Convention season is still going full swing, and this weekend Leah and a few other Smart Pop contributors will be heading to GeekGirlCon in Seattle. If you’re planning on attending, we’d love to see you at the two panels we’ll be participating in! And don’t forget to ask for a free 2012 Smart Pop Preview while you’re there—we’ll be giving away a limited number at the panels.

Gender and Race in the 74th Hunger Games

Saturday, 2:00 PM – 2:50 PM

Although the Hunger Games trilogy takes place in what looks like a future North America, the nation of Panem is distinctive from the contemporary United States, Canada, and Mexico. Social and cultural conventions clearly shifted over the centuries between our own time and Katniss Everdeen’s or have they? Explore how the world of the Hunger Games presents race, culture, and ethnicity and how that treatment mirrors the way they are represented in media today.

Presented by Erin Lovejoy-Guron, V. Arrow (author of our upcoming Panem Companion)

Women in Westeros: Is Game of Thrones Sexist?

Saturday, 5:30 PM – 6:20 PM

The world of the HBO series Game of Thrones, and the George R.R. Martin book series, is a dangerous (and, given the frequent lack of clothes, chilly) one for women. Westeros itself is clearly sexist—but are the show and books? What’s the line between glorification of sexual violence and critique? How do the books’ and show’s treatment of other socially disadvantaged groups, like the disabled and gender nonconformists, compare?

Presented by Leah Wilson, Brent Hartinger (Beyond the Wall), Caroline Spector (Beyond the Wall)