Category: Announcement

Program and Registration for Access and Science Fiction: The Sixth Annual City Tech Science Fiction Symposium

Registration and Viewing

The Sixth Annual City Tech Science Fiction Symposium on Access and Science Fiction will be held on Thursday, December 9, 2021 from 9:00am-5:00pm EST (GMT/UTC -5 hours) online via Zoom Webinar.

To participate in this free event, attendees will need to (1) Signup for a free Zoom account here (if you don’t already have one), and (2) Register here to receive access instructions to the Zoom Webinar. Participants may register any time before or during the event!

For those who would like to watch the event without registering, you can join the YouTube Livestream here.

In addition to the Zoom Webinar Chat and YouTube Live Chat, join the event conversation with the event hashtag #CityTechSF and follow us on Twitter @CityTechSF.

As indicated below in the program, some symposium content is pre-recorded to offer more time for discussion on the day of the event. Pre-recorded content includes author readings and full paper presentations. Some of this content is in production and will be posted soon.

Leading up to this year’s special keynote event on “Writing Ourselves In: Teaching Writing and Science Fiction with Wikipedia” by Ximena Gallardo C. and Ann Matsuuchi, everyone is invited to join the Opening Access to SF: City Tech Science Fiction Edit-a-thon 2021 Dec. 6-Dec. 10. More information is available in this flyer.

Program

9:00am-9:15am
Opening
Jason W. Ellis
Justin Vazquez-Poritz

9:15am-10:05am
Paper Session 1: Access to International SF
Jill Belli – Moderator
Emrah Atasoy – “Access to SF in Turkey and Turkish SF Abroad”
Shanky Chandra – “Chinese Science Fiction: A Literary Genre, A Tool of Teaching Science or A Secret Weapon of China’s Soft Power?”
Gillian Polack – “The Problem of Susan Australia, or, The Tyranny of Distance” | Watch Expanded Presentation

10:05am-10:10am
Break

10:10am-11:00am
Paper Session 2: Access to Science/Fiction/World
A. Lavelle Porter – Moderator
Chris Leslie – “Reevaluating the Inclusiveness of the Interstellar Republic of Letters”
Katherine Buse and Anastasia Klimchynskaya – “Science Fiction and Citizen Science”
Aaron Zwintscher – “Star Wars Biomes: Simulacra, Nature, and Passivity in No Dialogue Nature Shows”

11:00am-11:05am
Break

11:05am-11:45am
Discussion Panel: “Accessing the Feminist Science Fiction Archive, Or, Young Women Read Old Feminist SF”
Lisa Yaszek – Moderator
Panelists:
Josie Benner
Olivia Kiklica
Jessica Taetle
Edeliz Zuleta

11:45am-11:50am
Break

11:50am-1:10pm
Paper Session 3: Access, Inclusion, and Representation in SF
Joy Sanchez-Taylor – Moderator
Leigh Gold – “Confronting Language in the Science Fiction Text: Language, Access, and Trauma in Octavia Butler and Ursula K Le Guin”
Katherine Pradt – “Shipping Supergirl: Discovering and Defending Lesbian Identity Through a DC Fandom”
Sean Scanlan – “Cool Access and Access to Cool: Gibson’s Gun Moll, Dorotea Benedetti”
Ida Yoshinaga – “Corporate Employment Practices Towards Greater Diversity of Story Development for SFF Screen Stories”

1:10pm-1:15pm
Break

1:15pm-2:25pm
Access, Accessibility, Bodies, and Minds in SF
Lucas Kwong – Moderator
Jacob Adler – “‘Everything Herein is Fantastic’: Accessibility and Inclusivity in Dungeons & Dragons”
Ryan Collis – “Autistic Speculative Imaginings: Accessing and Creating Minor Literatures”
Annette Koh – “Urban Planning for Cyborg Cities: Thinking about disabilities and mobilities in sci-fi as an urban planner”

2:25pm-2:30pm
Break

2:30pm-3:55pm
Analog Writers Panel and the Analog Emerging Black Voices Award
Emily Hockaday – Moderator
Panelists
Alec Nevala-Lee
Marie Vibbert
Chelsea Obodoechina
Trevor Quachri and Emily Hockaday – Award Presentation

3:55pm-4:00pm
Break

4:00pm-5:00pm
Keynote
“Writing Ourselves In: Teaching Writing and Science Fiction with Wikipedia”
Ximena Gallardo C. and Ann Matsuuchi
Wanett Clyde – Introduction and Moderator

Leading up to this special keynote event, everyone is invited to join the Opening Access to SF: City Tech Science Fiction Edit-a-thon 2021 Dec. 6-Dec. 10.

Ximena and Ann’s book chapter, “My Books Will Be Read By Millions of People!”: The LaGuardia Community College Octavia E. Butler Wikipedia Project,” that appears in Approaches to Teaching the Works of Octavia Butler, edited by Tarshia Stanley (Modern Language Association, 2019), has been made accessible via the CUNY institutional repository, Academic Works: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/lg_pubs/141/. This book was awarded Idaho State University’s 2021 Teaching Literature Award.

Participants

Jacob Adler has worked as the Metadata and Cataloging Librarian at the Bronx Community College Library since 2017. Before that he performed various other cataloging work, most notably at The Paley Center for Media from 2010 to 2016. In addition to his professional work he wrote a fantasy novel for the 2018 National Novel Writing Month contest; he continues to work on the novel and seek to get it published. He is especially interested in early television history, particularly the original 1959-1964 Twilight Zone television series. He is also currently pursuing a master’s degree in Museum Studies, which he is on track to receive in January 2022.

Emrah Atasoy, PhD, serves as a visiting postdoctoral scholar at University of Oxford’s Faculty of English between September 2021 and September 2022 as a recipient of the TUBITAK (The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey) 2219 International Postdoctoral Research Fellowship Grant. His research interests include speculative fiction, futuristic narratives, critical future studies, utopian and dystopian studies, critical dystopia, science fiction, apocalyptic fiction, ecocriticism, posthumanism, Turkish speculative fiction, twentieth-century literature, and comparative literature. He was a visiting scholar at Penn State University under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Jennifer Wagner-Lawlor in the academic year 2015-16. His work has appeared in journals such as Studies in the Novel (2022, collaborative article with Prof. Dr. Thomas Horan), Utopian Studies, Librosdelacorte.es, Literary Voice, and Methis. Studia Humaniora Estonica. His monograph Epistemological Warfare and Hope in Critical Dystopia has been published by Nobel in 2021. His most recent publications include “Speculative Fiction Studies in Turkey: A Preliminary Survey” (2021), in Utopian Studies, “Dys/utopian Narratives on the Screen: Beyond the Binaries in Children of Men and Lobster” (2021), in The Postworld In-Between Utopia and Dystopia: Intersectional, Feminist, and Non-Binary Approaches in 21st Century Speculative Literature and Culture (2021, Routledge), edited by  Tomasz Fisiak and Katarzyna Ostalska, and “Epistemological Warfare(s) in Dystopian Narrative: Zülfü Livaneli’s Son Ada and Anthony Burgess’s The Wanting Seed” in Speculations of War: Essays on Conflict in Science Fiction, Fantasy and Utopian Literature (2021, McFarland), edited by Annette M. Magid. He is a member of both Utopian Studies Society-Europe and the Society for Utopian Studies (SUS). His research at the University of Oxford is supported by TUBITAK BIDEB (The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey) under Grant 2219-International Postdoctoral Research Fellowship Program.

