Conference: Motherhood and Popular Culture

Via the Motherhood Initiative for Research and Community Involvement (MIRCI):

MOTHERHOOD AND POPULAR CULTURE   POPULAR CULTURE ASSOCIATION/AMERICAN CULTURE ASSOCIATION (PCA/ACA) NATIONAL CONFERENCE BOSTON, MA, APRIL 11- 14, 2012  Julie Tharp and Susan MacCallum-Whitcomb write in This Giving Birth:   Now that the baby boom generation has come of age in America, mothers are suddenly back in Vogue - and in Time, The New Yorker, and The Wall Street Journal too. Indeed, mothers are suddenly everywhere and their influence is everywhere felt. Pollsters and policy-makers count them; manufacturers cater to them; and corporations work to accommodate them. Marketers adjust to meet their demands and desires, while medical practitioners keep pace by emphasizing prenatal education and offering non-traditional birthing options.Ever since a pregnant Demi Moore exploded the beauty myth by posing nude for a magazine cover and Madonna cast off her boy-toy image to sing the praises of maternity, popular culture has also begun to embrace dear old mom. I am looking for papers for multiple panels for a "New/Special Topics in Popular Culture Area" which embrace any aspect of motherhood and popular culture. Possible topics to consider include, but are not limited to, the following:   Mothers, mothering, motherhood and   TV shows, including talk shows, family dramas, sitcoms, and animation print and electronic journalism and gossip rags; magazines celebrity culture electronic sites/technologies like blogs, Facebook, Twitter advertising and marketing visual art including photography, scrapbooking, mixed media film; performance; music graphic fiction/memoir best-selling literatures including mommy lit and momoirs pregnancy manuals and "expert" parenting guides/literature sports fashion politics reproductive technologies law and policy; maternal activism/organizations For information on the PCA/ACA, please see: http://pcaaca.org/ Abstracts (200-250 words) due by December 15, 2011. Please send any inquiries and abstracts via email to: Liz Podnieks, Associate Professor Department of English and Graduate Studies in Communication and Culture Ryerson University, Toronto lpodniek@ryerson.ca