Tag: cfp

Call for Submissions Emanations II: Second Sight

Carter Kaplan posted the call for the next Emanations collection subtitled “Second Sight.” You can read it below or on the official website here.

Carter put together a successful first collection that can be found on Amazon here. He and his contributors do very good work, and I am very glad that I can be a member of the Board of Editorial Advisors.

Read on, and send in your work:

Call for Submissions Emanations II

International Authors and the editors of Emanations are happy to announce a Call for Submissions:

Emanations: Second Sight

Emanations is an anthology series featuring fiction, poetry, essays, manifestos and reviews. The emphasis is on alternative narrative structures, new epistemologies, peculiar settings, esoteric themes, sharp breaks from reality, ecstatic revelations, and vivid and abundant hallucinations.

The editors are interested in recognizable genres—science fiction, fantasy, horror, mystery, local color, romance, realism, surrealism, postmodernism–but the idea is to make something new, and along these lines the illusion of something new can be just as important. If a story or poem makes someone say, “Yes, but what is it?” then it’s right for Emanations. Essays should be exuberant, daring, and free of pedantry. Length is a consideration in making publication decisions, but in keeping with the spirit of the project contributors should consider length to be “open.”

Our editorial vision is evolving. Contributors should see themselves as actively shaping the “vision” of Emanations.

Send files with brief cover note to Carter Kaplan:

IAsubmissions@hotmail.com

Deadline: April 2, 2012

Emanations is a not-for-profit literary project and contributors cannot be compensated at
this time. All proceeds from the sale of Emanations will support the efforts of International Authors to publish new voices from around the world.

Please post questions, suggestions and ideas. The project is a collaborative effort, and as we share ideas the “vision” transforms, evolves, and grows. When we write stories and poems we hope to bring to bear the entire battery of modern and postmodern literary devices. More simply: we like good, strong writing. Our essays are incisive, precise, keen, challenging, and driven by the writer’s desire to advance an intelligent audience’s understanding of important subjects.

The Fine Print:

1) Submit files as follows: double space, Microsoft Word, Times New Roman 12 pt. The book will be formatted by the editors before publication.

2) No simultaneous submissions (contributors should get fairly quick feedback anyway, especially if their submission meets our needs). Material that is obviously pulled from a file and has nothing to do with the goals of the anthology won’t get any feedback beyond the initial acknowledgement.

3) Word count/line count? See details above. We’re flexible, but contributors should be sensible when considering what they send in. A novella? Well, maybe, and so on…. Rules of thumb: a) Stories: very short to 20-30 pages. b) Poems: send in 5-10 pages. c) Essays: 5-10-30 pages.

4) Published as hard copy only—Emanations will be available on Amazon. Participants who make a substantial contribution of material, editorial work, or art will get a copy. It can take some time to get copies to contributors outside of North America. In the case of our first anthology, for example, it took forty-five days to get a copy to a contributor in to Nepal.

5) In the past, International Authors has made it possible for contributors to purchases copies “at cost” using coupon codes, and so on. International Authors is a consortium, and as such every contributor is a “member” or our community, and contributors are encouraged to help promote the anthology by sending review copies to newspapers, journals and relevant Web sites.

6) Copyright “reverts” to contributors upon publication. That is, after a piece appears in Emanations, the contributor can seek to publish their piece elsewhere. Contributors should understand that Emanations will remain for sale on Amazon indefinitely.

Published By International Authors

Board of Editorial Advisors

Ruud Antonius, Netherlands/Spain
Steve Aylett, UK
Michael Beard, US
Michael Butterworth, UK
Jason W. Ellis, US
Cedric Cester, Spain
Mike Chivers, UK
Mack Hassler, US
Horace Jeffery
Hodges, South Korea
Sushma Joshi, Nepal
Carter Kaplan, US
Devashish Makhija, India
Vitasta Raina, India
Elkie Riches, UK
Dario Rivarossa, Italy
Kai Robb, US
Stephen Sylvester, US

