But I’m a Librarian!
Planning an Academic Conference
Julie Still & Zara Wilkinson
Paul Robeson Library
Rutgers University-Camden
Introduction
Buffy to Batgirl: Women and Gender in Science
Fiction, Fantasy, and Comics
Rutgers-University-Camden, May 2-3, 2014
Over 80 presentations & 150 attendees
Based on Pippi to Ripley, held at Ithaca College in
2011, 2013, and 2015.
Introduction
What is an academic conference and why would you
want one?
Differences between academic conferences and
professional conferences/professional development
programs or workshops
Picking a subject
Decide on parameters
Come up with a title
Preparing a plan
Who and how many
Where
How long
What type of events
Devising a budget
Income (registration, grants, in-kind donations)
Costs (food, facilities, incidentals, swag)
Finding funding
Campus / college partners
Internal / external grants
In kind donations
Program partners
Local arrangements
Housing (hotels and dorms)
Food (conference catering and a list of nearby eateries)
Facilities
Campus partners
Rutgers University Libraries / Paul Robeson Library
Women’s and Gender Studies Program
Office of Campus Involvement
Events Office
Office of Housing and Residence Life
Library display
“Buffy to Batgirl” display at the Paul Robeson Library
Call for papers
Writing the call
Posting the call (local, national, international?)
Penn CFP, email, H-NET, social media
Buffy to Batgirl CFP:
http://libguides.rutgers.edu/buffytobatgirl/cfp
“Buffy to Batgirl is an interdisciplinary conference with a focus on
women and gender in science fiction, fantasy, and comics.
Science fiction and fantasy books, television shows, and films
include a wide variety of female characters, from protagonists to
villains, warriors to “women in refrigerators,” and sidekicks to
starship captains.
We invite submissions of individual papers or complete panels
on any aspect of female representation in speculative fiction.
Due to the interdisciplinary nature of the conference, we seek to
represent a range of critical and theoretical approaches as well
as a variety of media.”
http://libguides.rutgers.edu/buffytobatgirl/cfp
Women and their place in futuristic or other worlds (Star Trek,
Doctor Who, Babylon 5, Firefly)
Female protagonists in urban fantasy and paranormal romance
(Buffy, Anita Blake, Sookie Stackhouse, Clary Fray)
Gender politics after the apocalypse (Revolution, Falling Skies,
Oryx and Crake, Y: The Last Man)
Science fiction and reproductive body horror (Alien franchise,
Twilight, Bloodchild)
Feminism, gender, and sexuality in zombie media TV (Romero, In
the Flesh, The Walking Dead)
http://libguides.rutgers.edu/buffytobatgirl/cfp
Reviewing proposals
Evaluating the quality of proposals
Accepting/rejecting
Deciding how many panels
Grouping papers into panels
PANEL 1A: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
“A regular kid and her cradle-robbing, creature-of-the-night
boyfriend”: The Trouble with Normal in Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Gregory L. Bagnall, University of Rhode Island
The Re-imagining of Fairy Tales in Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Kerry Boyles, Rutgers University
“What’s In the Basket Little Girl?”: Reading Buffy as Little Red
Riding Hood
Kim Snowden, University of British Columbia
Drusilla, Kendra, & the Role of Agency in Vampire Literature
William Patrick Wend, Burlington County College
PANEL 7B: Witches and Wicked Women
Something Wicked This Way Comes?: Power, Anger, and
Negotiating the Witch in Contemporary Television
Alissa Burger, SUNY Delhi
Stephanie Mix, Independent Scholar
Rehabilitating the Child-Stealing Witch: Motherhood and Magic in
ABC’s Once Upon a Time
Linda Lee, University of Pennsylvania
Sex, Power, and the Occult: A Look at Morgan in STARZ’s Camelot
Christina Francis, Bloomsburg University
Scheduling (putting it all together)
Arranging panels
All conference events
Allow for networking
Conference program
Conference website
Publicity/social media
Campus/Libraries Communications Office(s)
Blogs (The Geek Initiative, Geekadelphia, Comic Book
Resources)
American Libraries
Social media, #buffytobatgirl
Logistics on the big day(s)
Setting up
Signage
Registration / staffing
Distribution of program / name badges
Logistics on the big day(s)
Monitoring progress of events
Tech support
Monitoring attendance at paid events
Assessment
Survey form
Collect social media mentions
Post conference paperwork (reports, internal
publicity)
Prepare a post-conference report for stakeholders
Distribute to administrators as appropriate
Grant / funding reports
Send post-conference publicity to professional
associations or write up a report for publication
Questions or comments?
Julie Still, still@camden.rutgers.edu
Zara Wilkinson, zara.wilkinson@camden.rutgers.edu