It’s that time of year again! The AERA conference is on and Rick Hess from the American Enterprise Institute has the gory details.

A paper worth catching, if only because it won the annual “Using Epistemic Twice in a Title” award, is, “‘Game Changers’: The Role of Epistemic Reflexivity in the Work of Epistemic Gaming.” Another one that’s enticed me with its cryptic post-colon prose is, “Outdoor Learning: Authenticity or Performativity.” I’m also eager for the chance to get the scoop on the sophisticated sounding inquiry into paper airplane utilization, “Examining Exclusionary Activity Through Mediated Discourse Analysis: Looking Critically at Play, Peer Culture, and Paper Airplanes.”

A terrific follow-up session for those seeking even more counterstorytelling is, “Cyber-Sista Cipher: Black Female Students’ Color Consciousness and Counterstories as Hush Harbor in and for Universities.” Can’t resist sharing Francesca’s take on this one, “This just makes me laugh. Read it aloud twice.” I mean, really? “Color Consciousness and Counterstories as Hush Harbor?” What is that supposed to even mean?

Okay, I don’t want to overstuff anybody’s program. But there is one more panel during the weekend that seems like a can’t-miss: “Saints and Sluts: Racialized Pedagogies of the Good Girl-Bad Girl in Global Youth Culture,” which features the papers, “True to the Game: Representations of Black Gangsta Femininity in Urban Street Fiction,” “One Word: Benevolent Girlhood in the Cheetah Girls,” and “Rebel Girl or Tamil Hottie? Media Representations of MIA as a Transnational Production of Girlhood.” ‘Nuff said.