Green Planets: Ecology and Science Fiction CFP, Deadline Approaching

The proposal deadline for Canavan and Robinson’s Green Planets is in two days. I wish that I had the time to contribute something, but I am writing my diss as if the Devil were on my tail. Read below for the details on this important project:

*CFP for edited collection: /Green Planets: Ecology and Science Fiction/*
Editors: Gerry Canavan and Kim Stanley Robinson (ecologyandsciencefiction@gmail.com <mailto:ecologyandsciencefiction@gmail.com>)
*Abstracts due August 31, 2011*
*Final essays due Summer 2012*

We are seeking proposals for an edited collection tentatively titled /Green Planets: Ecology and Science Fiction,/ with completed essays due in Summer 2012. We seek contributions that touch on any aspect of the relationship between ecological science, environmentalism, and SF, with particular attention to such topics as:

* ecological futurity and ecocriticism in SF
* visions of eco-disaster, eco-catastrophe, and eco-apocalypse
* strategies for ecotopia
* “the globe” and global thinking in SF
* science fictional critiques of global capitalism, consumerism, and ecological racism
* social justice as an ecological technology
* narratives of political resistance
* SF as it figures within current public debate about ecological science (climate change, Peak Oil, etc)
* philosophies and fantasies of Nature
* narratives of evolution, extinction, and extermination
* eco-feminist SF
* reproductive futurity
* ecology and Afrofuturism
* ecology, digitality, and techno-optimism
* terraforming and other narratives of space colonization
* aliens, alien worlds, xenobiology, and exo-ecology
* ecological thinking as a strategy for cognitive estrangement
* ecological critiques of particular unscientific or anti-ecological science fictions, or critiques of the history of the genre as a whole

We hope to produce a collection that speaks to the long history of ecological SF, ranging from the climate change that prompts the Martian invasion in /War of the Worlds/ to /Oryx and Crake, The Wind-Up Girl, Avatar,/ and /WALL-E/ (and everything else before, after, and between). We likewise intend “SF” in its broadest possible sense, to include fantasy and horror literature alongside “science fiction” more narrowly construed, and hope to receive submissions that properly reflect SF as a diverse and global genre.

Please direct all queries, questions, and submissions to ecologyandsciencefiction@gmail.com. <mailto:ecologyandsciencefiction@gmail.com> Abstracts should be around 250-300 words; submissions should also include contact information and a short bio. Please plan for final essays to range between 4000-8000 words.

CFP: NeMLA 2012 Panel on Apocalyptic Projections in Sci-Fi and/or Fantasy Literature for 2012 and Beyond, Sept 30 Deadline

This cfp sounds interesting:

CFP: NeMLA March 15-18, 2012, Rochester, NY, U.S.A.

Apocalyptic Projections in Sci-Fi and/or Fantasy Literature for 2012 and Beyond

This panel provides an opportunity to explore the ramifications of the 2012 doomsday prophesiers on cultural behavior as witnessed within the genre of science fiction literature and cinema. The term apocalyptic may include any means of total or near-total destruction, whether it is caused by humans, aliens or Nature. Papers analyzing the role apocalyptic sci-fi and/or fantasy have played and continue to play in literature, cinema, theater and other aspects of culture will be the main emphasis of this panel. Focus can be on apocalyptic visual arts and cinema, but written literature is also appropriate.
Please send e-mail abstracts of 250-300 words in MS Word to Annette M. Magid, SUNY Erie Community College <a_magid [you know what] yahoo.com>.

Deadline:  September 30, 2011
Please include with your abstract:
Name and Affiliation
Proposed title for your paper
E-mail address
Postal address
Telephone number
A/V requirements (if any; $10 handling fee with registration)
Visit the website at http://www.nemla.org/convention/2012/

CFP: Women’s Studies Quarterly Special Issue: Enchantment, Oct. 1, 2011 Deadline for Submissions

Jackie Orr forwarded me the following call for papers for a special issue of Women’s Studies Quarterly on the theme of “Enchantment.” It sounds like an interesting issue, and I am considering sending an essay. You should, too.

