2011 Program

FINAL SCHEDULE AS PRESENTED

Thank You to Everyone Who Participated in the Inaugural Conference of the Popular Culture Association of Canada
THURSDAY MAY 12th

__________________________________________________________

SESSION 1: 2:00pm-3:30pm

___________________________________________________________
Panel 1A: Stars on 45: Celebrity and the Music Industry
SALON B
Chair: Karen Snell, The Eastman School of Music

Tom Mayberry McMaster University
The Nexus of Authenticity: Lady Gaga’s Self-branding and the Success of her Psychopathy

Lee Marshall University of Bristol
The Logic of Celebrity in the Recording Industry

Karen Snell The Eastman School of Music
The Musical Personhood of Three Canadian Turntablists as ‘Transformative Collaborative Practice’
____________________________________________________________
Panel 1B: That Joke Isn’t Funny Anymore (Or Is It?)
ONTARIO
Chair: Stuart Henderson, York University

Nick Holm McMaster University
Uncomfortable Laughter: Social Boundaries and Popular Media Humour

Stuart Henderson York University
That N—–‘s Crazy: Richard Pryor, Blackness, and Performing “That Word” in the 1970s
____________________________________________________________
Panel 1C: Speculations on Speculative Television
NIAGARA
Chair: Nicholas Greco, Providence College

Gozde Kilic Brock University
All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues: The Centrality of Father Issues in Lost

T.A. Pattinson Wilfrid Laurier University
In Life, After Death: Mirrored Reflections of Selfhood and Otherness in Lost (2004-2010)

Nicholas Greco Providence College
“I must be losing my undefinable allure”: The Flux of Gender in Inara Serra as Enigma
_____________________________________________________________
Panel 1D: Screened Identities
MAPLE
Chair: Joan Nicks, Brock University

Katja Lee McMaster University
Always the Wine, Never the Wine-maker: Negotiating The “Enological Talents of Women” in Contemporary Cinema

Victor Kulinski University of Windsor
Affirming the Problematic Disability Identity:
The Affirmation Model of Disability and Gattaca
_______________________________________________________________
Panel 1E: Technology and Anxiety in Speculative Fiction
CHIPPAWA
Chair: Hans Skott-Myhre, Brock University

Malisa Kurtz Brock University
Borderlands and Boundary Consciousness in Geoff Ryman’s Air: Or, Have Not Have: (Post)Cyberpunk and the “New Mestiza”

Michele Braun Mount Royal University
Occupying Alien Spaces: The Human, the Animal and the Machine in Peter Watts’ Fiction

Hans Skott-Myhre Brock University
Capitalism and Control: Paranoia, Imagination and the Unconscious in Pynchon, Stephenson, and Inception
_______________________________________________________________
SESSION 2: 3:45pm-5:15pm

_______________________________________________________________
Panel 2A: Popular Music and New Media
SALON B:
Chair: Paul Aitken, University of Leeds

Angie Chiang University of Calgary
The Speed of Pop: Online Journal Gaga Stigmata and the future of Popular Culture Studies

Phil Rose York University
Radiohead and the Media Fallout of OK Computer

Paul Aitken University of Leeds
Preferring Not To: Piracy and the Politics of Refusal
________________________________________________________________
Panel 2B: Canada for Sale: Advertising Tropes and National Identities
ONTARIO
Chair: Lorraine York, McMaster University

Estee Fresco University of Western Ontario
Snow, Ice and “Natives”: The Trope of Survival in Advertisements Aired During the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games

Lorraine York McMaster University
Viticultural Verse: Advertising, Poetry, and the Niagara Wine Industry

________________________________________________________________
Panel 2C: Science Fact or Fiction? The Real and the Signified
NIAGARA
Chair: Derek Foster, Brock University

Matthew Thompson Brock University
Replicated Eyes and “I”
s: Blade Runner as Ontological Critique

Robert Hyland National Taipei College of Business
A Tangled Heap of Broken Images:  Making Sense of
Evangelion

Derek Foster Brock University
The Fictive Facticity of “Vulcan” Heritage:
Star Trek, Place Branding and Popular Culture in Rural Alberta
_______________________________________________________________________________
Panel 2D:All the World’s a Stage: Shakespeare and Popular Culture
MAPLE
Chair:Katja Lee, McMaster University

Zak Bronson Brock University
Taste, Class and Shakespeare:
Tromeo and Juliet’s Critique of High Culture

Dave Peterson University of Pittsburgh
Performing Shakespeare’s Clowns: Reevaluating Realism