Jill Belli is Associate Professor of English at New York City College of Technology, CUNY, where she happily teaches science fiction and utopian studies often. She’s working on long-standing projects on well-being & happiness in education and writing & revising in dystopian texts. Newer interests include looping as composing practice, tarot and astrology as storytelling and knowing, William Reynolds, and grief. Learn more about Jill and her interdisciplinary research and teaching: jillbelli.org.

Josie Benner is a Biomechanical Engineering Major and Science Fiction Minor at Georgia Tech. She works in Professor Lisa Yaszek’s Sci Fi Lab, with funding from Georgia Tech’s Center for Women, Science, and Technology and the Ivan Allen College for the Liberal Arts.

Shanky Chandra is a Ph.D. scholar from the Centre for Chinese and Southeast Asian Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, India, in New Delhi. His research interests include modern and contemporary Chinese Science Fiction. The title of his Ph.D. thesis is “Socio-Political and Cultural Factors in the Making of Chinese Science Fiction Writer Liu Cixin: Understanding The Three-Body Problem.” Chandra took his B.A. (2011) and M.A. (2013) in Chinese language and literature, and M.Phil. (2016) from Jawaharlal Nehru University at New Delhi, India. In 2013, the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) awarded the Chinese Government Scholarship to Shanky Chandra for Post Graduate Diploma at Beijing Language & Culture University (Higher level 1 & 2) 2013-2014. Chandra taught Chinese language and literature at St. Stephen’s College (2014-2019), Delhi University. He completed the Advance Mandarin Teacher Training Program from the National Taipei University of Education Chinese Language Education Center, Taipei, Taiwan, in July 2018. Recently, he spent one year at the Department of Modern and Contemporary Chinese Language and Literature at the School of Chinese Language and Literature of Beijing Normal University (BNU) as a senior visiting scholar under the supervision of Prof. Wu Yan (HYI fellowship). He is also a member of the International Forum of Chinese Language Teachers (国际汉语教师微信群) and its official Account e-journal (国际汉语教师500强公众号). Currently, he is a visiting fellow at Harvard Yenching Institute, Harvard University.

Ryan Collis is a second year PhD student in Education at York University in Ontario, Canada who researches the creation of learning spaces for autistic students. He holds degrees in English (BA, Queen’s ‘99), Computer Science (BScH, Queen’s ‘00), Education (BEd, OISE ‘05), and Science and Technology Studies (BScH, York ’19; MA, York ‘20). Ryan has been a high school teacher in the York Region District School Board since 2006 and is a founding member of the editorial board of the Canadian Journal of Autism Equity. Ryan lives with his wife and son in Ajax, Ontario.

Jason W. Ellis is an Associate Professor of English at the New York City College of Technology, CUNY, where he coordinates the City Tech Science Fiction Collection. He coedited The Postnational Fantasy: Postcolonialism, Cosmopolitics and Science Fiction (McFarland, 2011) and a special issue on Star Wars: The Force Awakens of New American Notes Online, and talked with Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson about the relationship between SF and society on StarTalk Radio. He holds a Ph.D. in English from Kent State University, M.A. in Science Fiction Studies from the University of Liverpool, and B.S. in Science, Technology, and Culture from Georgia Tech.

Ximena Gallardo C. is a professor of English at LaGuardia Community College-CUNY. She has been a Wikipedia editor since 2012 and a WikiEducation instructor since 2014. Among her current Wikimedia projects are The LaGuardia WikiProject Octavia E. Butler and the LaGuardia and Wagner Archives GLAM initiative, as well as the Wikibooks projects Perspectives in Digital Literacy and Themes in Literature.

Leigh Dara Gold received her doctorate in German Literature in 2011 from New York University. She teaches Introduction to Poetry and English 1121 at New York City College of Technology, and Ancient Literature and Composition at Borough of Manhattan Community College. Her current research interests include science fiction’s role in the classroom, research on Ursula K. Le Guin, and connections between dance, literature, and philosophy.

Emily Hockaday is the managing editor and poetry editor for Asimov’s Science Fiction and Analog Science Fiction and Fact. Her first full-length poetry collection, Naming the Ghost, will be out in November 2022 with Cornerstone Press. You can find her online at www.emilyhockaday.com or @E_Hockaday.

Olivia Kiklica is a Computational Media Major and Science Fiction Fellow at Georgia Tech. She works in Professor Lisa Yaszek’s Sci Fi Lab, with funding from Georgia Tech’s Center for Women, Science, and Technology and the Ivan Allen College for the Liberal Arts.

Anastasia Klimchynskaya’s research brings together literary theory, sociology, and neuroscience to study how storytelling and narrative shape what (we believe) we know about the world. She received her PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of Pennsylvania, focusing on the way science fiction emerged as a literary form in the nineteenth century to express a new social and technoscientific paradigm. Her book project extends this work into the twenty-first century, using the two periods as foils for each other to examine how our fictions shape the innovation, use, and understanding of technoscientific advancements – and, in turn, how these advancements shape the very form of the stories we tell.

Annette Koh is a lecturer in the department of urban and regional planning at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. Her work and teaching focus on the politics of participation, youth engagement, and placemaking. An obsession with narrative and speculative approaches to city planning has manifested in an essay The Right to the City: Urbanism, Planning and Cities in Science Fiction and Fantasy, the chapter “Unofficial Archives of Urban Life How to Rewrite the Canon of Cities” for a tumblr book and a world-building workshop in October 2021 for an urban planning studio at Hunter College. She wrote two essays for ProgressiveCity.net –  Placemaking When Black Lives Matter; Decolonial Planning in North America – which were then published in the book Transformative Planning: Radical Alternatives to Neoliberal Urbanism. In 2017 and 2018, she collaborated with fellow PhD students and faculty to co-organize the Decolonizing Cities symposia at the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa.

Lucas Kwong is an assistant professor of English at New York City College of Technology. His scholarship on fantastic fiction, religion, and colonialism has been published in Victorian Literature and Culture, Religion and Literature, and Journal of Narrative Theory.  He also serves as the assistant editor for New American Notes Online, an online interdisciplinary scholarly journal, and as editor for City Tech Writer, a journal of student writing. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife.