Call for Papers
Women’s Studies Quarterly Special Issue: Enchantment
Special Editors: Ann Burlein & Jackie Orr

This issue of WSQ attempts to intervene in the present moment by conjuring the power and seductions of enchantment. How to find and create places of allure when things seem impossible, when the world seems impassable, when survival becomes a question for too many? What possibilities might be needed to imagine a world in which one could flourish? And what might be the serious and playful role of enchantments in materializing that world? In queer and feminist kinship with multiple sites of enchanted practice that already exist both inside and outside the university, we seek to intensify and proliferate transformative forms of enchantment that devise escape routes that are not escapist.

Yet enchantment is a contested strategy, whose ambivalence requires exploration and investigation. Enchantment is regularly used by the state and various civil, disciplinary, and capitalist agencies, from cultures of resistance to corporations to professors. In light of recent theorizations of “occult economies,” “the magic of the state,” “queer temporalities,” and “the enchantment of everyday life,” we invite post-disciplinary re-thinkings that move beyond the logics of discourse and political rationalities toward the magic allurements of power that captivate and capture. How to negotiate these ambivalent registers so as to enchant a different series of connections, a different scene of collective and individual possibilities?

One animating ambition of this issue is to help redefine and expand critical notions of what 19th century Anglo European societies came to call ‘the occult.’ Without an understanding of diverse historical sedimentations of “occult forces,” it is difficult to trace what is happening with religion, race, sexuality, politics, gender, militarisms, and commodity cultures at this particular moment in time. Deeper historical and contemporary accounts of the charmed vitality of ‘the occult’ in so many realms of imaginal culture provide a crucial contribution to the expanded and revised conceptions of materialism demanded by the politics of this time.

• Collective effervescence, contagious revolutions
• Enchanted icons (children, animals, the dark, secrets, divas, mermaids, saints, dungeons, hybrids, islands)
• Haunting and ghostly matters
• Allure of utopias and utopian thought
• Racialization of figures and spaces of magic
• Mysticisms—historical and contemporary, everyday and ecstatic, affective and political
• Seductions of capital (speculative finance, occult ontologies of value)
• The sacred and its popular re-purposings
• Erotics of power; powers of the erotic
• State ‘magic’ (disappearances, torture, terror, rendition, public secrets)
• Militant politics of play
• Pagan religiosities, new age spiritualities, new age Orientalisms
• Contemporary psychoanalytics of fantasy and the imaginary
• Queer practices of be/longings and bondings
• Politics of the dead and of death
• Science fiction, urban fantasy
• Imperialism, colonization, cultural appropriations and ‘enchantment’
• Politics and aesthetics of evil
• ‘When Things Speak’ (speculative realisms, agential realisms, actor network theory and other animist assemblages)
• Yoga, meditation, bodywork, alternative healing practices
• Popular cultures of secular enchantment
• Drugs and the pharmacologics of ecstasy (legal and non-legal)
• Uncanny technologies of vision and embodiment (puppets, avatars, digital animation)

If submitting academic work, please send articles by October 1, 2011 to the guest editors, Ann Burlein and Jackie Orr atWSQEnchantmentIssue@gmail.com. Submission should not exceed 20 double spaced, 12-point font pages. Full submission guidelines may be found at: http://www.feministpress.org/wsq/submission-guidelines. Articles must conform to WSQ guidelines in order to be considered for submission.

“Classic Revisited” submissions: Two of Audre Lorde’s influential essays, “Poetry is Not a Luxury” (1978), and “Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power” (1981) will be the classic texts we revisit for this special issue. Please send a short commentary (1-2,000 words) on how you continue to read, teach, re-think, and re-enchant these essays to the guest editors, Ann Burlein and Jackie Orr, atWSQEnchantmentIssue@gmail.com by October 1, 2011.

