2023 Annual Meeting of the AAG - Sponsored Sessions of the RTS Specialty Group*:
If you would like RTS sponsorship for your panel session or you would like us to advertise your proposed panel on this page, please send the RTS co-chairs, (Elizabeth - esvidon@esf.edu and Mary - mostafan@hawaii.edu) an email with your title and panel abstract and include "AAG-RTS Sponsorship" in the subject line. We look forward to including your panels in the RTS lineup!
*Please contact session organizers to inquire about space availability.
*Please contact session organizers to inquire about space availability.
2023 AAG-RTS Sponsored Panels
1. AI and Big Data in Tourism: social media, spatially distributed data and data mining in tourism research
For more information or to submit a paper to this panel, please contact Andrei Kirilenko (andrei.kirilenko@ufl.edu)
For more information or to submit a paper to this panel, please contact Andrei Kirilenko (andrei.kirilenko@ufl.edu)
2. New Directions in Popular Culture and Geography
All paper abstract proposals should be sent to the organizers: Robert A. Saunders (robert.saunders@farmingdale.edu), Darren Purcell (dpurcell@ou.edu), and Katrinka Somdahl (somdahl-sands@rowan.edu).
Over the past several years, popular culture has made its presence increasingly felt across the
field of Geography. In the wake of Donald Trump’s presidency – alongside the ascendancy of
other ‘pop culture’ icons to the status of world leaders (e.g. Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Imran
Khan) – the role of popular culture demands ever greater attention in the field. The rising
importance of deterritorialized, user-friendly platforms for content creation such as TikTok,
alongside the proliferation of imaginary worlds shaped and sustained by conspiracy
theories/theorists such as QAnon, are just two prevalent examples of popular culture’s
impact on space, place, and power across the globe. Elsewhere, pressing geopolitical concerns of our world are increasingly present in popular media products; likewise, contemporary debates around bodies, identities, and ideologies are evermore reflected in ‘new’ geographies of existing pop-culture imaginaries, from the alt-right discourses of DC’s The Peacemaker and gender politics of Marvel’s She-Hulk to the racialization of reception of the recent iterations of the Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, and other fantasy/sf franchises. Consequently, such ‘safe spaces’ - as redoubts from the so-called ‘real world’ - are being increasingly compromised by globalized social media practices. Recognizing this state of affairs, Social & Cultural Geography will soon publish a special issue focusing on the new directions that are currently afoot, tentatively titled ‘(Em)placing the Popular in Cultural Geography’. As an analogue to this forthcoming intervention, we are issuing a call for proposals for a roundtable and between one and three paper panels on ‘New Directions in Popular Culture and Geography’ at the 2023 AAG Annual Meeting in Denver,
Colorado (23-27 March 2023). Prospective participants are invited to submit their interest in
participating in the roundtable OR a panel. Empirical and theoretical contributions are equally welcome. Paper panelists are requested to provide an abstract based on the AAG
requirements for length to the panel organizers; potential roundtable participants are asked
to submit a brief biographical statement (no more than 250 words) and 2-3 sentences
summarizing potential contributions to the forum. Given the hybrid nature of the conference,
potential contributors are also asked to specify their preferred mode of presentation (in-
person or virtual). All proposals must be received prior to 1 October 2022 to be given full
consideration; notification of inclusion will follow within one week, with AAG registration
being required by 15 October 2022.
Suggested areas for discussion/research include but are not limited to:
• Expanding linkages between popular culture and other geography-sensitive
fields, including tourism, geopolitics, public policy, Earth system/environmental
science, sustainability, and development
• New trends in scale, trace-making, and place-making related to popular culture
• Evolving platforms (TikTok, Discord, Truth Social) and new nodes/modes of
production (AI, augmented reality, drones, Indigenous voices
• Shifts in pop-culture consumption practices related to the COVID-based lock-
down, state restrictions on access, etc.