Chris Leslie (he/him) is a visiting professor at the South China University of Technology whose research investigates the interactions among science, technology, and society. This paper is based on the research for his book From Hyperspace to Hypertext: Masculinity, Globalization, and Their Discontents, which will be published by Palgrave in 2022. Dr. Leslie is chair of the IFIP working group on the history of computing and a creative consultant for Zhejiang Hexin Toy Group in Yunhe, China.

Ann Matsuuchi is an instructional technology librarian and professor at LaGuardia Community College-CUNY. Past writing projects include those that focus on Samuel R. Delany and Wonder Woman, sf tv shows such as Doctor Who, and Asian American comic books. Ann teaches digital literacy, online cultures, and the fundamentals of internet studies. Current projects include one that focuses on Melvin Van Peebles, and a reference guide to Delany’s works.

Alec Nevala-Lee was a 2019 Hugo and Locus Award finalist for Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction (Dey Street Books / HarperCollins), which was named one of the best nonfiction books of the year by The Economist. He is the author of three suspense novels from Penguin, including The Icon Thief, and his work has appeared in such publications as the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Salon, The Daily Beast, Analog Science Fiction and Fact, and two editions of The Year’s Best Science Fiction. His next book, Inventor of the Future: The Visionary Life of Buckminster Fuller, will be published by HarperCollins on August 2, 2022.

Evelyn Ng is a City Tech Communication Design student with a focus on illustration. She’s designed and illustrated the poster for “The Sixth Annual City Tech Science Fiction Symposium on Access and Science Fiction”. When she isn’t working, she spends her time looking through art publications to elevate her design techniques. See more of her work on Instagram and on her online portfolio.

Chelsea Obodoechina is a graduate student and teaching assistant. In her spare time, she writes short speculative fiction inspired by her academic background in sociology. Her works have been featured in Cast of Wonders, the Unfettered Hexes anthology, and Anathema: Spec from the Margins. She lives in Montreal, Canada with her family.

Gillian Polack, Ph.D. is an Australian speculative fiction writer based in Canberra, Australia. She was the 2020 recipient of the Ditmar (best novel, for her 2019 novel The Year of the Fruit Cake) and the Bertram A. Chandler (lifetime achievement in science fiction) awards. She is an ethnohistorian with a special interest in how story transmits culture, both Medieval and modern. Her current research examines how contemporary speculative fiction novels serve as vectors for cultural transmission. A study of this will be released in 2022 (Story Matrices: Cultural Encoding and Cultural Baggage in the Worlds of Science Fiction and Fantasy, Academic Lunare). Her research at Deakin University furthers this work. Dr Polack’s publications include ten novels, short stories, a monograph (History and Fiction, shortlisted for the William Atheling Jr Award for Criticism or Review) and various works of non-fiction. A list of her books can be found at https://gillianpolack.com/my-books/.

A. Lavelle Porter is an Assistant Professor of English at New York City College of
Technology. He holds a B.A. in history from Morehouse College and a Ph.D. in
English from the CUNY Graduate Center. His writing has appeared in venues such as
The GC Advocate, Callaloo, The New Inquiry, Poetry Foundation, and the African
American Intellectual History Society. He recently published The Blackademic Life: Academic Fiction, Higher Education, and the Black Intellectual with Northwestern University Press.

Katherine Pradt is a librarian at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. In addition to supporting academic research and answering citation style questions (and troubleshooting the printers), she works to connect scholars to open-source tools and open access resources. She holds an MFA in addition to her library degree and is writing a novel set in occupied New York during the Revolutionary War.

Trevor Quachri, who took the reins of Analog Science Fiction and Fact as editor in 2012, started off as an editorial assistant in 1999 and worked his way up the ladder at Analog and Asimov’s Science Fiction, under Stanley Schmidt, Sheila Williams, and Gardner Dozois, respectively. On top of that, he’s also been a Broadway stagehand, collected data for museums, and executive produced a science fiction pilot for a basic cable channel. He lives in New Jersey with his fiancée, daughter, and way, way too many comic books.

Joy Sanchez-Taylor is a Professor of English at LaGuardia Community College (CUNY) whose research specialty is intersections between science fiction, fantasy, and critical race theory. Her book Diverse Futures: Science Fiction and Authors of Color (2021) examines the contributions of late twentieth and twenty-first century U.S. and Canadian science fiction authors of color to the genre. Dr. Sanchez-Taylor is currently working on a monograph project on diverse fantasy representations.

Sean Scanlan is Associate Professor of English at New York City College of Technology—CUNY where he specializes in literary technologies and American and global literature. He published “Global Homesickness in William Gibson’s Blue Ant Trilogy,” for the collection The City after 9/11: Literature, Film, Television (2016), and he is the founder and editor of NANO: New American Notes Online.

Jessica Taetle is a Computational Media Major and Science Fiction Fellow at Georgia Tech. She works in Professor Lisa Yaszek’s Sci Fi Lab, with funding from Georgia Tech’s Center for Women, Science, and Technology and the Ivan Allen College for the Liberal Arts.

Justin Vazquez-Poritz is the Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences at New York College of Technology, CUNY.

Marie Vibbert has sold over 70 short stories to professional publications such as Analog Science Fiction & Fact, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Nature, Vice’s Motherboard, Lightspeed, Escape Pod, and more.  Her works have been translated into Chinese and Vietnamese.  Her debut novel, Galactic Hellcats, came out in 2021.  Publisher’s Weekly called it “A rip-roaring space heist.”  By day she is a computer programmer at Case Western Reserve University.

Lisa Yaszek is Regents’ Professor in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication, where she explores science fiction as a global language crossing centuries, continents, and cultures. Yaszek’s books include Galactic Suburbia: Recovering Women’s Science Fiction (Ohio State, 2008); Sisters of Tomorrow: The First Women of Science Fiction (Wesleyan 2016); The Future is Female! 25 Classic Science Fiction Stories by Women (Library of America, 2018); and Literary Afrofuturism in the Twenty-First Century (co-edited with Isiah Lavender III, Ohio State, 2020). Her ideas have been featured in The Washington Post, Food and Wine Magazine, and USA Today, and she has been an expert commentator for the BBC4’s Stranger Than Sci Fi, Wired.com’s Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy, and the AMC miniseries James Cameron’s Story of Science Fiction. A past president of the Science Fiction Research Association, Yaszek currently serves as a juror for the John W. Campbell and Eugie Foster Science Fiction Awards.

Ida Yoshinaga is an Assistant Professor of Science Fiction Film at the Georgia Institute of Technology, and her screen-studies research centers on the production relations between creative labor from racial/gender/class minority groups and majority-dominated management, within corporate transmedia. Along with workplace allyship between these two unequal statuses, she studies the global stratification of SFF-genre scriptwriting within the story development process, as well as produces and facilitates the development of cultural screenplays for Indigenous or 4th cinema and TV.the development of cultural screenplays for Indigenous or 4th cinema and TV.