Poetry submissions: Please review previous issues of WSQ to see what type of submissions we prefer before submitting poems. Please note that poetry submissions may be held for six months or longer. Simultaneous submissions are acceptable if the poetry editor is notified immediately of acceptance elsewhere. We do not accept work that has been previously published. Please paste poetry submissions into the body of the e-mail along with all contact information. Poetry submissions should be sent to WSQ’s poetry editor, Kathleen Ossip, at WSQpoetry@gmail.com by October 1, 2011.

Prose submissions: Please review previous issues of WSQ to see what type of submissions we prefer before submitting prose. Please note that prose submissions may be held for six months or longer. Simultaneous submissions are acceptable if the prose editor is notified immediately of acceptance elsewhere. We do not accept work that has been previously published. Please provide all contact information in the body of the e-mail. Fiction, essay, and memoir submissions should be sent to WSQ’s fiction/nonfiction editor, Jocelyn Lieu, at WSQpoetry@gmail.com by October 1, 2011.

Art submissions should be sent to WSQ’s art editor, Margot Bouman, at WSQArt@gmail.com, by October 1, 2011. After art is reviewed and accepted, accepted art must be sent to the journal’s managing editor on a CD that includes all artwork of 300 DPI or greater, saved as 4.25 inches wide or larger. These files should be saved as individual JPEGS or TIFFS.

CFP: Worldly Teaching: Critical Pedagogy and Global Literature

Masood Raja, my former professor and friend at North Texas University, asked me to pass along this interesting book project call for papers: Worldly Teaching: Critical Pedagogy and Global Literature. I believe that he is still accepting proposals if you send in an abstract right away. Read below for the details:

Worldly Teaching: Critical Pedagogy and Global Literature

An Edited Collection

As universities move from a Eurocentric literature curriculum to one focused on world or global literature, there has emerged a need for a text that addresses the issues of teaching world literature from a theoretical as well as a praxis-derived perspective. Worldly Teaching aims to enable a better pedagogical praxis by offering two kinds of scholarly writings: Part One of the book focuses on various aspects of critical pedagogy and its importance for teaching world literature by offering ten to twelve carefully selected chapters written by established and emerging scholars in the fields of critical pedagogy, world literature, and postcolonial studies. Part Two of the book offers ten brief praxis-driven essays by instructors who have taught world literature courses at university level. Thus, in one volume we provide both a theoretical and praxis-driven engagement with teaching world literature. Worldly Teaching has the potential to become an extremely useful text for students, teachers, and academic administrators alike.

Mostly offered as gateway courses, these world literature classes are meant to expose the American students to a wide array of texts from all over the world. These courses are mostly staffed by graduate students and part-time instructors who are neither trained in teaching world literature nor given any extra resources to prepare themselves.  Additionally, they are also expected to master the textual and extra-textual aspects of teaching world literature while being the most overworked and underpaid group of teachers on any university campus.

It seems that this shift from a Euro-centric to a world-centered curriculum, though politically convenient, loses its transformative potential for the text itself is expected to stand in for the world. Relying heavily on the coverage model, a World Literature survey course attempts to provide as much of the world as possible, lending itself to an exoticist and reductionist readings of texts. There is a danger then that, if taught uncritically, the same texts that are expected to teach the world to the students can also end up solidifying the existing stereotypes of their global others.

We believe that a good understanding of critical pedagogy and its emphasis on teaching the other can inform the teaching of world literature and transform this practice from that of a mere cosmic shift to a more nuanced transformation: a practice in which our students actually learn to think the other and learn their own privileged place in an uneven and unjust world.

Deadlines:

Theoretical Chapter proposals (200-440 words), along with your contact information, due by June 1, 2011.

Full-length Teaching Notes entries (1550-2000), along with your contact information, due by June 1, 2011.

We will inform the selected authors about our decisions to accept/decline their proposals by July 1.

Full Chapters will be due by August 1.

We will propose the book to a few good publishers immediately after we have chosen the required chapters. We hope that by the time you have finished the chapters, we will have a publisher willing to review the volume. The whole process may take up to the end of 2012.

