Gary K. Wolfe presents Sofia Samatar with the Crawford Award for First Fantasy Novel. Photo by Bill Clemente.
Sofia Samatar is the author of the novel A Stranger in Olondria (Small Beer Press, April 2013), for which she is here shown receiving the 2014 Crawford Award for Outstanding First Fantasy Novel.
Sheila Williams, Rich Larson, Jameyanne Fuller, Rick Wilber, Gwendolyn Karpierz, and Kayla Chronister. Photo by Bill Clemente.
Sheila Williams and Rick Wilber presented awards to the winner and runners-up in the yearly Dell Magazines Award for Undergraduate Excellence in Science Fiction and Fantasy Writing. This year’s winners were:
Winner: Rich Larson, University of Alberta, for “Nostalgia Calculator”
First Runner-up: Noam Altman-Kurosaki, Princeton University, for “The Sons”
Second Runner-up: Rich Larson, University of Alberta, for “The King in the Cathedral”
Third Runner-up: Jameyanne Fuller, Kenyon College, “The Year of Salted Skies”
Honorable Mention: Taimur Ahmad, Princeton University, for “Canyonlands”
Honorable Mention: Jessica May Lin, UC Berkeley, for “Lolita in the Light of Nitroglycerin”
Honorable Mention: Alexandra Gurel, Princeton University, for “The Fire in the Sky”
Honorable Mention: Gwendolyn Karpierz, Colorado State University, for “Autumn Drowning”
Honorable Mention: Kayla Chronister, Seattle Pacific University, for “Swans and Ravens”
Fafnir – Nordic Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy Research invites authors to submit papers for the upcoming edition 3/2014.
Fafnir – Nordic Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy Research is a new, peer-reviewed academic journal which is published in electronic format four times a year. The purpose of Fafnir is to join up the Nordic field of science fiction and fantasy research and to provide a forum for discussion on current issues on the field. Fafnir is published by FINFAR Society (Suomen science fiction- ja fantasiatutkimuksen seura ry).
Now Fafnir invites authors to submit papers for its edition 3/2014. Fafnir publishes various texts ranging from peer-reviewed research articles to short overviews and book reviews in the field of science fiction and fantasy research.
The submissions must be original work, and written in English (or in Finnish or in Scandinavian languages). Manuscripts of research articles should be between 20,000 and 40,000 characters in length. The journal uses the most recent edition of the MLA Style Manual. The manuscripts of research articles will be peer-reviewed. Please note that as Fafnir is designed to be of interest to readers with varying backgrounds, essays and other texts should be as accessibly written as possible. Also, if English is not your first language, please have your article reviewed or edited by an English language editor.
The deadline for submissions is 31 May 2014.
In addition to research articles, Fafnir constantly welcomes text proposals such as essays, interviews, overviews and book reviews on any subject suited for the journal.
Please send your electronic submission (saved as RTF-file) to the following address: submissions(at)finfar.org. For further information, please contact the editors: jyrki.korpua(at)oulu.fi, hanna.roine(at)uta.fi and paivi.vaatanen(at)helsinki.fi.
This edition is scheduled for September 2014. The deadline for the submissions for the next edition is scheduled at 31 August (4/2014).
Best regards,
Jyrki Korpua, Hanna-Riikka Roine and Päivi Väätänen
Editors, Fafnir – Nordic Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy Research
Hello Everyone!
Locus has a student special available; twelve digital issues for the price of six. Everyone, please check it out at http://tinyurl.com/locusstudent and let your friends know. Educators incentive: sign up five students and get the discount yourself!
We are also pleased to offer a free download of the May 2013 issue of Locus, which includes last year’s ICFA writeup and photos. Please visit http://www.locusmag.com/Magazine/Digital/May2013icfa.html to download your choice of epub, pdf, or .mobi for kindle versions (or you can download them all!) You won’t need a username or password despite what the instructions say: just click the links to download. The links will be live until late Tuesday March 25, 2014.
To subscribe visit http://www.locusmag.com/Magazine/Subscribe.html
To learn more about the new Locus Science Fiction Foundation visit http://www.lsff.net.
Liza and Fran
Locus Publications locus@locusmag.com
Rachel Haywood Ferreira presenting the Jamie Bishop Award to Vera Cuntz-Leng. Photo by Bill Clemente.