Edeliz Zuleta is a Biomechanical Engineering Major and Science Fiction Minor at Georgia Tech. She works in Professor Lisa Yaszek’s Sci Fi Lab, with funding from Georgia Tech’s Center for Women, Science, and Technology and the Ivan Allen College for the Liberal Arts.

Aaron Zwintscher is an adjunct professor of English at the New York City College of Technology. He is also an ambient musician and noise artist.

Call for Papers:Access and Science Fiction: The Sixth Annual City Tech Science Fiction Symposium

UPDATE: Thank you for the interest and proposals received so far for the upcoming 6th Annual City Tech Science Fiction Symposium on Access and SF! We want to extend the deadline until Friday, October 29 to give folks an extended window to submit a proposal, especially considering the personal and professional challenges we all continue to face during the on-going pandemic. Details on submitting a proposal are included below in the original CFP. This year’s program will be announced shortly after the new deadline. If you have any questions, please reach out to Jason Ellis (jellis at citytech.cuny.edu) on behalf of the organizing committee.

This year’s call for papers deadline is Oct. 15, 2021. Details about this year’s symposium and how to submit a proposal are below. The event will be online again this year, so we hope that you can make it regardless of wherever you are!

Call for Papers:
Access and Science Fiction: The Sixth Annual City Tech Science Fiction Symposium

Date and Time:
Thursday, December 9, 2021, 9:00AM-5:00PM EST

Location:
Online, Sponsored by the School of Arts and Sciences at the New York City College of Technology, CUNY.

Organizers:
Jill Belli, Wanett Clyde, Jason W. Ellis, Lucas Kwong, and A. Lavelle Porter

One of the pressing issues that came up during last year’s symposium on Race and Science Fiction (SF) concerned access to the genre in terms of opportunities to create, enjoy, celebrate, identify with, and connect with others. Access, of course, is a shared concern of many historically marginalized and oppressed groups, including women, the disabled, LGBTQ+ persons, and the working class. While it’s obvious that issues of access were an important concern before the pandemic, problems with access were amplified and intensified in startling ways, including: bookstore and library closings expanded and created new book deserts; lockdowns closed off easy access for social interaction, community participation, and mentorship; and reduced access to computers, Internet access, and quiet spaces derailed education and business opportunities for many.

These issues with access before and during the pandemic extend to SF. William Gibson’s aphorism, “The future has arrived–it’s just not evenly distributed yet,” offers a conceptual lens for this. While Gibson’s use of the term “future” equates to the technoscientific, we can substitute SF as representing many imagined futures, and those futures represented by SF are not yet evenly distributed in terms of access to the genre for creators, readers, fans, and critics. Lack of access isn’t only a problem for those who might find enjoyment, meaning, and community through SF in the present; it’s also a potentially long term problem that might affect the types of stories that are produced, what characters get created, and who gets to make them. These different aspects of access and SF were of importance when we met last year, but they are even more so now for all affected SF creators, fans, and scholars concerned about what the shape of things to come will be for access and SF.

The Sixth Annual City Tech Science Fiction Symposium aims to explore the broad theme of “Access and SF” as a way to understand the relationship between access and SF, identify what’s at stake and for whom, foster alliances between those fighting for access, and discuss how improving access for some improves access for all.

Also, Analog Science Fiction and Fact will announce the winner of their inaugural Analog Award for Emerging Black Voices at this year’s symposium (https://www.analogsf.com/about-analog/analog-emerging-black-voices-award/).

We invite proposals for 10-20 minute scholarly paper presentations or 40-60 minute panel discussions related to the topic of Access and SF. Please send a 250-word abstract with title, brief 100-150-word professional bio, and contact information to Jason Ellis (jellis at citytech.cuny.edu) by October 15, 2021. Topics with a connection to Access and SF might include but certainly are not limited to:

  • Access to Science Fiction for an Audience (reading text, watching films, playing video games, listening to music, etc.)
  • Access to Science Fiction as a Fan (fandom, community, blogging, vlogging, cons, online, etc.)
  • Access to Science Fiction as a Creator (writing, directing, developing, composing, etc.)
  • Access to Science Fiction as a Scholar (special collections, research, teaching with distance learning)
  • Access to Science Fiction where Roles Collide (navigating access through different relationships to the genre)
  • Barriers to Access of Science Fiction for an Audience (knowledge, technology, sources, mentors, etc.)
  • Barriers to Access to Science Fiction as a Creator (biases, racism, sexism, traditional gatekeepers, etc.)
  • Accessibility, Disability, and Science Fiction (direct access, indirect access, etc.)
  • Technologies of Access and Accessibility that Relate to SF (applied to creation, consumption, community, criticism, etc.)
  • Access, Openness, and SF (Digital Humanities, Wikipedia, open source and free software, Fair Use and Copyright, open pedagogy, etc.)
  • Affinity Politics and Intersectionality Between and Among Groups Working Toward Improved Access to SF

Like last year’s symposium (https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWEFb3DcsZdnyQCpNM4jY4uX_wlmO1sTt), the ongoing pandemic necessitates holding this year’s event online, too. Therefore, there are no geographical limitations for participants, but the time for the event’s program will follow Eastern Standard Time (UTC-5:00).

This event is free and open to the public as space permits: an RSVP will be included with the program when announced on the Science Fiction at City Tech website (https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/sciencefictionatcitytech/). Free registration will be required for participation.

The event is sponsored by the School of Arts and Sciences at the New York City College of Technology, CUNY.

The Annual City Tech Symposium on Science Fiction is held in celebration of the City Tech Science Fiction Collection, an archival holding of over 600-linear feet of magazines, anthologies, novels, and scholarship. It is in the Archives and Special Collections of the Ursula C. Schwerin Library (Library Building, L543C, New York City College of Technology, 300 Jay Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201). More information about the collection and how to access it is available here: https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/sciencefictionatcitytech/librarycollection/.

The Analog Award for Emerging Black Voices

The Analog Award for Emerging Black Voices poster

Analog Science Fiction and Fact magazine launched a new award today called The Analog Award for Emerging Black Voices. It is intended to recognize the work by writers who customarily identify as Black and are at the beginning of their careers.

Instead of simply purchasing and publishing the winning story, Analog is going further by providing mentoring, advice, and networking opportunities for the winner. This is a tremendous opportunity that I would encourage eligible hard science fiction writers (including those who are City Tech students with writing aspirations) to send their work for consideration. Submissions are accepted from May 14-July 23, 2021.

The winner and finalists will be announced at the next City Tech Science Fiction Symposium in late Fall 2021! Stay tuned for the next symposium’s call for papers.

