Croatian Association for American Studies (CAAS), Centre for Popular Culture, and Center for North American Studies (CNAS) announce a Call for Papers for the 10th annual CAAS workshop. This year’s topic is Breaking Stereotypes in American Popular Culture. The workshop will be hosted by the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences Osijek, in Osijek, Croatia, 9-10 September 2022.
The topic of this year’s CAAS workshop is “Breaking Stereotypes in American Popular Culture.”
Key-note speaker: Kamilla Elliott, Professor of Literature and Media, Lancaster University
Recognizing the tendency to patronize and marginalize communities or groups that are seen as minorities within the larger society, we are proposing the topic of “Breaking Stereotypes” to promote fairness in the treatment of individuals and explore how stereotypical preconceptions in artefacts of popular culture affect society’s perceptions on diversity and inclusion. Both current research and practice illustrate the growing need for greater awareness of stereotyping, discrimination, and bias in the continued evolution of society’s perception of and reaction to these
issues.
During these divisive times, both in the US and worldwide, building or rebuilding of
communities based on reconciliation, respect, and trust is frequently being hampered by the way groups of people have been portrayed by the media, popular culture, and public officials. The resulting biases, often unconscious, lead to discrimination toward people in marginalized groups, particularly women, people of color, immigrants/migrants in general, individuals with disabilities, and others. As we move forward in this changing environment, we deem it helpful to share our experiences and make efforts to combat stereotyping by increasing understanding of our own cultural perspectives and those of others.
The workshop encourages participants to tackle the challenging issue of social categorization and perception of individual differences. We invite papers that will focus on the US popular culture and its representations of stereotypes in general (such as stereotypes pertaining to race, sex or gender, sexual orientation, age, disability, ethnicity, origin, political belief, religion, langue, culture, and others) that shape how people perceive, interact with, and make decisions about others
as well as papers that point to ways in which popular culture subverts stereotyping and stigmatization. The topics we propose include but are not limited to:
- stereotyping in popular culture (literature, film, TV, talk shows, comics, music, gaming industry…)
- breaking stereotypical notions of gender, class, race…
- representation of marginalized groups in popular culture
- bias in social psychology
- science and social stereotypes
- stereotypes and social categorization
- social media and divisiveness
- political correctness
- using gender-fair language
- …
The deadline to submit titles and abstracts of no longer than 250 words for 15-minute presentations, accompanied by one-paragraph CV, is 1 June 2022.
Please send your abstract to the following e-mail addresses: Valentina Markasović, tina.markasovic@gmail.com and Jelena Pataki, jpataki@ffos.hr.
Notifications of acceptance will be sent by 15 June 2022.
The conference organizers plan for an on-site conference. Only in the event of (re)introduction of stricter safety measures associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, the organizational board may reconsider and plan for a hybrid or a fully on-line workshop. The final decision will be announced as the workshop date approaches.
The workshop fee is 150 HRK (20 Euros). The fee is waived for the members in good standing of CAAS and of the AASSEE founding associations.
Payment should be made to:
Filozofski fakultet Osijek, Jägerova 9, 31000 Osijek
IBAN HR8423600001102484368, model 00, poziv na broj/reference number: OIB uplatitelja/payer PIN, payment purpose: CAAS workshop fee.
If the invoice should be addressed to an institution rather than the workshop participant, please let us know beforehand.
Selected papers will be published in a peer-reviewed, open access publication. The details about the publication process will be given in due course.
We look forward to seeing you in Osijek at the Croatian Association for American Studies’ 10th annual workshop, co-organized by the Centre for Popular Culture in Osijek and Center for North American Studies in Osijek.
Organizational Board
Valentina Markasović
Ljubica Matek
Biljana Oklopčić
Jelena Pataki
Jasna Poljak Rehlicki
Zvonimir Prtenjača
Sanja Runtić
Jadranka Zlomislić