Cuntz-Leng received the Bishop award for an essay originally composed in a language other than English. She is the first graduate student ever to receive the award. The title of the essay and abstract appear below.
“Frodo auf Abwegen: Das queere Potenzial des aktuellen Fantasykinos” [i]
[Frodo Gone Astray: The Queer Potential of Fantasy Blockbusters]
Since the foundation stone of blockbuster cinema was laid with the release of Star Wars (US 1977), Hollywood has produced at regular intervals fantasy movies with high budgets and impressive special effects that need to attract as many recipients as possible to guarantee commercial success. Due to the resulting universality of these films, fantasy cinema appears to be predestined to be read against the grain, because certain issues need to be excluded from the narration and therefore conspicuous gaps (Leerstellen) – particularly in relation to sexuality – remain.
The method of Queer Reading may uncover the subversive potential of the genre and can open up new spaces for marginalized social topics; spaces within mainstream cinema, where alternative gender and sexual concepts are allowed and welcome. A queer reading of Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (NZ/US 2001) and Alfonso Cuarón’s Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (GB/US 2004) exemplifies the argument that fantasy genre films have a high subversive potential. Furthermore, an outlook will be given about the way in which fantasy movies might discuss “gender, sex, and desire” in the future.
[i] This essay appeared in German in: Zeitschrift Für Fantastikforschung 1.1 (2011): 24-43. http://www.fantastikforschung.de/cms/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=163&Itemid=103&lang=de
DORIS LESSING 2014: AN INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE –
CALL FOR PAPERS
Date: Friday/Saturday 12/13th September 2014
Location: University of Plymouth, Devon, UK
Website: www.dorislessing2014.com
Please send 200 word abstracts for a 20 minute paper, along with a brief biography, to dorislessingconference@gmail.com by Monday 30 June 2014
Confirmed speakers: Nick Bentley, Clare Hanson, Laura Marcus, Susan Watkins; more to follow shortly …
In one of the many obituaries from fellow writers that followed Doris Lessing’s death in 2013, Joyce Carol Oates observed that ‘it might be said of Doris Lessing, as Walt Whitman boasted of himself: I am vast, I contain multitudes.’ Doris Lessing 2014: An International Conference, takes the end of Lessing’s long life as the starting point for a renewed engagement with her life and work. This conference seeks to stimulate new scholarship on Lessing’s work by embracing her vast multitudes: her contexts ranging from Iran and Zimbabwe to London; her genres from documentary to science fiction to life writing; and her engagements with political ideologies from Marxism and imperialism to feminism and environmentalism. Reflecting Lessing’s own lifelong interest in the positions and politics of reading, it aims to bring together a diverse range of scholars, critics and readers to reflect on the legacy and future of Lessing’s work. It will also try to extend our sense of how Lessing connects to a host of other writers, a list that might include (but is certainly not limited to): Margaret Atwood, John Osborne, John Berger, J. M. Coetzee, Nadine Gordimer, Kurt Vonnegut, Virginia Woolf, Idries Shah, Olaf Stapledon, Leo Tolstoy, Marcel Proust, D. H. Lawrence, Salman Rushdie, Margaret Drabble . . . Finally, the conference aims to not only generate new research on Lessing’s work, but to use Lessing’s lifelong commitment to a common and global literary culture to discuss her relevance to that most pressing topic of contemporary debate: the public role and value of the humanities.
Submission are invited on topics including, but certainly not limited to:
§ Lessing’s relationships to other writers
§ Lessing, Empire and post/coloniality
§ Lessing, life writing and auto/biography
§ Lessing, Ecocriticism and the Anthropocene
§ Lessing’s craft and style
§ Lessing and feminism
§ Lessing, Communism and politics
§ Lessing and the legacies of modernism
§ Lessing, spirituality and religion
§ Lessing and science fiction
§ Lessing’s readers
§ Lessing and world literature
§ Lessing’s genres
§ Lessing and cultural criticism
§ Lessing, theatre and opera
§ Lessing’s emotions and affects
CALL FOR PAPERS
European Network of Comparative Literary Studies (REELC/ENCLS) 6th Biennial Congress. Organised in collaboration with CLAI (Comparative Literature Association of Ireland)
Themes: “Longing and Belonging”
Places: Dublin City University and National University of Ireland, Galway Dates: 24-28 August 2015
(Pour l’appel en français, voir la troisième page)
The notion of belonging has often been examined from the perspective of location and of the politics of relations to space and culture. Literary studies have helped map out and interrogate the representations of topographical belonging, creating new possibilities for interpreting individual and collective images. Politics of relations also explore the notion of becoming, as attached to belonging, and the conditions out of which actions are produced, experience is built and beliefs emerge. Artists and characters may adhere or resist systems pertaining to spatially, historically or culturally defined groups, bringing political considerations to the fore, which can in turn entail stylistic innovation involving transmutation or hybridization of classical approaches.
