James Gunn’s Ad Astra is a new online publication dedicated to the study, advancement, and celebration of speculative fiction in the twenty-first century. Ad Astra will be edited by volunteers at the Center for the Study of Science fiction at the University of Kansas. Each issue will feature an assortment of stories, reviews, scholarly articles, and poems about science fiction, fantasy, horror and other genres of speculative art and literature.

The first issue of Ad Astra is scheduled for release on June 22nd, 2012.

The theme for Issue #1 will be Communication and Information.

We are looking for work from a wide variety of disciplines about how we speak with others, share information, and overcome obstacles to understanding. All submissions should have one eye cast toward the future, or one foot planted firmly in the world of the imagination. What would be the effect on human culture of ubiquitous mobile data streams? How might sapient colony organisms share information in the dark oceans beneath the ice of Europa? What conversation topics might be verboten on one’s first date with an artificial intelligence? Are orcs and goblins really as malevolent as they seem, or have they just been tragically misunderstood?

Papers up to 7,500 words in length should be e-mailed in .rtf or .doc format to Dr. Kathy Kitts at kittsscicoor at gmail.com or Dr. Mark Silcox at msilcox at uco.edu. All submissions should be in APA format and prepared for blind review. Submit a separate cover page with name, word count and institutional affiliation. The tentative deadline for submissions to Issue #1 of Ad Astra is March 31, 2012. For more information, visit http://adastra.ku.edu/.

NEW FRENCH SCHOLARLY JOURNAL OF SF

Professor Irène Langlet of the Université of Limousin is establishing a new French scholarly journal devoted to the critical study of science fiction.Initially, its format will be online-only as part of the “revues.org“ consortium in France. She is currently seeking sf scholars from around the world who would be willing to serve as editorial consultants and outside readers. To qualify, you should have some expertise in science fiction, sf theory, and the ability to read French. Although familiarity with and/or interest in French science fiction would be helpful, it is not required. If you would like to learn more about this opportunity, please contact her at: Irène Langlet, Université de Limoges, Faculté des Lettres et Sciences humaines, 39E rue Camille Guérin, 87036 Limoges, France,
<irene.langlet at unilim.fr>.

This is a special issue on The 1971 Indo-Pakistan War and it is edited by Dr. Cara Cilano, University of North Carolina, Wilmington. This issue includes articles by Philip Oldenburg, Roger Vogler, Luke A. Nichter and Richard A. Moss, and Mavra Farooq. There are reviews of Shailah Abdullah’s Saffron Dreams, Ali Seth’s The Wish Maker, Afzal Ahmed Syed’s Rococo and Other Worlds, and Modern Poetry of Pakistan. The issue also includes notes on human and economic growth by Asad Zaman and a review of an exhibit of Pakistan art in France by David Waterman. You will find new poetry by Rizwan Akhtar and Shadab Zeest Hashmi, too. View the whole table of contents here.

This is also the last issue of Pakistaniaat in which I will serve as layout editor. It has been a very rewarding experience helping Masood Raja with Pakistaniaat. I clearly remember him approaching me one afternoon in my office at school about a new journal that he was launching. He needed someone to layout the issues for online access and printing, and he thought I would be the right person for the job. Masood wrote some very kind things about my work and our laying out the journal here. The first issue was a harrowing adventure for me–creating a layout template, figuring out the changes in InDesign from the outdated Pagemaker I learned over 10 years ago in high school, and troubleshooting un-embedded fonts at the 11th hour inside Angel Falls Coffee Shop in Akron. I would like to thank Masood for giving me an opportunity to work such an important project from its beginning. I also give thanks to the many contributors to the journal and its editors. Best of luck to the journal’s continued success and good work!

[About the picture above: Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Indira Gandhi meeting for the Simla talks.]

I finished the layout for the Summer 2010 issue of Pakistaniaat: A Journal of Pakistan Studies tonight. This is our fourth issue, and it is chock-full of articles, reviews, interviews, and poetry. It is an open access journal, so check it out here.

The editor is trying out something new with this issue. All of the individual articles are still freely available and will remain so, because it is an open access journal. Since the beginning, you could also purchase a print version here to help fund the journal’s costs, which include site maintenance, software, and honoraria. Now, if you would like to download a PDF of the full issue to read and print on your own, you may do so for a small donation. This should go live tomorrow on the official site here.

The Summer 2010 issue includes:

Cover art: Amar Raza, Al-Kauthar, (Watercolor 3′x4′), 108th sura of the Qur’an.