Editors:

Masood Raja, University of North Texas

Hillary Stringer, University of North Texas

Zach VandeZande, University of North Texas

Contact Email: worldteaching@gmail.com

 

CFP reminder Feb 15 deadline – Masculinities Between the National and the Transnational 1980-Present

Kevin Floyd, who administered my 20th century American literature exam and is on my dissertation committee, is co-organizing a series of international workshops on masculinities in Britain and the US. The deadline for the CFP is soon: February 15. Read below for all the details.

Call for Papers – Feb 15 deadline

Between the National and the Transnational, 1980 to the Present: Masculinities in Britain and the U.S.

The Second of Three International Workshops:

Kent State University, August 4-7, 2011

Recent scholarship in the study of masculinities suggests any number of ways in which this field has begun to move beyond the cataloging of pluralized masculinities that has characterized so much scholarship on this topic. The organizers of this workshop believe that masculinities should be examined at a number of different analytic levels, ranging from the most location-oriented and culturally specific, to the national, to the transnational.

In this context, this workshop will focus on the articulation of masculinities over the last three decades in Britain and the U.S. It especially wants to encourage scholarly and critical movement in a direction that both builds on recent work in the field of masculinity studies and moves beyond it, toward more comparative kinds of analysis. What lines of interchange and influence in the cultural and literary imagining of masculinity can be traced between Britain and the U.S. during the last thirty years? How do recent articulations of masculinity reimagine established understandings of gender? How should we understand the ways in which relations between hegemonic and counterhegemonic masculinities operate both similarly and differently in these two locations? And how to understand the ways in which masculinity operates in relation to key issues mapped out by recent scholarship, from transgender, intersex, and disability studies, to research on space, geography, migration, neoliberalism, biopolitics, and warfare?

We seek innovative scholarship on masculinities in Britain and the U.S. from roughly 1980 to the present. We especially encourage comparative work, analyses that operate in simultaneously national and transnational terms.

Please e-mail an abstract of no more than 500 words, along with a c.v., to both Kevin Floyd (kfloyd@kent.edu) and Stefan Horlacher (stefan.horlacher@mailbox.tu-dresden.de). The deadline for submissions is February 15, 2011. Please direct inquiries to Kevin Floyd.

This conference is funded by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and Kent State University. Partial subsidies for participants will be available.

http://www.comparativemasculinities.com

via CFP reminder Feb 15 deadline – Masculinities Between the National and the Transnational 1980-Present.

CFP: Society for Utopian Studies Conference, Archiving Utopia – Utopia as Archive, Deadline June 1, 2011

I saw the following call for papers for the annual Society for Utopian Studies conference on the H-Utopia email list this morning. It looks like Sonja Fritzsche, who wrote a very good book on Science Fiction in East Germany that I reviewed in The German Quarterly and wrote about here, is the conference’s programming director. I have an idea for a paper for this year’s conference, so I may see you there in October. Read below for the full cfp and details on submitting paper abstracts.

THE SOCIETY FOR UTOPIAN STUDIES – 36th Annual Meeting

Archiving Utopia – Utopia as Archive

The Nittany Lion Inn on the Penn State Campus
State College, Pennsylvania
October 20-23, 2011

The 2011 Society for Utopian Studies Annual Conference celebrates the
ongoing evolution of one of the world’s largest-and best–collections of
utopian materials in the world. The Arthur O. Lewis Utopia Collection is
housed in Eberly Family Special Collections Library at Penn State’s Paterno
Library. The Society’s own archive resides here, as do thousands of titles,
primarily in British and American utopian literature, published from 1516 up
to today. In addition to the usual stimulating schedule of papers, this
conference will feature an exhibit highlighting some of the collection’s
most valuable treasures. Participants will have the opportunity to acquaint
themselves with the many research opportunities here.

The conference will not only highlight the breadth and depth of the Lewis
Collection, but also the importance of the archive as broader theme within
Utopian Studies. This refers not only to actual physical spaces, but also
the significance of the archive in utopian literature, archival practices in
utopian movements, and the archive as utopian space itself.  We ask for
papers, panels, presentations and performances on the cultural, political,
social, architectural, and managerial aspects of the archive as utopian
space.   We also welcome papers on other aspects of the utopian tradition –
from the earliest utopian visions to the utopian speculations and yearnings
of the 21st century, including art, architecture, urban and rural planning,
literary utopias, dystopian writings, utopian political activism, theories
of utopian spaces and ontologies, music, new media, or intentional
communities.