Adaptation and rewriting (prose, film, graphic novels) can be the vehicles of such action. While providing new readings of iconic texts, they are intrinsic elements of a cultural heritage which actualises traditional ideas and representations. This is particularly the case with the treatment of fairy tales whose new versions have been developing, whether addressed to children or to adults, in graphic novels, films, stage performances, etc. These transformations involve moving the location of the original plot and characters to new contexts (realistic, utopian, dystopian or digital, for example) thus challenging the social or cultural baggage transmitted by canonical texts over time. They also apply to musical traditions in which the evocation of ancestral places is of essential importance regarding ideological and aesthetic criteria. Adaptation and rewriting can indeed operate through songs (operatic or popular), which skilfully describe places, provoking strong feelings of nostalgia in their listeners, especially if the singers, lyrics or musical instruments present a certain significance for the audience, resonating with memories and emotions attached to specific spaces.
Identities are constructed and contested in a wide variety of contexts. Distinctions between identities, whether cultural or gendered, relate to a sense of belonging to a powerful centre vs an opposite periphery or minority. These distinctions can either strengthen or undermine the perceptions of individuals and groups (their auto- and hetero-images). Hierarchical barriers can also be constructed between affiliations and with regard to the value of certain forms of knowledge. Authors and artists have often disrupted claims of cultural or national superiority when grounded in political, racial or geographical specificity. Identities can be refined or transformed across time and space by both global and local events. However, as different literatures have revealed, after a sense of liberation from monolithic political systems, nostalgia
can occasionally set in, ideologies having shaped conceptions of self and community. Longing for an idealised past can prove as painful as longing for a promised land, and artists may find themselves in sublimated exilic states while seeking either a new home and new identity or a way to come home to a former identity.
The notions of longing and belonging therefore lend themselves to a comparative exploration through different disciplines, such as: Geocriticism, Diaspora Studies, Migration Studies, Imagology, Myth- and Folklore criticism, (Post-) Colonial Studies; Sexuality Studies, Women’s Studies, Gender Studies, Masculinity Studies; Ekphrasis, Adaptation Studies, Intermedial Studies, Reception and Reader-response Theory, Children Literature; Literature and Anthropology, Literature and Science, Literature and Psychology, Literature and Philosophy, Ethics in/and Literature.
All subjects related to the main theme of the congress are welcome. For instance, avenues of investigation may include the following:
cradle, home, club…)
allegiance…)
(including an interpretive community)
We welcome proposals for individual papers and for thematic panels. Please send your 300-word proposals and short biographies to Brigitte Le Juez: Brigitte.lejuez@dcu.ie and Hans-Walter Schmidt-Hannisa: h.schmidthannisa@nuigalway.ie by October 1st, 2014.
Congress registration fees (these will cover coffee-breaks and lunches):
1) Participants presenting a paper
– Early-bird: €85 (till February 14, 2015, thereafter €120)
– Student, independent scholar and retired academic: €75 (till February 14, 2015, thereafter €100)
2) Participants not presenting a paper:
– By July 25, 2015: €60 (thereafter €75)
– Local university students: €20 (possibility to receive an attendance certificate)
The languages of the congress will be English, French and Irish. However, poster sessions may be organised in any European language.
The congress takes place on the East and West coasts of Ireland. Cultural visits and events will be organised in and between Dublin and Galway.
