Performing Pareidolia

I submitted the following abstract as part of a potential panel for an upcoming conference.

Pareidolia and the Space of Communicative Praxis: Performing Mystery in the Presence of the Metaphysically Transcendent Other.

This essay examines communication regarding pareidolia--the act of perceiving a distinguishable pattern or likeness, typically a thing or person, in a random image--as a means by which the self performs the extraordinary and unknowable in the midst of the everyday mundane. Negotiating the always already subject positions of both self and other within the communal moment of the communicative encounter, a moment Calvin Schrag describes as the space of communicative praxis, embodied human agents cooperatively reify and subvert cultural institutions and discernments. An analysis of the communicative discourse and action surrounding perceived encounters with the metaphysically transcendent other via pareidolia--the likeness of Jesus on a tortilla, a demonic visage in the smoke of the World Trade Center, or a Virgin Mary formed from chocolate drippings--offers an opportunity to explore how the self resists the hegemonic discourses of science and attempts to reclaim a sense of the mystical, the magical, and the mysterious.

I'm also reworking the Battlestar Galactica abstract/proposal for the umpteenth time. The question of the hour: to what convention should I submit my BSG work? Should I submit to the RSA convention in Seattle or the PCA convention in San Francisco?