The Television area of the Midwest Popular Culture Association/Midwest American Culture Association is accepting proposals for its 2017 conference in St. Louis, Missouri. The organizers are looking for papers that examine any aspect of television, from any time period, and using any number of methods. Potential topics for paper or panel proposals include, but are not limited to:
- The recent proliferation of unbundled “over the top” services like HBO Now, CBS All-Access, and Sling TV and the industry panic over cord cutting, cord-nevers, etc.
- The impact of online distribution and streaming and the rise of Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon as producers of original programming
- The intersections between television and social media
- The representations of gender and sexuality, race and ethnicity, and class and economics in television programming
- The sheer number of new scripted series, colloquially referred to as “Peak TV”
- The “return” of miniseries and event series programming
- The role of remakes, reboots, spin-offs, adaptations, and franchises
- The trends in less “quality” genres and formats: talk shows, soap operas, morning TV
Please submit a paper abstract of 250 words or a panel proposal, including short abstracts and titles of each prospective paper, to the “Television” area on the MPCA/ACA Submission website (submissions.mpcaaca.org). The organizers strongly encourage pre-constituted panel submissions. The deadline for proposal submissions is April 30, 2017.
Include name, affiliation, address, and e-mail address of each author/participant. You must specify any AV and any special scheduling needs with your proposal. MPCA/ACA can provide an LCD projector for presentations.
If you have any questions about submissions to the Television area, please contact area chair Cory Barker at barkerc@indiana.edu.
Further information about the conference and the Midwest Popular Culture/American Culture Association is available at: http://www.mpcaaca.org.