Finally, in advance of a special issue of Utopian Studies on the theme of
“utopia and education,” we also highly encourage papers on any aspect of
that topic: utopian pedagogies (in utopian fictions or in actual practice),
utopia as an educational process; education as a utopian process; the
university as (intentional) community; geographies of utopian education.

*       *       *

State College, Pennsylvania is home to Penn State University’s main campus,
with around 45,000 students. In addition to Penn State’s beautiful
University Park campus, surrounded by farms and mountains, the town itself
offers restaurants and shops. The University Park airport, serviced by
Delta, United and US Air, is only 10 minutes from the conference hotel.
State College is located between 3 and 5 hours by car from New York,
Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C.

Please send a 100-250 word abstract by June 1, 2011 to:

Sonja Fritzsche
Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures
Illinois Wesleyan University
201 E University Ave.
Bloomington, IL 61702
USA

Or e-mail submissions to:  sfritzsc at iwu.edu (please put “sus submission” in
the subject line).  As you submit your abstract, please indicate if you have
any scheduling restrictions, audiovisual needs (overhead projector; digital
projector; PC/Mac laptop, speakers, DVD/VHS player), special needs, or a
need for a written letter of acceptance of your proposal. Note: All specific
audiovisual requests must be included in the original abstract submission.
Late requests cannot be fulfilled due to conference organizational
deadlines.

For information about registration, travel or accommodations, please contact
the Conference Coordinator, Jennifer Wagner-Lawlor at jaw55 at psu.edu, or
phone 814-867-0367.

Kent State Colleagues CFP, Critical and Transnational Approaches to American Popular Music

My colleagues Professor Babacar M’Baye and fellow PhD student Alex Hall have sent out the following cfp for a collection of essays on American popular music. If you study the cultural significance of American music, you should consider contributing. Read on for the full cfp:

CFP: Critical and Transnational Approaches to American Popular Music

Babacar M’Baye & Alexander C.O. Hall, eds.
Critical and Transnational Approaches to American Popular Music is an ambitious project that examines both the local and transnational significance of American popular music such as Blues, Rock and Roll, and Hip Hop. The first part of the book will situate these musical genres in the large and complex framework of American popular culture in which language, utopia, and traditions have played major roles in the construction of identity, activism, and social change. The second part of the book will put American Blues, Rock and Roll, and Hip Hop in conversation with similar or different musical genres from other parts of the world in which identity, resistance, and social transformation are also crucial parts. By inviting contributions about the local and transnational significance of American popular music, this edited volume wants to encourage original and theoretical analysis of American musical genres such as Blues, Rock and Roll, and Hip Hop while recognizing and studying the connections between such genres and their parental cousins or progenies from around the world.

Theoretically, Critical and Transnational Approaches to Popular Music is a collection of essays whose project is to study popular music using critical theory, equaling a collection of essays that is rooted in what has come to be known as “new” or “critical” musicology, but is also known simply as critical music studies. This book will employ a variety of critical perspectives in its treatment of the works it deals with, thereby widening the book’s audience via its interdisciplinary and transnational situation within the discourse of critical music studies. Looked at another way, the book fits comfortably under the umbrella of cultural studies—indeed, the book will be dealing with the cultural ramifications of the musical works. Nevertheless, each essay will employ a critical perspective relevant to the study of its musical subject. Some of the essays will, for instance, use literary theory to examine works at the level of narrative, while others will be interested in the political critique inherent in certain works. Still other essays in the collection will deal with the cultural collisions that result in, for instance, transnational forms of American popular music genres such as Rock and Roll, Hip Hop, and Rap.