APPEL À COMMUNICATIONS
VIe congrès du Réseau Européen de Littérature Comparée (REELC/ENCLS). Organisé en partenariat avec CLAI (Comparative Literature Association of Ireland)
Thème : « Désir et Appartenance »
Lieux : Dublin City University et National University of Ireland, Galway Dates : 24-28 août 2015
La notion d’appartenance a souvent été examinée du point de vue de la situation géographique et de la politique des relations à l’espace et à la culture. Les études littéraires ont contribué à retracer et à remettre en question les représentations d’appartenances topographiques, créant de nouvelles possibilités dans l’interprétation des images individuelles et collectives. La politique des relations explore également la notion de devenir, dans ce qui la rattache à celle l’appartenance, et les conditions à partir desquelles des actions se produisent, une expérience se construit et des croyances émergent. Artistes et personnages peuvent adhérer ou résister à des systèmes relatifs à des groupes définis par des critères spatiaux, historiques ou culturels, mettant ainsi en avant des considérations politiques, qui peuvent elles-mêmes donner naissance à des styles novateurs impliquant la transmutation ou l’hybridation d’approches classiques.
L’adaptation et la réécriture (de textes, films, romans graphiques) peuvent s’avérer les moyens d’une telle action. Tout en offrant de nouvelles lectures de textes emblématiques, elles
représentent les éléments intrinsèques d’un patrimoine culturel qui actualisent des idées et des représentations traditionnelles. C’est particulièrement le cas avec le traitement des contes de fées dont bien des nouvelles versions, qu’elles s’adressent aux enfants ou aux adultes, se développent dans le roman graphique, le cinéma, les spectacles, etc. Ces transformations impliquent le déplacement du lieu de l’intrigue et des personnages d’origine à de nouveaux contextes (aussi bien réalistes, utopiques, contre-utopiques que numériques, par exemple) remettant ainsi en cause le bagage social ou culturel transmis par les textes canoniques au fil du temps. Elles s’appliquent également aux traditions musicales dans lesquelles l’évocation de lieux ancestraux est d’une importance essentielle quant aux critères idéologiques et esthétiques. Adaptation et réécriture peuvent en effet fonctionner à travers des chansons (opératiques ou populaires) qui évoquent savamment des lieux, provoquant de forts sentiments de nostalgie chez leurs auditeurs, surtout si les interprètes, les paroles ou les instruments de musique présentent une signification particulière pour le public, en faisant résonner des souvenirs et des émotions se rattachant à des espaces précis.
Les identités se construisent et se contestent dans une grande variété de contextes. Les distinctions entre les identités, qu’elles soient culturelles ou génériques, se rapportent à un sentiment d’appartenance à un pouvoir central ou, à l’inverse, à une minorité ou un ensemble périphérique. Ces distinctions peuvent soit renforcer soit affaiblir les perceptions des individus et des groupes (leurs auto- et hétéro-images). Des barrières hiérarchiques peuvent également apparaître entre les affiliations et en fonction de la valeur accordée à certaines formes de connaissance. Auteurs et artistes ont souvent perturbé les revendications de supériorité culturelle ou nationale quand celles-ci sont ancrées dans une spécificité politique, raciale ou géographique. Les identités peuvent être affinées ou transformées dans le temps et l’espace par des événements mondiaux et locaux. Cependant, comme différentes littératures l’ont révélé, après un sentiment de libération de systèmes politiques monolithiques, un sentiment de nostalgie peut parfois surgir, les idéologies ayant formé les conceptions de l’individu et de la communauté. Le regret d’un passé idéalisé peut s’avérer aussi douloureux que le rêve d’une terre promise, et les artistes peuvent ainsi se retrouver en situation d’exils sublimés dans leur recherche soit d’un nouveau foyer et d’une nouvelle identité, soit d’un moyen de revenir à une ancienne identité.
Les notions de désir et d’appartenance se prêtent donc à une exploration comparative à travers différentes approches et disciplines, telles que : la géocritique, l’imagologie, les théories de la réception et de la lecture, la mythocritique, les études du folklore, des diasporas, des migrations, (post-)coloniales ; les études de la sexualité, de genre, études féminines et de la masculinité ; la littérature d’enfance et de jeunesse; la littérature et les arts (ekphrasis, adaptation, intermédialité) ; littérature et anthropologie, littérature et science, littérature et psychologie, littérature et philosophie, éthique et littérature.
