Pop Culture Conference Fun

I've been slacking lately, at least regarding this blog.  The last couple of weeks were all about getting ready for making my annual pilgrimage to Albuquerque to be part of the Southwest Popular & American Culture Conference.  My friend Lewis- who I usually room with to save money- jokes that I run the conference, which is quite hyperbolic but it does sometimes feel that way.  After all, I remember attending for the first time in 2009 as a humble guest of his, having finished my duties at another nearby conference that was taking place at the same time.

Then it was in 2011- the year we merged with the national conference in San Antonio- that the delightful Dr. Leslie Donovan asked me to take over as chair of the Pedagogy area of the conference, for which she was currently serving as area chair.  She wanted to focus more on her Tolkien studies and wanted to pass the reigns to someone who showed the enthusiasm to do the daunting tasks that faced an area chair of a large conference area.  Since that time, Popular Culture Pedagogy has developed into one of the four largest of the conference, along with Science Fiction-Fantasy, Game Studies, and the Grateful Dead group.

The area chair job is relatively simple enough:  I send out a Call for Proposals every year- usually in late July or early August- soliciting papers and/or presentations from all over the world through various databases that specialize in advertising CFPs for conferences, symposiums, and workshops around the globe.  As proposals come in, I read them and either approve or reject them, sending out messages to submitters in either case (most of the time if there is a rejection, we allow for revised CFPs).  Then, when our deadline has finally passed, I form panels out of the submitted and approved CFPs, attempting to group them into topics of similarity.  Finally, when the conference arrives, I act as liaison for my presenters, usually "panel chairing" their discussions.  This can be a very time-consuming task, as we generally have between 10-15 panels of 90 minutes each, spanning the four days of the conference.  In the meantime, I still have to do my day job.

Is that enough?  Apparently not for me because I have subsequently volunteered to serve on the editorial board of the conference journal Dialogue, reading articles for publication in the journal (double blind submissions of course; that's the norm for academic journals).  Add to this that I also help select the graduate student paper stipend for an annual Pedagogy Award conference attendees (this part makes me the most nervous as I actually have to present the award at the conference keynote).

As a gaming nerd, I have also hosting an annual game night at the conference and helped to organize a dine around event for attendees to network with fellow academics.

Did I also mention I presented on Twitter and even managed to get an editorial publication in our journal this year?

All around, it's a busy, largely sleepless four days of academic and nerdy awesomeness and I wouldn't trade it for anything.  More on this later but for now, it's back to grading.  Yes, the day job doesn't ever end.