CFP: Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo Academic Track

Conference
The Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo
Calgary Stampede Park
April 27 - 30, 2017
Stichtag: 17.02.2017

The Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo, one of the biggest fan conventions in North-America to date, will be held on April 27 – April 30, 2017 at the Calgary Stampede Park in downtown Calgary. Offered for the 7th time, the Expo’s academic track is a unique opportunity to engage the public with scientific research and scholarly work in a culturally and academically accessible way. The academic track talks are 45 minutes long (30 minutes for the presentation plus 15 minutes for Q&A) and are dedicated to cutting edge research and the linkages between it and pop-culture.

A non-exhaustive list of possible topics includes:

  • Epidemiological outbreaks in sci-fi and real life
  • Exobiology and non-carbon based life forms
  • Aspects of Space exploration (engineering and mining, astronomy, kinesiology, etc.)
  • Technology and new-media’s representation in pop-culture
  • Reflections of socio-political issues in pop-culture contents
  • History of pop-culture contents and products
  • Fan communities and fan practices
  • Pop-culture creators and their work
  • and many more.

The academic track has four sub-streams. Please review these carefully and consider applying for the one most fitting your topic:

  • Cutting-Edge Research Talk – talk that are directly linked to your academic work to date and to a specific genre, pop-culture content or phenomenon. Past examples include: the representation of revenge in Hollywood films and real-life, the brain functions of competitive scrabble players, gender assignment of Molluscs and Hutts (from the Star Wars Universe), and the likes of it.
  • The Social Lab – conducting research that has to do with pop-culture or with the Expo’s patrons? Need participants for your research? The Calgary Comics and Entertainment Expo also accepts requests to reserve space for research purposes with the convention’s patrons (subject to the researchers obtaining ethical approval by their university’s board of ethics). Past examples for research conducted at the expo include: Surveying gamers about their news sources, media reception studies, fan-culture focus groups, gamification experiments, etc. Requests for sessions of between 45 minutes to 2 hours can be submitted using the same web-form. Successful applicants will be contacted with further information by the coordinators.
  • Scholarly Talk – talks that are related to your discipline but not directly to your own research. Past examples include: Professional wrestling as a modern media product, Comic-books circulation studies, Zombie genre content and the human condition and so on.
  • Undergrads track – Do you have a student who’s not a professional scholar yet, but had a great term paper about pop culture that got an A+? Help them Start their public speaking career here and let them know of the Expo’s academic track… In the past undergraduate students discussed gaming ethics, Gender issues in TV dramas, Retconning and continuity in comic book narratives and more.

To submit your proposals please go to calgaryexpo.com/programming before Feb. 17, 2017 and send an up to 500 words abstract toacademic@calgaryexpo.com by Feb. 28, 2017. Submissions will undergo blind peer reviewing by an interdisciplinary committee and accepted presenters will receive a free day pass to the convention for the day of their talk valued $50 CAD.

Please contact Ofer Berenstein (o.berenstein@ucalgary.ca), the academic track coordinator, with any question you might have.

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