[Discussion] Collecting/Collectible/Collectors/Collections

[Gonul]

Call for Papers, Panels, Presentations on:
Collecting, Collectibles, Collectors, Collections

THE SOUTHWEST-TEXAS POPULAR CULTURE ASSOCIATION/AMERICAN CULTURE
ASSOCIATION

April 7-10, 2004
San Antonio, TX

This year, we join the National PCA/ACA Collecting Area in our combined
Southwest/Texas PCA/ACA and National PCA/ACA Conferences in San Antonio,

Texas. In years past, we have enjoyed presentations on a variety of
Collecting/Collectibles/Collectors/Collections topics and have continued
our
lively conversations between sessions and beyond the conference. We seek

energetic and engaging presentations that will continue the tradition of

enthusiastic intellectual discussion started 4 years ago. Our SW/TX
crowd
has been described as aggressively friendly and our conference can be
guaranteed to enlighten and entertain. Currently Susan Koppelman and
Alison
Franks, founding and former area co-chairs, are developing several
book-length projects on derived from conference presentations.

We invite proposals/abstracts for individual presentations and for
entire
panels about collecting, collectibles, collections, collectors, and
those
whose artifacts are collected, for the SW-TX PCA/ACA's annual
conference.
We encourage presentations from the many Popular Culture/Cultural
Studies
perspectives, including theoretical considerations and Material Culture
Studies. We seek presentations/panels from collectors, from creators of
collectible art/artifacts, and from those who mediate between those who
collect, those who create or offer collectibles (such mediators as
gallery
owners, traders, agents) and those who study collecting, collections,
collectors, collectibles.  We also seek ideas and suggestions for
roundtable
discussions and workshops concerning collecting, collectibles,
collectors,
and collections.

Some areas of consideration include, but are not limited to:

Your personal collection; The history of collecting; The impulse to
collect.

Attitudes towards collecting artifacts in ethnic, faith, class,
educational,
racial, social, generational or regional communities.

Collecting and political correctness.

Private collections as passion, as social climbing activity, as
investments,
as inflation hedges.

Legal issues regarding collecting/collections.

The business of collecting - buying and selling, mediating value - the
dealer, the picker, the agent.

The impact of the Internet (including eBay and like sites) on
collecting.

Relationships between collectors and curators.

Private collections as the basis for public museums.

Representations of collectors in popular fiction, film, theater.

Collecting as therapy/Collecting as neurosis.

Collecting as community activity.

Collecting as scholarship.

Collectors' organizations (car clubs, stamp clubs, costume jewelry
collectors' groups, etc.), their functions, their controversies.

Do women and men, people with different levels of education, people with

different class and ethnic origins collect different "stuff"?

The impact of collectors on "folk" or "ethnic" artists/makers - changes
in
style, changes in gender roles, etc.

What is an "authentic" collectible?

My junk/your treasure, my treasure/your junk.

Economics of collecting/Collecting economically.

These are just ideas that come to mind from our previous experience and
from
questions yet unexplored by meeting panels; there are many other
appropriate
topics and viewpoints as well.

For questions about the 2004 meeting at the Riverwalk Marriott Hotel in
San
Antonio, fees, accommodation and travel information, please go to the
2004
Meeting page of the organization's website (www2.h-net.msu.edu/~swpca).

Please send your proposals (presentation time is about 20 minutes,
leaving
time for lively discussion following three presentations per panel) to
one
of the following Area Co-Chairs for Collectors/
Collecting/Collections/Collectibles by October 15, 2003:

E-mail and Electronic submissions to: Amy L. Wink,
winka@southwestern.edu.
Please make sure your attached document can be read by Microsoft Word or

Apple Works. Word Perfect documents are NOT compatible. You may also
submit
your abstract in the body of your e-mail.

Snail mail submissions to: Nancy Arnold, 325 Ellwood Beach
Drive #18, Goleta, CA 93117.

All submissions will be acknowledged.

Collecting/Collectible/Collectors/Collections Area Co-Chairs for
2003-2004
are

Nancy Arnold, naa1@umail.ucsb.edu
Toni Mantych, tcm@the-font.net
Amy L. Wink, winka@southwestern.edu

We also invite you to join our Yahoo group for collectors and collecting

scholars, which we will be using to post messages about the collecting
area
panels for the 2004 SW/TX/PCA/ACA conference in San Antonio.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/collecting_area/