MAPACA kicks off today and the rest of the week will be a blur obviously because of ISSS Surrealisms, too. Yes, I am grateful that my two presentations do not overlap (though both are Saturday, argh). I am grateful, too, that I know ISSS panels will be viewable for a couple weeks after the conference because I am already feeling overwhelmed, possibly because my presentation is not done — with the caveat that academic presentations, like art (and increasingly the two are indistinguishable for me) are never finished just abandoned — that is, presented in their incomplete state for feedback and commentary. And there’s a great bunch of folks at MAPACA so I’m looking forward to everybody’s presentations and some good chat.

My presentation for MAPACA is on the 1943 novel Conjure Wife by Fritz Leiber and its adaptation as Burn Witch Burn AKA The Night of the Eagle (1962). There are connections with my proposal for PCA next year, but for now let me just mention that Peter Wyngarde’s tight trousers may get a mention, but it’s really much more about the glory of Margaret Johnston’s deliciously vicious Flora Carr, who hisses the American title over her pyre of tarot cards. Fun stuff!