________________________________________________________________
Panel 2E: Anxieties and Rituals
CHIPPAWA
Chair: Jacqueline Botterill, Brock University

Amanda Orr Wilfrid Laurier University
Outbreak, Infection and Plague: Zombie Narrative and Flu Anxieties

Claudie Massicotte University of Western Ontario
Ghosts of Modernity: The Nineteen Century Séances

Jacqueline Botterill Brock University
Dinnertime and the Magic of Food:  An Exploratory Study of Dinner Party Rituals
_______________________________________________________________

FRIDAY MAY 13th
________________________________________________________________

SESSION 3:  8:30am-10:00am

________________________________________________________________
Panel 3A: Gender, Image and Pop Performance
SALON B
Chair: Chris Richardson, University of Western Ontario

Ashley McAskill McMaster University
Booty and Racial Performances: The Complexities of Empowerment

Corey Allen McMaster University
Transnational Hip Hop Warrior: Analyzing Political Violence in M.I.A. Music Videos


Chris Richardson University of Western Ontario
“I Am Not Jasmine; I Am Aladdin”: Nicki Minaj’s Beautiful Dark Twisted Feminism

________________________________________________________________
Panel 3B: Screened Politics
ONTARIO
Chair: Michael Meneghetti, Brock University

Suze Tkachuk Brock University
24’s Seventh Season and the War on Terror in the Post-Bush World

Ian Reilly University of Guelph
Fake News and the Return of the Political in Canadian Popular Culture

Matthew Flisfeder Independent Scholar
What’s So Funny About Class Struggle? Ideology in The Trotsky
________________________________________________________________
Panel 3C: Assessing Shifting Conventions in Reality Television
NIAGARA
Chair: Liam Young, University of Western Ontario

Eric Lohman University of Western Ontario
Scary Tale Weddings: Competing for Cosmetic Surgery in Bridal Reality Television


Atle Mikkola Kjosen University of Western Ontario
Dollhouse, Labour and Uploading of the Mind: The Transhumanist Production Process of Reality Television

Gemma Richardson University of Western Ontario
Socially Conscious Reality TV?

________________________________________________________________
Panel 3D: Construction and Consumption: Popular Consumerism
MAPLE
Chair: Marian Bredin, Brock University

Shakira Lynch Brock University
Keeping Up with the Joneses: As Portrayed Within Popular Culture

Trina Joyce Sajo University of Western Ontario
Consuming Media Piracy

Kyle Asquith University of Western Ontario
Join the Club: Radio, Comic Strips, and Food Advertising to Children in the 1930s.

________________________________________________________________
Panel 3E: Theorizing Popular Culture
CHIPPAWA
Chair: Laura Wiebe, McMaster University

Arun Jacob Ryerson University
Natalia Dmuchowska University of Calgary
Through the Eye of the Media Beholder:The Psychogeographic Approach to Urban Exploration and the Media Experience

Birgit Schneidmueller York University
Narrative Management Strategies in a Transmedia Environment

________________________________________________________________

SESSION 4:  10:15am-11:45am

________________________________________________________________
Panel 4A: Genres, Scenes, and Legacies
SALON B
Chair: Thomas M. Kitts, St. John’s University

Jeff McMahon Brock University
“Sweeping Up the Broken Pieces of Yesterdays Life”: An Exploration of the Life and Legacy of Jimi Hendrix as a Function of Social Memory

Nicole Lemieux Brock University
It’s Not Black or White; It’s Blues: Jack White, Homage and the Politics of Recycled Blues in the 21st Century Music Industry

Thomas M. Kitts St. John’s University
Creedence Clearwater Revival and the San Francisco Scene

________________________________________________________________
Panel 4B: Celluloid Geography: Filmic Articulations of Place
ONTARIO
Chair: John J. Fink, University at Buffalo

Matt Raimondo York University
Blood, Bodies and the Burbs: Social Space and John Carpenter’s Early Horror

Armando Alfaro Brock University
“As Far As Memory Reaches:” Carnival and Myth in Robert Altman’s
Nashville

John J. Fink University at Buffalo
Image and Desire in the Dirty South: Chris Robinson’s
ATL
________________________________________________________________
Panel 4C: Sexual Discourse
NIAGARA
Chair: Gael Sweeney, Syracuse University

Laura Berger Brock University
Not So Sexy Sex: A Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis of Teen Girls ‘Doing It’ For the First Time on The WB/CW Network

Nathan Rambukkana York University
Primetime Polygamy: Reading the Intertextuality of Popular and Journalistic Polygamy Discourse from
Big Love to Bountiful, BC.

