Collectibles, Collecting, Collections

The Southwest/Texas Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association invites panels and individual papers examining the phenomena associated with collecting for its annual conference to be held March 7-10, 2001, at the Sheraton Oldtown Hotel in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

The Collections/Collectibles/Collecting interest area is new for SW/Texas PCA/ACA.

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

• Private collections as passion, as social climbing activity, as investments, as inflation hedges
• Relationships between collectors and curators
• Private collections as the bases for Public museums
• Your personal collection
• The history of collecting
• The impulse to collect
• Various attitudes towards collecting various artifacts in various communities
• Collections and political correctness
• Collecting "styles"
• My junk/your treasure, my treasure/your junk
• Self-indulgence/material culture preservation/ "credentialing" the collector
• Fashions in collection across cultures, across generations, across classes, etc.
• Representations of collectors in popular fiction, film, theater
• Collecting as Therapy/Collecting as Neurosis
• Collecting as Community activity

Please send proposals for panels and individual papers (include a 100 word abstract and a one-page c.v.) by November 1, 2000 to the Area Chair Pro tem: Susan Koppelman, at the address below.