism?
   - How is our experience of the past rendered virtual through the staged
   presentation of historical materials in museums?

Contributions to this theme may take, but are not limited to, the following
forms:

   - Digital humanities and material culture studies
   - Histories of mass media events
   - Ephemeral media across time
   - Influencer culture
   - Material futurism
   - Objects in literature and popular media
   - Popular media in popular memory
   - Focus on a singular material (digital or tangible)
   - Popular media and objects in museum studies

*Submissions*: Proposals by current graduate students and recent graduates
(degree from May 2022 or later) should be no more than 250 words. Up to two
relevant images are welcome. Please send your proposal and a current c.v.
(two pages or fewer) to emergingscholars2023 at gmail.com.

*Deadline:* Proposals must be received by *December 5th, 2022.* Speakers
will be notified of the committee’s decision by the end of January 2023.
Confirmed speakers will be asked to provide digital images for use in
publicity and are required to submit their final papers and
presentations/slide decks ahead of the conference. Travel funding will be
provided for presenters.

Link to CFP as a PDF
<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://mcusercontent.com/3d956bc3a9ec0c2c28af853c1/files/db35502b-0eb6-0c62-c01a-b108abf6f882/CFP_2023_CMCS_Emerging_Scholars_FINAL.docx_Grace_Ford_Dirks.pdf__;!!KGKeukY!07gLMIqF6XbBLJoeoWxNUsyzzs-2NbrF7CtQLXzIb5IUPRQNZj0-nvSCaMgjua81FF1ktAzwjIy6BPbs0VAhvwwHQwH0ijRPIdbTXri-$  >

Contact Email:
emergingscholars2023 at gmail.com



*Sydni Ratliff-Phillips (she/her)*
Master's Student
Scholar in the Hagley Program of Technology, Capitalism, and Culture
Department of History
University of Delaware
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.osu.edu/pipermail/comicsstudiessociety/attachments/20221017/77abd26c/attachment.html>