Articles

Distinctive Cultural and Geographical Legacy of Bahawalpur Samia Khalid and Aftab Hussain Gilani …………………………………………………………1

Memory and Cultural Identity: Negotiating Modernity in Nadeem Aslam’s Maps for Lost Lovers David Waterman ……………………………………………………………………………………….18

Political Manipulation in Human Rights Violations: A Case of Honor Killings in Balochistan, Pakistan Noor Akbar Khalil and Mashhood Ahmed Sheikh …………………………………………36

Reviews

Fawzia Afzal-Khan’s Lahore With Love Swaralipi Nandi ………………………………………………………………………………………..44

Ali Eteraz’s Children of Dust David Waterman ……………………………………………………………………………………….48

Musharraf Ali Farooqi’s Translation of The Adventures of Amir Hamza Colleen Thorndike……………………………………………………………………………………..51

Mashhood Ahmed Sheikh’s Side Effects: Portrait of a Young Artist in Lahore Tatiana Zelenetskaya Young ……………………………………………………………………….54

Notes and Commentaries

From Malakand with Love! Shaikh Muhammad Ali ………………………………………………………………………………57

Labor Unionization in Pakistan – History & Trends Riffat Bawa and Waqar Hashmi…………………………………………………………………..78

Poetry and Prose

Diary of a Wartime Chef Shadab Zeest Hashmi…………………………………………………………………………………83

Ghazal Shadab Zeest Hashmi…………………………………………………………………………………84

Kitchen Cabinet Rizwan Akhtar ………………………………………………………………………………………….85

Punjabi Mehnaz Turner ………………………………………………………………………………………….87

Interviews

An Interview with Professor Pervez Hoodbhoy Mustafa Qadri …………………………………………………………………………………………..88

Notable Pakistan-Related Texts

List of Recent Pakistan-Related Texts David Waterman ……………………………………………………………………………………….94

Sherryl Vint sent out the following CFP for the journal Science Fiction Film and Television. I have a BSG essay that I’m definitely going to send to SFFTV. You should send them something, too!

Science Fiction Film and Television is a biannual, peer-reviewed journal published by Liverpool University Press. Edited by Mark Bould (UWE) and Sherryl Vint (Brock University), with an international board of advisory editors, it encourages dialogue among the scholarly and intellectual communities of film studies, sf studies and television studies.

We invite submissions on all areas of sf film and television. We publish articles, book and DVD reviews and review essays, as well as archive entries on theorists (which introduce the work of key and emergent figures in sf studies, television or film studies) and texts (which describe and analyse little-known or unduly neglected films or television series).

We invite submissions in particular for two special issues:

REMAKES, REVISIONS, REBOOTS: Why is the 21^st century fascinated by returning to previous sf franchises? Is this nostalgia? Archive fever? Retrofuturism? What economic and cultural forces inform this recent fascination with return and renewal?

BIOPOLITICS: How do biopolitial theories of theorists such as Foucault, Hardt and Negri, Esposito and Agamben inform readings of sf? What can sf contribute to ongoing discussions of biopolitial governance? What can sf visions of posthumanism tell us about life under biopolitical capitalism?

Submissions should be made via our website at http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/lup-sfftv. If you have an idea for a contribution to the archives section, please contact the editors to discuss your proposal.

Advisory Editorial Board: Jonathan Bignell (University of Reading), Catherine Constable (University of Warwick), Susan A. George (University of California, Berkeley), Elyce Rae Helford (Middle Tennessee State University), Matt Hills (Cardiff University), Brooks Landon (University of Iowa), Rob Latham (UC-Riverside), Susan Napier (Tufts University), Sharalyn Orbaugh (University of British Columbia), Wendy Pearson (University of Western Ontario), David Seed (University of Liverpool), Steve Shaviro (Wayne State University), Vivian Sobchack (University of California, Los Angeles) and JP Telotte (Georgia Institute of Technology)

 

In my off duty hours, I am the layout editor of Pakistaniaat: A Journal of Pakistan Studies. After a lot of hard work beating words into shape, I would like to announce that our second issue (Vol. 1, No. 2, 2009) is now available online. Pakistaniaat is an open access journal, which means that all of our peer reviewed content is freely available online in PDF format. You may also purchase a print copy of the journal if you choose to do so. Click here to see this issue’s table of contents.

Dear All:
The print version of Pakistaniaat is now available. You can use this link
to purchase your print copies: http://stores.lulu.com/pakistaniaat.

The print sales support the journal’s online free access mission.
Thank you.

Sincerely,
Masood