REQUIREMENTS:

All manuscripts must be original (hence, not under consideration for any other journal or book) and submitted in MS Word format. The entire essay (including endnotes and bibliography) should not exceed twenty five double-spaced pages and must include a concise title and a 200-word abstract. The essay must follow the conventions of The Chicago Manual of Style (latest edition). Articles in languages other than English will be considered; however, they must also be presented in English. All submissions must include the author’s current affiliation and contact information (e-mail and postal addresses, etc.) as well as an up-to-date curriculum vitae. The deadline for receipts of contributions is May 31, 2011.

Please address queries and papers to:

Editor:

Dr. Babacar M’Baye
Associate Professor
Department of English
113 Satterfield Hall
Kent State University
Kent OH 44242
Email: bmbaye@kent.edu
Co-Editor:

Alexander Charles Oliver Hall, M.A.
Teaching Fellow
Department of English
Kent State University
Satterfield Hall 209-F
Kent, OH 44242-0001
ahall43@kent.edu

CFP: Current Research in Speculative Fiction Conference, June 2011, University of Liverpool

Glyn Morgan forwarded me the following cfp for the Current Research in Speculative Fiction Conference at the University of Liverpool on June 18, 2011. Adam Roberts and Andy Sawyer are the prestigious keynote lecturers. There are exciting things going on at the University of Liverpool regarding the study of science fiction and fantasy, and you should be a part of them. Liverpool is home to the huge science fiction special collection, the MA in Science Fiction Studies, and now a conference. Go here to read the cfp on Glyn’s blog, or read it below:

CRSF 2011 – Call For Papers

“A Vampire, a Troll, and a Martian Walk Into a Bar….”
– Call for Papers –
18th June 2011
University of Liverpool
Keynote Lectures from: Professor Adam Roberts (Royal Holloway, University of London), Mr Andy Sawyer (Science Fiction Foundation Collection Librarian; Director of MA in Science Fiction Studies, University of Liverpool)
———————————————————-
CRSF is a postgraduate conference designed to promote the research of speculative fictions including, but not limited to, science fiction, fantasy and horror.
Our aim is to showcase some of the latest developments in this dynamic and evolving field, by providing a platform for the presentation of current research by postgraduates. The conference will also encourage the discussion of this research and the construction of crucial networks with fellow researchers. The University of Liverpool is a leading centre for the study of speculative fiction, being home to the Science Fiction Foundation Collection, and is thus ideally suited to such a cause.
This year we would like to focus on encouraging postgraduates to network with others in their field, and related areas, whilst also demonstrating the depth and breadth of research currently being conducted into speculative fiction. As such we welcome 300 word abstracts on topics as diverse as, but not limited to:
•Alternate History •Apocalypse •Environmental Philosophy •Gaming •Genre Evolution •Genre Language and the Language of Genre •Gender and Sexuality •Graphic Novels •Representations of Psychology and Consciousness •Speculative Fiction across Media – Adaptation, Translation and Franchise •Speculative Spaces, Places and Races •The Supernatural and the Other •Technology and Magic •”Why Has No One Thought of This Before?” •Young Adult Fiction.
Abstracts of 300 words, for papers intended to run for twenty minutes,  should be submitted to CRSF2011@gmail.com by 01/04/11.
For further information, email the conference team at CRSF2011@gmail.com
Note: although we are looking for papers from postgraduates we welcome delegates from across the spectrum of academic and speculative fiction fields. This conference is the first of a planned annual series and cannot succeed without you support so please pass this along to everyone who might be interested.

 

SLSA 2011 in Ontario, PHARMAKON, Call for Papers

Carol Colatrella sent out the following call for papers to the Lit-Sci email list for the 2011 Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts Conference in Kitchener, Ontario:

CALL FOR PAPERS–SLSA 2011

25th Annual Meeting of the Society for Literature Science and the Arts
PLACE: Kitchener, Ontario
VENUE: Delta Hotel Kitchener, THEMUSEUM, Critical Media Lab (all within three short city blocks)
DATES: September 22-25, 2011
SITE COORDINATOR: Marcel O’Gorman, University of Waterloo
PROGRAM CHAIRS: Melissa Littlefield and Robert Markley, U. of Illinois; Susan Squier, Penn State U.
DUE DATE FOR PANEL, POSTER, AND ARTISTIC CONTRIBUTIONS: April 1, 2011
NOTIFICATION FOR ACCEPTANCE OF SUBMISSIONS: June 15, 2011
SLSA MEMBERSHIP:  Participants in the 2011 conference must be 2011 members of the Society for Literature Science and the Arts. For more information about SLSA, please visit the organization website atwww.litsciarts.org.