Read the poster above or text below for all of the award’s details:

The Analog Award for Emerging Black Voices
Analog Science Fiction and Fact
analogsf@dellmagazines.com

Eligibility
Any writer over 18 years of age who customarily identifies as Black, has not published nor is under contract for a book, and has three or less paid fiction publications is eligible.

Logistics
Submissions will be open from May 14th – July 23rd to works of hard science fiction of greater than 1,000 words but not over 5,000. Finalists and the winning author will be announced at and in partnership with the Annual City Tech Symposium on Science Fiction.

Judging
A diverse committee of science fiction professionals will judge. The panel for 2021 is: Steven Barnes (Lion’s Blood), Nisi Shawl (Writing the Other), Kim-Mei Kirtland (Howard Morhaim Literary Agency, Inc.), Trevor Quachri (Analog Science Fiction and Fact), and Emily Hockaday (Analog Science Fiction and Fact, Asimov’s Science Fiction). Finalists will be chosen and awarded one mentorship session with Analog editors including a critique of their submission and a chance to ask questions about the field.

Award Winner
With editorial guidance, Analog editors commit to purchasing and publishing the winning story in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, with the intent of creating a lasting relationship, including one year of monthly mentorship sessions. These sessions will be opportunities to discuss new writing, story ideas, the industry, and to receive general support from the Analog editors and award judges.

Submit
Submissions will be read blind. Please remove all identifying information from the document before sending it. The file name should be the title of the story. Submissions should be .doc files and follow standard manuscript format. In the body of your email, please include a short cover letter with your contact information, address, the name of your entry, and a statement of interest describing eligibility. Stories can be submitted here: AnalogAward@gmail.com.

Reposted from Science Fiction at City Tech here.

Fifth Annual City Tech Science Fiction Symposium, On Race and SF, Thurs., Nov. 19, Online

This year’s City Tech Science Fiction Symposium, our fifth event since the inauguration of the City Tech Science Fiction Collection, will be held as a Zoom Webinar on Thursday, Nov. 19 from 9:00am to 5:00pm.

We have an outstanding line up featuring this year’s keynote speaker is Dr. Jonathan W. Gray who will give a talk titled, “Past Tense, Future Perfect: American Atrocities in HBO’s Watchmen and Lovecraft Country;” three roundtable discussions with SF writers, scholars, and City Tech students; and scholarly and pedagogically focused paper presentations.

While the event will take place in realtime on Zoom Webinar and simultaneously on YouTube Live, some supplemental material like author readings and expanded paper presentations are already available as online videos.

The symposium program and instructions for registering for the event are on the Science Fiction at City Tech site here: https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/sciencefictionatcitytech/.

Please feel free to circulate as the event is free and open to the public.

Recovered Writing (Archive)

Sunset in Brooklyn.

This post used to live as a page on DynamicSubspace.net. I’m archiving it as a post. All of the referenced content still lives at the links below.

As a new project for 2014, I am going through my personal archive of undergraduate and graduate school writing, recovering those essays I consider interesting but that I am unlikely to revise for traditional publication, and posting those essays as-is on my blog in the hope of engaging others with these ideas that played a formative role in my development as a scholar and teacher. I am calling this personal exploration and rediscovery of my personal digital archive, “Recovered Writing.” Because this and the other essays in the Recovered Writing series are posted as-is and edited only for web-readability, I hope that readers will accept them for what they are–undergraduate and graduate school essays conveying varying degrees of argumentation, rigor, idea development, and research. Furthermore, I dislike the idea of these essays languishing in a digital tomb, so I offer them here to excite your curiosity and encourage your conversation.

Below, I am including links to my Recovered Writing posts as they are published:

