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Monthly Archives: July 2007

CFP: International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts

The 29th International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts

Delightful Horror and the Sense of Wonder:
Appreciating the Sublime in the Fantastic

The 29th International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts will be held March 19-23, 2008, at the Marriott Orlando Airport Hotel in Orlando, Florida. The focus of ICFA-29 is on the relationship between the sense of wonder embodied by the sublime and the fantastic in literature, film, and other media. The sheer magnitude of the universe gives rise to the amazing, the astonishing, the astounding, the thrilling, and the wondrous. Edmund Burke argued it is “infinity [that] has a tendency to fill the mind with that sort of delightful horror which is the most genuine effect and truest test of the sublime.” It then should come as no surprise that the sublime has been a mainstay in science fiction, fantasy, horror, and other related fantastic modes. Papers are invited that explore this topic. In addition, we especially look forward to papers on the work of our guests:

Guest of Honor: Vernor Vinge, author of “The Technological Singularity” and Hugo Award winning A Fire Upon the Deep.

Guest of Honor: Greer Ilene Gilman, author of the Crawford Award-winning Moonwise.

Guest Scholar: Roger Luckhurst, author of The Trauma Paradigm (Routledge) and Science Fiction (Polity Press).

As always, we also welcome proposals for individual papers and for academic sessions and panels on any aspect of the fantastic in any media. The new deadline is October 31, 2007 but we will be happy to consider papers until the original deadline (November 30), pending availability.

We encourage work from institutionally-affiliated scholars, independent scholars, international scholars who work in languages other than English, graduate students, and undergraduate students.

The Jamie Bishop Memorial Award for an Essay Not in English is open to all members of the IAFA. The IAFA Graduate Student Award is open to all graduate students presenting papers at the year’s conference. Details are available via Robin Reid, Second Vice-President (Robin_Reid@tamu-commerce.edu). Finally, the Dell Magazines Undergraduate Science Fiction Award will also be handed out at this year’s conference.

March 19-23, 2008
Marriott Orlando Airport Hotel

Look for Information and Updates at the IAFA website: www.iafa.org

Awards Information Update

Locus Online reports Ben Bova’s Titan is the winner of the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for best SF novel published in 2006 and Robert Charles Wilson’s “The Cartesian Theathre” is the winner of the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award for best short fiction of the year. The awards were this weekend at the Campbell Conference in Kansas City, Missouri.

In addition, the Rhysling Awards for best SF/Fantasy/Horror poetry of 2006 went to Rich Ristow for “The Graven Idol’s Godheart” (short poem) and Mike Allen for “The Journey to Kailash” (long poem). The awards were announced last weekend at ReaderCon.

For more information, please click here.

Fred Saberhagen: 1930-2007

Locus Online has news regarding the death of sf and fantasy author Fred Saberhagan. For more information, please click here.

The IAFA Needs You

As we make the transition from an ICFA based in Fort Lauderdale to one based in Orlando, one of the things the IAFA has lost is local assistance/resources. The IAFA is looking for any Orlando-based members to assist in conference preparation, chiefly to move materials, help get the location prepped, report if some wildstorm has destroyed the hotel, etc. Your availability would be needed the Sunday before the conference until the Monday after the conference. So, any Orlando-based IAFA members want to take a direct involvement in getting ICFA off the ground in Orlando? If so, please make yourself known on the iafa-l so first contact can be established. Much thanks.