The Popular Culture Association

Jack London studies has long had a robust presence at the Popular Culture Association’s annual meeting. At least since the eighties, London scholars have brought their latest research to the PCA. Founded as an alternative to the sixties version of the American Studies Association, the PCA hoped to make the study of literature a part of a larger movement to analyze more—well—more popular forms of media, such as television, comics, and especially film. Tony Williams, Susan Gatti, and others felt that American literature was dominated by the study of East Coast, canonical authors, like Whitman, Hawthorne, and Melville, and London was ignored. Combining rigorous scholarship with a more relaxed, informal social atmosphere, the panels today continue the lively study of Jack London. And when the London panels are over, visitors can go to sessions on Vietnam literature, detective fiction, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

The 2009 PCA, in April in New Orleans, featured seven papers and a read-aloud session. The latter, a new feature of the PCA London panels, brought together panelists and visitors to read "All Gold Canyon" and drink beer and wine and share stories. We will be voting on which London work we will read aloud next. Next year the PCA will be held in St. Louis in April. For more information, please contact Jay Williams, area chair, at jww4@uchicago.edu.