Gael Sweeney Syracuse University
Gay-jà Vu: Toronto Stands In for Pittsburgh in
Queer as Folk
________________________________________________________________
Panel 4D: Cultural Mediation and the Image: Illustrations and Representations
MAPLE
Chair: Jaleen Grove, SUNY Stony Brook

Douglas Clarke Brock University
Exploring Wakanda: Finding Racism in Black Superhero Comic Books

N.C. Christopher Couch University of Massachusetts
Hubert Rogers and the Heroic Portrait of Canadian Identity

Jaleen Grove SUNY Stony Brook
Illustrator as Cultural Mediator: Walter Haskell Hinton’s Portrayal of Native Americans in
Mammoth Western Magazine
________________________________________________________________
Panel 4E: Posthumanist Entanglements and Popular Forms
CHIPPAWA
Chair: Sherryl Vint, Brock University

Laura Wiebe McMaster University
Popular Posthumanism in Futuristic Fantasy: Justina Robson’s Quantum Gravity Series


Jonathan Smith Wilfrid Laurier University
(Post)Humanizing The Global “Stand Alone Complex”: Theoretical Speculations Within Kenji Kamayama’s
Ghost in The Shell: SAC and Eden of the East

Zorianna Zurba Ryerson University
Telephoning Lady Gaga: Feeling Out Popular Posthumanism and Everyday Fantasies

________________________________________________________________

CONFERENCE LUNCHEON    12:00pm-1:30pm

OAKES SOUTH BALLROOM

**KEYNOTE TALK**

Motel Culture and Tourist City–Niagara Falls, Ontario: An Illustrated Address

Joan Nicks Adjunct Professor, Communication, Popular Culture and Film, Brock University; Continuing Researcher of Popular Culture in Niagara

John Burtniak Retired Head of Special Collections and University Archives, Brock University; Continuing Researcher of Niagara’s History

Chair: Barry Grant, Brock University


PCA-Canada BUSINESS MEETING  1:30pm-2:30pm

OAKES SOUTH BALLROOM

________________________________________________________________

SESSION 5: 2:45pm-4:15pm

________________________________________________________________
Panel 5A: Spaces and Places: Geographies of Popular Music
SALON B
Chair: Richard Sutherland, University of Calgary

Al Larsen University at Buffalo
Grunge and Globalization


Brent Hagerman Wilfrid Laurier University
Riddim Driven: Communicative Musical Texts in Black Atlantic Sound Culture

Richard Sutherland University of Calgary
Playing Well With Others: Struggles and Successes in the Calgary All-ages
Scene

________________________________________________________________
Panel 5B: Theorizing Television
ONTARIO
Chair: Scott Henderson. Brock University

Liam Young University of Western Ontario
Chronic Cities: The Archive, The City, The Acceleration of History


Andrew Atkinson Wilfrid Laurier University
When You Walk Through the Garden: Ten Theses on HBO and the Post-Secular

Scott Henderson Brock University
‘One Big Trip’: The Synaesthetic Qualities of
Fringe
________________________________________________________________
Panel 5C: Popular Culture and Religion
NIAGARA
Chair: David Schimpf, Marian University

Ryan Weston Wilfrid Laurier University
“There’s Just Something About it”: Folk Festivals, Gospel Music, and Audience Reception

Robert St. Hilaire Niagara University
God as Explanation?: What the New Atheism Teaches Us about Popular Conceptions of Science and Religion

David Schimpf Marian University
The Bad Romance of Mother Monster: The Persona, Presence, and Music of Lady Gaga as ‘Vagabond Catholic’

________________________________________________________________
Panel 5D: Metagames: Rethinking the Magic Circle
MAPLE
Chair: Josephine Anstey, SUNY Buffalo

A.J. Patrick Liszkiewicz RUST, LTD.
Thirteen Ways of Looking at
Team Fortress 2

Luke Noonan SUNY Buffalo/ RUST, LTD.
Technical Analysis of Gender in Videogames


Cayden Mak SUNY Buffalo
The Schema of Game Culture: The Gamification of Everyday Life and Adorno’s Culture Industry

________________________________________________________________
Panel 5E: Politics and the Popular in the Digital Era
CHIPPAWA
Chair: Dale Bradley, Brock University

Richard A. Lee Rutgers University
Can the Internet be as Effective for Governing as it has been for Campaigning?