  1. Recovered Writing: Undergraduate Science Fiction Final Paper, Exploring SF Themes of Human Technomediation in Blake’s 7, July 26, 2002
  2. Recovered Writing: Undergraduate Gender Studies Final Paper on Kathleen Ann Goonan’s Queen City Jazz and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, April 26, 2004
  3. Recovered Writing: Undergraduate Postmodernism Final Paper, Family and Kinship in King Rat and American Gods, Summer 2005
  4. Recovered Writing: Undergraduate Postcolonialism Final Paper, Identity and History in Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children, Fall 2004
  5. Recovered Writing: MA in SF Studies, Time and Consciousness Module Final Paper, Artificial Self-Creation in the Science Fiction of Greg Egan, Jan 8, 2007
  6. Recovered Writing: MA in SF Studies, Genre Definitions Paper 1, Mega-text and the Cyberpunk Subgenre, Nov 13, 2006
  7. Recovered Writing: MA in SF Studies, Genre Definitions Paper 2, Projecting Victorians into the Future Through the Works of H.G. Wells and Steampunk, Jan 8, 2007
  8. Recovered Writing: Undergraduate Thesis, Networks of Science, Technology, and Science Fiction During the American Cold War, December 12, 2005
  9. Recovered Writing: Undergraduate Astronomy Class, PHYS 2021, Sunset Observation Project, Fall 2004
  10. Recovered Writing: Undergraduate Technologies of Representation Essay on Augustine’s Confessions, Oct 20, 2004
  11. Recovered Writing: Undergraduate Technologies of Representation Essay on Past Technology, the Altair 8800, Sept 28, 2004
  12. Recovered Writing: Undergraduate Technologies of Representation Essay on Present Technology, Airport Express, Oct 28, 2004
  13. Recovered Writing: Undergraduate Technologies of Representation Essay on a Future Technology, Personal Computing Device, Nov 18, 2004
  14. Recovered Writing: Undergraduate Technologies of Representation Final Essay Response on Communication Tech and World of Warcraft, Dec 8, 2004
  15. Recovered Writing: Undergraduate Technology & American Society Paper on Handheld Calculators, Nov 26, 2003
  16. Recovered Writing: MA in SF Studies, Special Author: Ursula K. Le Guin, Final Paper, Voices of the Alien Other During Wartime in the SF of Heinlein, Le Guin, and Haldeman, May 17, 2007
  17. Recovered Writing: MA in SF Studies, Utopias Module, James Tiptree, Jr.’s “Houston, Houston, Do You Read?” Bridging Herland to the Stars, June 8, 2007
  18. Recovered Writing: MA in SF Studies, Genre Definitions Module, Notes on New Wave SF, October 9, 2006
  19. Recovered Writing: MA in SF Studies, Genre Definitions Module, Notes on Hugo Gernsback’s Ralph 124C+1, Sept 25, 2006
  20. Recovered Writing: MA in SF Studies, Dissertation, Post-Cold War American Identities in Battlestar Galactica, Summer 2007 (16,376 Words, Long Read)
  21. Recovered Writing: Undergraduate Independent Study, Networks Between Science, Technology, and Culture After World War II, August 4, 2005
  22. Recovered Writing: Undergraduate Age of Scientific Discovery, Leonardo da Vinci Essay, Feb 14, 2002
  23. Recovered Writing: Undergraduate Age of Scientific Discovery, Copernicus and Galileo Essay, March 19, 2002
  24. Recovered Writing: Undergraduate Age of Scientific Discovery, More’s Utopia and Machiavelli’s The Prince Essay, April 23, 2002
  25. Recovered Writing: The Project So Far
  26. Recovered Writing: Undergraduate Science, Technology, and Race, Critical Commentary and Handout for Mark Hansen’s “Digitizing the Racialized Body…” Oct 24, 2005
  27. Recovered Writing: Undergraduate Science, Technology, and Race, Critical Commentary and Handout for N. Katherine Hayles’ “Embodied Virtuality” Nov 16, 2005
  28. Recovered Writing: Undergraduate SF Lab Project, “Development of AI in Science Fiction,” Fall 2004
  29. Recovered Writing: Undergraduate Science, Technology, and Gender Course, Online Discussion Writing and Group Presentation Introduction, Spring 2005
  30. Recovered Writing: My First Professional, Academic Presentation, “Monstrous Robots: Dualism in Robots Who Masquerade as Humans,” Monstrous Bodies Symposium, March 31-April 1, 2005
  31. Recovered Writing: Handwritten Notes from 1st International Philip K. Dick Conference Dortmund, Nov 15-18, 2012
  32. Recovered Writing: PhD in English, African-American Literature Theme Analyses of The Black Atlantic, Cosmopolitanism, and Olaudah Equiano (and Others), Spring 2009
  33. Recovered Writing: PhD in English, Semeiotics Midterm and Final Exam Responses, Fall 2007
  34. Recovered Writing: PhD in English, Semeiotics Final Paper, Deconstructing the Human/Machine Hierarchy in the Works of Asimov and Dick, Fall 2007
  35. Recovered Writing: SFRA 2010 Paper, “James Cameron’s Avatar and the Machine in the Garden: Reading Movie Narratives and Practices of Production,” June 26, 2010
  36. Recovered Writing: PhD in English, Independent Study with Mack Hassler, On Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “The Necessity of Atheism,” Sept. 17, 2008
  37. Recovered Writing: PhD in English, Independent Study with Mack Hassler, David Foster Wallace, Philip K. Dick, and Transgressive Parody, Sept. 28, 2008
  38. Recovered Writing: PhD in English, Independent Study with Mack Hassler, Literary Characters, Online Persona, and Science Fiction Scholars: A Polemic, Dec. 9, 2008
  39. Recovered Writing, PhD in English, Queer Studies, Summary of Foucault, The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1, Parts 3 and 4, January 29, 2008
  40. Recovered Writing, PhD in English, Queer Studies, Presentation on Judith Butler’s “Imitation and Gender Insubordination” and Introduction to Bodies That Matter Feb. 6, 2008
  41. Recovered Writing, PhD in English, Queer Studies, Summary of Eric Clarke’s “Visibility at the Limits of Inclusion,” Feb. 26, 2008
  42. Recovered Writing, PhD in English, Queer Studies, Eric Clarke’s “The Citizen’s Sexual Shadow,” March 2, 2008
  43. Recovered Writing, PhD in English, Queer Studies, Summary of Chandan Reddy’s “Asian Diasporas, Neoliberalism, and Family,” April 8, 2008
  44. Recovered Writing, PhD in English, Queer Studies, Summary of Elizabeth Freeman’s “Packing History, Count(er)ing Generations,” April 15, 2008
  45. Recovered Writing, PhD in English, Queer Studies, Final Paper, “Transsexual Technology: The Political Potential of Gender Shifting Technologies,” May 8, 2008
  46. Recovered Writing, PhD in English, World War I Literature, Presentation on Weapons and Tactics, 31 January 2008
  47. Recovered Writing, PhD in English, Methods in the Study of Literature, Project 1/5, Literary Area and Reading List, September 25, 2008
  48. Recovered Writing, PhD in English, Methods in the Study of Literature, Project 2/5, Postmodernism and Philip K. Dick’s Ubik, October 10, 2008
  49. Recovered Writing, PhD in English, Methods in the Study of Literature, Project 3/5, New Wave Deconstruction in Philip K. Dick’s Ubik, November 8, 2008
  50. Recovered Writing, PhD in English, Methods in the Study of Literature, Project 4/5, The Image of Women in Philip K. Dick’s Ubik Conference Paper, November 29, 2008
  51. Recovered Writing, PhD in English, Methods in the Study of Literature, Project 5/5, The Image of Women in Philip K. Dick’s Ubik Publishable Essay, December 10, 2008
  52. Recovered Writing, PhD in English, Teaching College Writing, Assignment Design: Team-Based Competitive Blogging with Portfolio Integration, July 1, 2008
  53. Recovered Writing, PhD in English, Teaching College Writing, Annotated Bibliography of Teaching SF Resources, June 29, 2008
  54. Recovered Writing, PhD in English, Teaching College Writing, Quiz, What do people do when they write? June 16, 2008
  55. Recovered Writing, PhD in English, Teaching College Writing, Final Exam, July 1, 2008
  56. Recovered Writing, PhD in English, Social Theory, Cultural Capital, Market Capital, and the Destabilization of the Science Fiction Genre Presentation, Nov. 17, 2008
  57. Recovered Writing, PhD in English, Social Theory, Prize Based Cultural Capital Exchange and the Destabilization of the Science Fiction Genre, Dec. 10, 2008
  58. Recovered Writing, PhD in English, Comprehensive Exam 1 of 3, 20th-Century American Literature, Dr. Kevin Floyd, 2 June 2010
  59. Recovered Writing, PhD in English, Comprehensive Exam 2 of 3, Postmodern Theory, Dr. Tammy Clewell, 3 June 2010
  60. Recovered Writing, PhD in English, Comprehensive Exam 3 of 3, Fiction of Philip K. Dick, Dr. Donald “Mack” Hassler, 7 June 2010
  61. Recovered Writing, Unpublished Essay, Michael Bay’s Transformers and the New Post-9/11 Science Fiction Film Narrative, 26 March 2009
  62. Recovered Writing, Brittain Fellowship, CETL Brown Bag, Writing the Brain: Using Twitter and Storify, Oct. 2, 2013
  63. Recovered Writing, PhD in English, Dissertation Paragraph Summaries Before Defense, May 2012
  64. Recovered Writing, PhD in English, Dissertation Defense Opening Statement, May 15, 2012
  65. Recovered Writing, Unpublished Film Adaptation Essay on Chris Columbus’ Bicentennial Man (1999), Mar. 1, 2011

Call for Papers: Race and Science Fiction: The Fifth Annual City Tech Science Fiction Symposium, Deadline Sept 30, 2020

Below is the cfp for the Fifth Annual City Tech Science Fiction Symposium. Due to the pandemic, we will be holding it online. We hope that it will allow greater participation since geographical and travel-related issues won’t be a problem. Of course, working from home, childcare, stable Internet access, etc. present their own issues, but we encourage everyone with an interest to submit and/or participate.