• Expanding worlds of popular culture (QAnon, the Anthropocene imaginary, DC,
MCU, Star Trek, Star Wars, GoT, LotR)
• Emerging popular-culture battlegrounds (Russia v. Ukraine, Let’s Go
Brandon/FJB v. Dark Brandon, Polandball, the Metaverse, ‘Wokeness’) and ‘real-
world’ weaponisation of social media (doxing, building digital spaces of hate,
etc.)
• Deepening imbrications of popular culture into everyday spaces such as the
home, community, race, zones of care, etc.
All paper abstract proposals should be sent to the organizers: Robert A. Saunders (robert.saunders@farmingdale.edu), Darren Purcell (dpurcell@ou.edu), and Katrinka Somdahl (somdahl-sands@rowan.edu).
Over the past several years, popular culture has made its presence increasingly felt across the
field of Geography. In the wake of Donald Trump’s presidency – alongside the ascendancy of
other ‘pop culture’ icons to the status of world leaders (e.g. Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Imran
Khan) – the role of popular culture demands ever greater attention in the field. The rising
importance of deterritorialized, user-friendly platforms for content creation such as TikTok,
alongside the proliferation of imaginary worlds shaped and sustained by conspiracy
theories/theorists such as QAnon, are just two prevalent examples of popular culture’s
impact on space, place, and power across the globe. Elsewhere, pressing geopolitical concerns of our world are increasingly present in popular media products; likewise, contemporary debates around bodies, identities, and ideologies are evermore reflected in ‘new’ geographies of existing pop-culture imaginaries, from the alt-right discourses of DC’s The Peacemaker and gender politics of Marvel’s She-Hulk to the racialization of reception of the recent iterations of the Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, and other fantasy/sf franchises. Consequently, such ‘safe spaces’ - as redoubts from the so-called ‘real world’ - are being increasingly compromised by globalized social media practices. Recognizing this state of affairs, Social & Cultural Geography will soon publish a special issue focusing on the new directions that are currently afoot, tentatively titled ‘(Em)placing the Popular in Cultural Geography’. As an analogue to this forthcoming intervention, we are issuing a call for proposals for a roundtable and between one and three paper panels on ‘New Directions in Popular Culture and Geography’ at the 2023 AAG Annual Meeting in Denver,
Colorado (23-27 March 2023). Prospective participants are invited to submit their interest in
participating in the roundtable OR a panel. Empirical and theoretical contributions are equally welcome. Paper panelists are requested to provide an abstract based on the AAG
requirements for length to the panel organizers; potential roundtable participants are asked
to submit a brief biographical statement (no more than 250 words) and 2-3 sentences
summarizing potential contributions to the forum. Given the hybrid nature of the conference,
potential contributors are also asked to specify their preferred mode of presentation (in-
person or virtual). All proposals must be received prior to 1 October 2022 to be given full
consideration; notification of inclusion will follow within one week, with AAG registration
being required by 15 October 2022.
Suggested areas for discussion/research include but are not limited to:
• Expanding linkages between popular culture and other geography-sensitive
fields, including tourism, geopolitics, public policy, Earth system/environmental
science, sustainability, and development
• New trends in scale, trace-making, and place-making related to popular culture
• Evolving platforms (TikTok, Discord, Truth Social) and new nodes/modes of
production (AI, augmented reality, drones, Indigenous voices
• Shifts in pop-culture consumption practices related to the COVID-based lock-
down, state restrictions on access, etc.
• Expanding worlds of popular culture (QAnon, the Anthropocene imaginary, DC,
MCU, Star Trek, Star Wars, GoT, LotR)
• Emerging popular-culture battlegrounds (Russia v. Ukraine, Let’s Go
Brandon/FJB v. Dark Brandon, Polandball, the Metaverse, ‘Wokeness’) and ‘real-
world’ weaponisation of social media (doxing, building digital spaces of hate,
etc.)
• Deepening imbrications of popular culture into everyday spaces such as the
home, community, race, zones of care, etc.
