Love's Labor's Lost and Folklore in the Digital Age

We live in a remix culture. This is extraordinarily problematic when considering current copyright laws, but that is a discussion for another day. In our culture, we take things we've heard, seen, read, or experienced and incorporate them and remix them for our own purposes. In academia, this is as simple as quoting someone and expanding upon that quote to support your argument (and then citing them so as to protect their intellectual property). On Facebook, this could be taking a movie still and commenting on it with your own words to make a witty point. On YouTube, this is taking clips from several different romantic period movies and putting music over it to make a romantic music video.

There are a billion and a half ways we remix, but this concept of remixing wasn't born of the digital age. Authors have always borrowed from others authors, reference popular culture works to make a joke, and taken age-old fairy tales and made them their own (a nod to Mr. Disney).

American Folklore Society Annual Conference Submission?

I'm looking around for conferences I could submit my paper to. I'm still in the process of redirectioning and repurposing my paper, so I haven't yet written an abstract. I'm just looking for an audience for when I do. 

Missed Opportunities:

I just missed the boat for the Western States Folklore Society annual conference. It's being held the day I graduate (April 20th) in CA, but abstracts were due back in February and it costs a fee just to submit. It's too bad because they were accepting student papers, and I would have loved to aim for something like this. I also just missed the Folk Alliance International conference which took place at the end of February, but I couldn't find any information about paper submissions anyways. There is a Folklore and Fantasy Conference being held in the UK on April 15th. I missed the deadline for that in late January, but I think it would've been a great audience for my subject. I might still write them and see if my topic would've even been interesting to them (just by asking if they take late submissions). Another conference I would've loved to have presented at is WKU's student research conference which seems much less intimidating to me than others, but again the deadline was in February and the conference is this Saturday.  

Major Possibility: The American Folklore Society Annual Conference

I finally found a HUGE conference who's deadline hasn't passed though! The American Folklore Society, or the AFS, produces an annual meeting each October that brings together more than 700 folklorists from around the world to exchange work and ideas, and to create and strengthen friendships and working relationships. This year's conference will be held on October 24-27 at the historic Hotel Monteleone in New Orleans, Louisiana. This year's theme: "The Continuity and Creativity of Culture" is perfect for my paper's topic! I can challenge the assumption implied in the theme's description that the "disruption" of "cultural continuity... threaten[s] well-being and long-standing social interactions" by talking about online culture's ability to enhance and further relationships and social interactions through the transmission of folklore. 

If I choose to submit to this conference, I have till March 31st to solidify my direction, do my social research, finish my paper and make sure that it follows the guidelines set for submissions, write both a 500 word abstract and a 100 word abstract and there is a registration fee of $95 (not to mention, if my paper was actually selected, travel costs to get to New Orleans in October - though there are some grants I could apply for). I would be informed by June 1st, if my paper was accepted. It's a tad intimidating though... Do you guys think I should go for it? 

(Oh and just as a reminder to myself, there are more folklore resources I need to remain aware of here)