Race and Science Fiction: The Fifth Annual City Tech Science Fiction Symposium

Date and Time: November 19, 2020, 9:00AM-5:00PM

Location: Online, Sponsored by the School of Arts and Sciences at the New York City College of Technology, CUNY.

Organizers: Wanett Clyde, Jason W. Ellis, and A. Lavelle Porter

“People who say change is impossible are usually pretty happy with things just as they are.” –N. K. Jemisin, The City We Became

Science Fiction, on a fundamental level, is always about the here-and-now in which it is produced, because it is from that point the author extrapolates an imagined future or alternate reality. The long and hard fight for civil rights and the latest unfolding of that struggle in the Black Lives Matter movement and its alliances calls on us to recognize the powerful possibilities within Science Fiction to imagine change, especially those promoting social justice and equality by writers of color and Afrofuturists, as well as reckon with the field’s patterns of racism, resistance to inclusion, and lack of representation.

The Fifth Annual City Tech Science Fiction Symposium aims to explore the possibilities for change through the myriad connections between Race and Science Fiction with scholarly presentations, readings by authors, and engaging discussion. It is our goal to foster conversations that question, critique, or discuss SF as it relates to Race.

We invite proposals for 10-20 minute scholarly paper presentations, panel discussions, or author readings related to the topic of race and Science Fiction. Please send a 250-word abstract with title, brief professional bio, and contact information to Jason Ellis (jellis at citytech.cuny.edu) by September 30, 2020. Topics with a connection to race and Science Fiction might include but are certainly not limited to:

  • Histories of race and Science Fiction.
  • Representation of race in Science Fiction.
  • Representation of writers of color in the Science Fiction field.
  • Inclusion or exclusion of readers and fans due to race.
  • Issues of identity, including race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, culture, etc.
  • Subgenres and movements, such as Afrofuturism, Black science fiction, Indigenous Futurism, and speculative fiction by writers of color.
  • Race, Science Fiction, and Music, such as Sun Ra, George Clinton, Janelle Monáe, and Outkast.
  • Race and Comic Books
  • Engagement with civil rights movements in Science Fiction explicitly or metaphorically.
  • Pedagogical approaches to teaching race and Science Fiction or teaching about race with Science Fiction.

Due to the uncertainty in the months ahead, the symposium will be held online using a combination of pre-recorded video lectures hosted on the web and real-time interactive discussion on the scheduled day of the symposium using widely available video conferencing software.

This event is free and open to the public as space permits: an RSVP will be included with the program when announced on the Science Fiction at City Tech website (https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/sciencefictionatcitytech/). Free registration will be required for participation.

The event is sponsored by the School of Arts and Sciences at the New York City College of Technology, CUNY.

The Annual City Tech Symposium on Science Fiction is held in celebration of the City Tech Science Fiction Collection, an archival holding of over 600-linear feet of magazines, anthologies, novels, and scholarship. It is in the Archives and Special Collections of the Ursula C. Schwerin Library (Library Building, L543C, New York City College of Technology, 300 Jay Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201). More information about the collection and how to access it is available here: https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/sciencefictionatcitytech/librarycollection/.

Call for Applicants, City of Print: New York and the Periodical Press, Deadline Mar. 1, 2020

Benjamin Franklin printing press exhibit at City Tech.
Benjamin Franklin printing press exhibit at City Tech.

Mark Noonan, my colleague at City Tech, is running an NEH Summer Institute on the topic, “City of Print: New York and the Periodical Press.” I’ll be contributing to the Digital Methods Workshop on Wednesday, June 24 with my experience working on the City Tech Science Fiction Collection and using digital tools to make archival materials available to students and researchers. See the link below for all the sessions and apply to join us in Brooklyn!

City of Print: New York and the Periodical Press

(NEH SUMMER INSTITUTE)
(June 21 – July 3, 2020)

New York City College of Technology-CUNY will host a two-week NEH Summer Institute for college and university faculty in the summer of 2020 (June 21 – July 3).

For more information visit:

http://www.citytech.cuny.edu/cityofprint/

Applications to participate will be accepted via our online application system until March 1, 2020.

The Institute will focus on periodicals, place, and the history of publishing in New York.  As an institute participant, you will take part in discussions led by cultural historians, archivists, and experts in the fields of American literature, art and urban history, and periodical studies; participate in hands-on sessions in the periodicals collection of the New-York Historical Society; visit sites important to the rise of New York’s periodical press, such as Newspaper Row, Gramercy Park, the New York Seaport, the East Village, and the Algonquin Hotel; and attend Digital Humanities workshops.

You will also be asked to read a rich body of scholarship and consider new interdisciplinary approaches for researching and teaching periodicals that take into account the important site of their production, as well as relevant cultural, technological, aesthetic, and historical considerations. Sessions will be held across New York City including New York City College of Technology, the Brooklyn Historical Society, The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Pace University, and the New-York Historical Society.

We encourage applicants from any field who are interested in the subject matter. Scholars and teachers specializing in periodical studies, journalism, urban history, art history, American studies, literature, and/or cultural studies will find the Institute especially attractive.

Independent scholars, scholars engaged in museum work or full-time graduate studies are also urged to apply.

Call for Papers: An Astounding 90 Years of Analog Science Fiction and Fact, The Fourth Annual City Tech Science Fiction Symposium

An Astounding 90 Years of Analog Science Fiction and Fact: The Fourth Annual City Tech Science Fiction Symposium

Date and Time:            December 12, 2019, 9:00AM-6:00PM

Location:                     New York City College of Technology, 285 Jay St., A105, Brooklyn, NY

Almost 90 years ago, Analog Science Fiction and Fact began its storied history as one of the most important and influential SF magazines with the publication of its first issue under the title Astounding Stories of Super-Science. During that time, its fabled editors, award-winning writers, recognized artists, and invested readers played roles in the development of one of the longest running and renowned SF magazines, which in turn, influenced the field and adapted to change itself.

The Fourth Annual City Tech Science Fiction Symposium will celebrate “An Astounding 90 Years of Analog Science Fiction and Fact.” It will feature talks, readings, and discussion panels with Analog Science Fiction and Fact’s current and past editors and writers, and paper presentations and discussion panels about its extensive history, its relationship to the SF genre, its connection to fandom, and its role within the larger SF publishing industry.