PHARMAKON
The theme for 2011 is “PHARMAKON,” that which can both kill and cure. From Socrates’ hemlock to nuclear radiation, the pharmakon offers an opportunity to explore the concept of indeterminacy as it applies to a number of research topics, including the following:
•       bioarts
•       critical media theory
•       bioethics
•       medical humanities
•       new frontiers in digital media
•       animal studies
•       environmentalism and ecological studies
•       new directions in rhetoric and writing studies
•       the history and philosophy of science
•       gender and/in science studies
PLEASE NOTE: This is an open conference where a wide range of work will be welcome. Proposed topics can represent ANY work in literature and science, history of science, philosophy of science, science and art, or science studies.

Plenary speakers for 2011 are BERNARD STIEGLER (Institut de Recherche et d’Innovation, Author of Technics and Time, etc.) and ISABELLE STENGERS (Université de Bruxelles, author of Cosmopolitics, etc.).

For panel contributions, submit a 250-word abstract with title. Pre-organized panels for consideration can contain an additional summary paragraph along with proposed session title.  Submit proposals and register athttp://www.litsciarts.org/slsa11/.

NEW FOR 2011: Poster Presentations. Poster presentations are traditionally under the purview of scientific conferences. This year, SLSA would like to challenge the boundaries of the poster presentation as well as provide space for more scientists to get involved with the society. If you would like to present your research in the form of a poster, we will have dedicated space to do so. Presenters will have an opportunity to discuss their work informally, and they MUST attend the conference for their work to be shown.

THE “A” IN SLSA
This year’s conference will include, among other interventions, bicycle tours of contemporary public art. For 2011, we are teaming up with THEMUSEUM of Kitchener and the Contemporary Art Forum of Kitchener + Area (CAFKA). THEMUSEUM will be exhibiting a retrospective of computational art entitled Rethinking Art & Machine (RAM), and CAFKA will be holding its biennial festival of public art, which will provide a larger context for the conference. The theme for CAFKA 2011 is “survive.resist”. This collaboration is designed to place more emphasis on the “A” in SLSA. To this end, we welcome panel proposals from artists and scholars interested in public art and the theme of “survive.resist,” in addition to arts-oriented papers and panels on the theme of “PHARMAKON.”

We invite proposals from artists for an SLSA exhibition to be held in the Critical Media Lab. Proposals will be considered in the context of the conference theme of “PHARMAKON.” Please visit the Critical Media Lab web site to better understand the context for this exhibition (http://criticalmedia.uwaterloo.ca). Artistic proposals must include a 1-2-page description that clearly outlines the project and its relationship to  “Pharmakon,” as well as technical and space requirements. Artists must also provide up to 5 pages of images and/or a URL to a web site that clearly illustrates the proposed work and/or previous work that is relevant to the proposal. All submissions and questions should be addressed to Marcel O’Gorman (marcel@uwaterloo.ca). Participating artists will have full access to all conference activities, and will not have to pay registration fees or SLSA dues. They will also be eligible for SLSA Travel Awards (see below).

BOOK + ART PANELS: The SLSA Publications Committee is soliciting proposals from published authors, artists, and curators who wish to discuss their RECENT work in a longer format than a regular panel presentation. The panel will consist of the author/artist/curator and two respondents/commentators. Please send a brief proposal or nomination, and a list of possible respondents/commentators to Ron Broglio (Ronald.Broglio@asu.edu), who will share it with the rest of the Publications Committee (Elizabeth Wilson and Rob Mitchell).