DISCOURSING THE GRATEFUL DEAD: SCHOLARS, FANS, AND THE 2020 MEETING OF SOUTHWEST POPULAR/AMERICAN CULTURE ASSOCIATION

Abstract

Academic conferences serve many functions but at heart they are pedagogical enterprises, designed to teach, share, and refine knowledge. This paper uses the 2020 meeting of the Grateful Dead area of the Southwest Popular/American Culture Association to explore some of the issues and challenges that define the pedagogical and scholarly work of a conference section. The 2020 meeting offers a useful lens for discussing the area’s contributions and problems within the larger framework and history of the Southwest Popular/American Culture Association and the broader field of Grateful Dead studies. The experience of the Dead area illustrates issues in conference dynamics and organization as well as in the development of discourse communities, especially those with popular constituencies.

Keywords: Conference organization; popular culture studies; media fandom; Grateful Dead studies; discourse communities.