We invite proposals for 15-20 minute paper presentations that explore or strongly relate to Analog Science Fiction and Fact. Please send a 250-word abstract with title, brief professional bio, and contact information to Jason Ellis (jellis@citytech.cuny.edu) by September 30, 2019. Topics with a connection to Analog Science Fiction and Fact might include but are certainly not limited to:

  • Histories of the magazine’s editors, writers, and relationship to other SF magazines.
  • Relationship of the magazine to the ongoing development of the SF genre.
  • Tropes, themes, and concepts in the magazine.
  • Issues of identity (culture, ethnicity, race, sex, and gender) in the magazine.
  • Writers of color in the magazine.
  • Women writers in the magazine.
  • Fandom and the magazine.
  • Visual studies of cover and interior artwork.
  • Hard SF and the magazine.
  • Interdisciplinary approaches to studying the magazine.
  • STEM and the Humanities bridged in the magazine.
  • Pedagogical approaches to teaching SF and/or STEM with the magazine.

This event is free and open to the public as space permits: an RSVP will be included with the program when announced on the Science Fiction at City Tech website (https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/sciencefictionatcitytech/).

This symposium is held in partnership with Analog Science Fiction and Fact and its publisher Penny Publications. It is hosted by the School of Arts and Sciences at the New York City College of Technology, CUNY.

The Annual City Tech Symposium on Science Fiction is held in celebration of the City Tech Science Fiction Collection, an archival holding of over 600-linear feet of magazines, anthologies, novels, and scholarship. It is in the Archives and Special Collections of the Ursula C. Schwerin Library (Library Building, L543C, New York City College of Technology, 300 Jay Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201). More information about the collection and how to access it is available here: https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/sciencefictionatcitytech/librarycollection/.

Miao Miao (2005-2018)

IMG_5118
Miao Miao taking a nap in 2012.

Our little cat Miao Miao passed away on December 26, 2018 after a battle with cancer. She was 13 years and 8 months old. Y rescued Miao after her mother had abandoned her when she was only a few weeks old in 2005. She was sick and small, but Y nursed her back to health and adopted her as part of her family.  I came to know Miao beginning in 2008, after I met Y at Kent State. Soon, I became a part of the family, too. Miao was strong willed but also very loving. When we had guests over, she was an enthusiastic host. She brightened our days, which now seem diminished without her around. Even though Miao never really took to our younger cat Mose, we can tell that he grieves in his own way for her, too. She will be dearly missed.

CFP: New American Notes Online (NANO), Special Issue on Twin Peaks Season Three

twin-peaks-3

It doesn’t seem that long ago that I was pitching the call for papers for my co-edited issue number 12 of NANO on Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

Now, there’s an exciting new cfp for issue 15 on Twin Peaks, Season Three!

I fondly remember the strangeness of watching the original two seasons unfold on ABC and then confronting BOB again when it was re-aired on Bravo. Unlike so much of our culture, Twin Peaks (and I would argue all of David Lynch’s work) stays with you. It’s a dream and nightmare collapsed into an inescapable memory that remains after the other things fade away.

Read the cfp below, and click here to submit your work to the co-editors, Matt Miller and Matthew Lau.

This special issue of NANO will explore the significance of the recently released third season of the seminal television show, Twin Peaks. Controversial from the outset and divisive to fans and critics alike, the new Twin Peaks (2017) is emerging as perhaps even more radical and important than the original series (1990-1991). The original Twin Peaks is often considered the first cult television show that spawned intensive fan followings in the emergent world of the web, and the immense catalogue of paratexts and influences the series has inspired since has never been fully tabulated. As a central work of American surrealism, a universe of oddities continues to find Twin Peaks’s orbit.

It is challenging even to define the latest Twin Peaks season. Creator David Lynch has referred to it as an 18-part feature film, and it has been presented on the big screen as a film at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and other venues. While Twin Peaks has always played with the tricks and tropes of genre television, especially detective fiction and soap operas, it has also pushed beyond the conventional limits of television and transgressed and exploded expectations. Season three of Twin Peaks is amorphous both in terms of its media formations and its constantly shifting tableaux of symbols and themes. It is an origin myth and tale of apocalypse, a profound questioning of the nature of good and evil, a veritable dictionary of post-modernity, a slow-moving narrative painting, a testament to the strength of a single woman, a series of elegies for actors and actresses who died between seasons two and three, a retelling of Homer’s The Odyssey, a cosmic dream, and a forum for music videos. Co-writer Mark Frost has extended its world back to ancient Sumerian mythology, but season three of Twin Peaks also tracks the pulse of the moment with major statements on the current opioid crisis and the puzzling reversal of the FBI as an institution being looked to for salvation by a significant portion of the American left.

This issue welcomes multimodal essays up to 4,000 words (excluding works cited) exploring topics relating to season three of Twin Peaks, including but not limited to the following:

• Twin Peaks as genre fiction (for example, science fiction, detective fiction, horror, and soap operas)
• Examinations of use of artistic devices such as symbolism, allegory, and parallelism
• Media transformations and adaptions of season three
• Twin Peaks fandom in all its forms
• Use of music in Twin Peaks (its score, Roadhouse musical interludes, and atmospheric effects)
• Authority in Twin Peaks, including the role of Lynch’s refusals.
• Twin Peaks and its literary and media paratexts (especially The Final Dossier)
• Reception of season three of Twin Peaks by the television and film industry
• Explorations of intertextuality in Twin Peaks, season three (with film, painting, music, etc.)
• Explorations of gender and feminist critique
• Examinations of the hero’s journey and critique of heroism
• Religious vision and its disguises in season three
• Philosophical implications of Twin Peaks, season three
• The origins of Twin Peaks in Lynch’s other works, including not only his films but his drawings, paintings, writings, short films,
and other proto-works
Please direct questions to the special issue editors: Matt Miller, Yeshiva University [matt.w.miller@gmail.com] and Matthew Lau, Queensborough Community College (The City University of New York) [mlau@qcc.cuny.edu].

NANO is a multimodal journal. Therefore, we encourage submissions that include images, sound, video, data sets, or digital tools in support of a written argument. The multimodal components of the essay must be owned or licensed by the author, come from the public domain, or fall within reasonable fair use (see Stanford University Libraries’ Copyright & Fair Use site, http://fairuse.stanford.edu/overview/fair-use/ and the U.S. Copyright Office’s Fair Use site, http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html for more information). NANO’s Copyright and Permissions information is on the top left of this page.

For questions about video, audio, or image usage, please contact NANO: editornano@citytech.cuny.edu.

NANO uses modified 8th Edition MLA (Modern Language Association) formatting and style. See: https://www.nanocrit.com/Submissions/Submission-Guidelines

Please use the Submission Form on top left of this page.

Keywords and abstract: Each author is asked to submit 5 keywords and a 150-word abstract to accompany their submission.

Deadlines concerning the special issue to be published in NANO:
• Submission deadline: January 31, 2019
• Publication: spring/summer 2019

We look forward to receiving your contributions.