Dynamic Subspace

Yufang and I have already sent in our fees and paper abstracts. You should, too.

Proposal and Regular (non-late) registration deadlines have been extended to May 15.

Call for Proposals: SFRA 2010: “Far Stars and Tin Stars: Science Fiction and the Frontier”

The 2010 Science Fiction Research Association (www.sfra.org) conference theme, “Far Stars and Tin Stars: Science Fiction and the Frontier,” reflects the conference’s venue in the high desert of Carefree, Arizona, north of Phoenix. The frontier, the borderland between what is known and what is unknown, the settled and the wild, the mapped and the unexplored, is as central to science fiction as it is to the mythology of the American West.

International Guest Scholar Pawel Frelik: “Gained in Translation: Dispersed

Narratives in Contemporary Culture”

Guest Scholar Margaret Weitekamp: “Ray Guns, Play Sets, and Board Games:

What Space Toys Say About the Frontier”

Guest Scholar/Author Joan Slonczewski: “Tree Networks and Transspecies Sex:

Biology in Avatar”

Submissions are invited for individual papers (15-20 minutes), full paper panels (3 papers), roundtables (80 minute sessions), and other presentations that explore the study and teaching of science fiction in any medium.

Proposals that engage the conference theme are appreciated, but all proposals will be considered.

Paper and other session proposals should be 150-250 words. Paper panel proposals should include the proposals of all three papers and a brief statement of their unifying principle. Include all text of the proposal in the body of the email (not as an attachment). Please be sure to include full contact information for all panel members and to make all AV requests within each proposal.

In addition to traditional paper panels, the conference will include several ”Year in Review” sessions in which a small panel will present observations about the most significant texts in a given area before inviting audience discussion. Individual panels will cover SF Scholarship, SF in Print, SF Film, SF Television, SF Games. Anyone interested in serving on one of these panels should contact the Conference Coordinator.

For the first time, SFRA 2010 will offer three pre-conference “Short Courses” the morning of the conference’s first day. One will examine teaching science fiction in higher education, one will provide interested scholars a primer on studying digital science fiction, and the third will offer students (and anyone else interested) an orientation to science fiction scholarship.

The conference is open to other non-traditional programming suggestions that take advantage of an in-person gathering of science fiction scholars.

E-mail submissions as attached files by May 15, 2010 to Conference

Coordinator Craig Jacobsen: jacobsen at mesacc dot edu

Ongoing submission acceptances will be issued to better allow presenters to

plan.

The conference will run June 24-27, 2010. Visit the conference website at

www.sfra2010.ning.com. Rather than a static site, this year’s conference web

presence is a social network designed to allow attendees (and those

considering) to join, network before during and after the conference, and

collaborate in the construction of the conference. Sign up even if you are

not sure whether you’ll attend.

A new member to the SFRA Facebook group reminded me that I hadn’t signed up for the slick ning.com website for SFRA 2010: Far Stars and Tin Stars, Science Fiction and the Frontier. Craig Jacobsen and Shelley Rodrigo are putting together what I believe will be a fantastic 42nd conference for the Science Fiction Research Association to be held June 24-27 at the Carefree Resort and Villas, in Carefree, Arizona.

If you haven’t already done so, you should browse over to the SFRA 2010 site and signup to take part in the online discussions available there. Even if you aren’t sure that you will be able to attend the meeting, you should keep up with what’s going on by joining the site. So, what are you waiting for? Go here, now!