Holly Nazar Concordia University
New Media, Old Tactics, and Student Organizing in the Crisis of Universities

John Sutcliffe University of Windsor
Martha Lee University of Windsor
The North American Union: Conspiracy Discourse and State Sovereignty in the Post-9/11 Era
________________________________________________________________

SESSION 6: 4:30pm-6:00pm

________________________________________________________________
Panel 6A: Philosophy and Popular Culture
SALON B
Chair: Tim Madigan
St. John Fisher College

James Lawler SUNY Buffalo
Hegel’s Dialectics of Spirit: Feeling the Force in
Star Wars

Tim Delaney SUNY-Oswego
Karl’s Specter: A Marxist Analysis of James Cameron’s
Avatar

Tim Madigan St. John Fisher College
Rust-Belt Epiphanies: Harvey Pekar’s American Splendor as a Defense of the Extraordinary Aspects of Ordinary Life

________________________________________________________________
Panel 6B: Performing Otherness: Gender, Sexuality and Nation in Popular Culture
ONTARIO
Chair: Dirk Gindt, Stockholm University

John Potvin University of Guelph
Sweden’s Other – Modernism, Fashion and Sexuality in 1920s Paris


Katie Green University of Guelph
“It’s So We Know Who’s in the Club” – Punk Fashion and Identity in Canadian Culture


Alla Myzelev University of Guelph
Here Comes the Knitting Man – Gender in DIY (Do-it-yourself) Manuals


Dirk Gindt Stockholm University
Representations of Queer Masculinities in the Plays of Sky Gilbert

________________________________________________________________
Panel 6C: Gender, Genre and Performance in Film
NIAGARA
Chair: Barry Keith Grant, Brock  University

Michael Meneghetti Brock University
Conduit For Sale: The Actor in Contemporary Hollywood’s Historical Fictions

Sarah JM Kolberg State University of New York at Buffalo
Looking Without Seeing and the Paradox of Vision: Hitchcock’s
Suspicion in Dialogic Relation with Keats’ “Ode on a Grecian Urn”

Barry Keith Grant Brock University
High Tension, Feminism and the Horror Film
________________________________________________________________
Panel 6D: Digital Disruptions
MAPLE
Chair: Paul Aitken, University of Leeds

Alexandra Macgregor Brock University
Re-Tweeting the Revolution: Social Media and Social Change

Peter Hemminger University of Calgary
What’s good for the goose: A contemporary re-evaluation of Snow v. The Eaton Centre Ltd

Joe Lipsett Carleton University
Who is the Black Spark? Examining Social Media, Fandom and the Cult of Celebrity in Contemporary Pornography

________________________________________________________________
Panel 6E: Biography, Gender and Representation
CHIPPAWA
Chair: Julie Rak
, University of Alberta

Vicki Cocca Counselor, M.S. Ed
Anne Lee Mercer County Community College
A Higher Calling: How Canadian Feminists Sought to Better Their Worlds

Jennifer Musial Trent University/Queen’s University
American Grotesque:  ‘Octomom’ Nadya Suleman as Cyborg M/Other

Julie Rak University of Alberta
Gender and Death: Films and Life Writing about Climbing K2


________________________________________________________________

SATURDAY MAY 14th

_______________________________________________________________

SESSION 7: 9:00am-10:30am

________________________________________________________________
Panel 7A: Music, Meaning and Identity
SALON B
Chair: Richard Sutherland, University of Calgary

Paul Sawchuk Brock University
Call of The Mastodon: Narratives, Distinction and Locality in Metal.

Brian Jansen University of Windsor
“Reconstruction Site:” The Weakerthans and the Reinvention of the Working Class

Lutz Schowalter Universität Trier
Postmodernism, Post-Postmodernism, and Metric

________________________________________________________________
Panel 7B: Youth Agency From the Margins
ONTARIO
Chair: Kylo-Patrick R. Hart, Texas Christian University

Joanna Wasiak Brock University
Bringing Zombies Back to Life: An Autoethnographic Exploration of Alienation and Political Dis/engagement of Young Adults in North America

Olga Klimova University of Pittsburgh
Optimism and Popular Soviet Youth Cinema: Generational Discord and Teenage Misfits in Dinara Asanova’s Films

Kylo-Patrick R. Hart Texas Christian University
Totally F***ed Up at the Living End in One’s Own Mysterious Skin: Gregg Araki’s Groundbreaking Representations of Gay Male Life in the (Homophobic) Age of AIDS

________________________________________________________________
Panel 7C: Governance and Coverage: Gender in TV and Magazines
NIAGARA
Chair: Sarah Mae Baxter, University of Western Ontario

Shelbi Robson Brock University
“Back off Stacy, I Can Dress Myself!”: Governance in Makeover Programming

Andrea Ruehlicke Brock University
Does She Deserve ‘Happily Ever After’?:
The Bachelor as Prime-time Melodrama

Silvie Allard Laurentian University
Images of Violence and Portrayals of Domesticity: An Analysis of How A Popular Magazine Covers Issues of Violence Against Women

________________________________________________________________
Panel 7D: Online Identities
MAPLE
Chair: Danielle Soulliere, University of Windsor

Gillian Rothwell Brock University
An Army of Nerds: Agency, Community, and Participatory Fan Culture Online


Leisha Grebinski University of Regina
Outside and Online: Examining the Representations of Aboriginal teens on BEBO


Danielle Soulliere University of Windsor
Fan Culture Goes Online! Pop: The
Merlin Fandom Community on LiveJournal
________________________________________________________________
Panel 7E: Haunted Pedagogies: History and Politics in Popular Culture
CHIPPAWA
Chair: Tyler Pollard, McMaster University

Andrew Reszytnik McMaster University
Spectral Authority and Revolution in
V for Vendetta

Noa Reich McMaster University
Vampiric Histories: Race and Sex in
True Blood

Tyler Pollard McMaster University
Learning to Live (with Ghosts and Vampires?): A Pedagogy of Conjuration, and Mediating the Space Between Past and Future in the Classroom
________________________________________________________________

SESSION 8: 10:45am-12:15pm

________________________________________________________________
Panel 8A
: Comics and Graphic Novels
SALON B
Chair: Toni Pape, Université de Montréal

Ryan Lizardi Penn State University
Scott Pilgrim vs. Hegemony: Nostalgia, Remediation, and Heteronormativity

Luke Arnott University of Western Ontario
Myth, Epic, and the Bat: Comics Characters Across Media

Toni Pape Université de Montréal
Crossing Media Borders … Not! Autoreflexivity in Leo Ortolani’s Rat-Man
________________________________________________________________
Panel 8B: Networks of Meaning in Fantasy Fictions
ONTARIO
Chair: Sherryl Vint, Brock University

Deb Steele University of Queensland, Australia
The Importance of Being Costumed


Kristeen McKee Huntington University
‘Let There be Light’… in Times of Digital Darkness: Decoding the Entanglements of the Analog/Digital Binary in Disney’s TRON: Legacy

Sherryl Vint Brock University
Global Networks in Karen Tei Yamashita’s
Tropic of Orange
________________________________________________________________
Panel 8C: The Mediating of National Identities
NIAGARA
Chair: George Melnyk, University of Calgary

Yang Zhang University of Calgary
Constructing Harmony: English-Language Programming on China Central Television


Matt Ventresca Queen’s University
Every Nation is Leafs Nation: Hockey, Multiculturalism and a Different Kind of Nationalism

George Melnyk University of Calgary
Conceptualizing Diasporas in Postmodern Canadian Cinema: The Cultural Grammars of Minority Voices

________________________________________________________________
Panel 8D: Cultural Heritage: Sites of Meaning
MAPLE
Chair: Marian Bredin, Brock University

Tonya Davidson University of Alberta
Laura Secord’s Ottawa:  The Flaneuse, Monuments and Paradoxical Space.

Erna MacLeod Cape Breton University
Identity and Cultural Work

Karen Stanworth York University
“Getting a Wriggle On”: Popular Culture, Identity Politics, and Local Ambitions in Montreal’s Jubilee Parade, 1897.

Marian Bredin Brock University
Fort Erie’s Freedom Park: Local Histories of Commemoration

________________________________________________________________
Panel 8E: Representations in Popular Literature
CHIPPAWA

Chair: Cecily Devereux, University of Alberta

Jasmine Elliott University of Windsor
Blondes Have More Fun: Female Sexuality & Agency in
Twilight and True Blood

Cecily Devereux University of Alberta
The Nation of Chick: Chick Lit, Postfeminism, and the Globalization Sisterhood


Alan MacDonald Shepherd University
A Struggle for Intellectual Life in the Minnesota North Woods:  An Analysis of Jon Hassler’s
Rookery Blues and The Dean’s List

________________________________________________________________

 

Comments are closed.