Tous les sujets se rattachant au thème du congrès sont les bienvenus. A titre d’exemple, on pourra explorer les pistes suivantes :
indépendante
(y compris interprétative)
Nous invitons des propositions de communications individuelles et d’ateliers. Veuillez envoyer vos propositions de 300 mots et une courte biographie à Brigitte Le Juez: Brigitte.lejuez@dcu.ie and Hans-Walter Schmidt-Hannisa: h.schmidthannisa@nuigalway.ie avant le 1er octobre 2014.
Frais d’inscription au congrès (qui incluent les pauses-café et les déjeuners):
1) Pour les conférenciers :
– Pré-inscription : €85 (jusqu’au 14 février 2015, après cette date €120)
– Etudiants, chercheurs indépendants et universitaires retraités: €75 (jusqu’au 14 février 2015, après cette date €100)
2) Participants ne présentant pas de communication :
– Jusqu’au 25 juillet 2015 : €60 (après cette date €75)
– Etudiants d’universités locales : €20 (possibilité de certificat de présence)
Les langues du congrès seront l’anglais, le français et le gaélique. Toutefois, des séances de présentation par affiche pourront être organisées dans toutes les langues européennes.
Le congrès se tiendra sur les côtes est et ouest d’Irlande. Des visites et événements culturels sont prévus à et entre Dublin et Galway.
THE SOCIETY FOR UTOPIAN STUDIES
39th Annual Meeting
Global Work and Play
23-26 October 2014
Delta Montréal
475, Avenue Président Kennedy
Montréal, Canada
http://utopian-studies.org/conference2014
Utopias have nowhere left to hide in an era of global capital and information flows. Imagining the perfect society means envisioning global as much as, or more than, national or local change. Labor is transformed as heavy industry relentlessly relocates. Post-industrial refugees chase immaterial wealth flowing across borders that are porous for information and capital, but not for bodies. Even leisure becomes work when corporations mine Twitter and Facebook for content to monetize, while gamifying daily life. Under such conditions, visualizing a utopian balance of work and play grows both more difficult and more urgent.
Papers are welcome on all 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 and films, utopian political activism, theories of utopian spaces and ontologies, music, new media, and intentional communities. We especially welcome papers and panels on games, gamers and gamification; utopian and dystopian aspects of globalization; and non-Western utopian traditions.
Additionally, we are introducing a new poster and demonstration track. We invite abstracts for presentations featuring interactive games, apps, digital artifacts, tools, projects, websites, or works in progress with a utopian or dystopian dimension. Those invited to participate will be given a backdrop and table for a poster and/or computer in our exhibition hall. Indie developers and digital humanists are especially welcome.
Abstracts of up to 250 words are due 1 June 2014, and may be for:
● a 15-20 minute paper
● a panel: include a title, designated Chair, an abstract for the panel and for each of 3-4 papers
● an informal roundtable of 3-6 presenters, or a combination of presenters and respondents
● a presentation or performance of a utopian creative work or artifact
● a poster and/or demo
Please use our online form for submissions at http://utopian-studies.org/conference2014.
*All submissions must include 3-5 keywords to assist in forming cohesive panels. The official language of the conference is English.
For information about registration, travel or accommodations, please contact Brian Greenspan, brian.greenspan@carleton.ca. For information about panel topics, assistance finding co-panelists, and other questions about the conference, please contact Peter Sands, sands@uwm.edu.
Call for Papers
The 2015 Eaton Science Fiction Conference
Designing the Past, Designing the Future
October 16-17, 2015 Riverside Marriott Hotel Riverside, California
This conference will examine the relationship of speculative genres—science fiction, fantasy, horror, and utopian literature and other media—to the concept of “design.” How have creative practitioners crafted the “looks” of their past, future, or alternative worlds? How have these looks been influenced by contemporaneous design practices and philosophies? How might the various discourses of “design”—from engineering to advertising to architecture—be perceived as science-fictional in themselves? We invite paper and panel proposals that address (but are not limited to) the following topics:
• The Look of Videogames and other Virtual Spaces
• Retrofuturism, Steampunk, and Creative Anachronism
• SF Design in an Era of Media Convergence • Philosophies of Design as SF Theories
The conference will coincide with a number of related events and exhibitions at Riverside. There will be a film screening and several panels focusing on Latin American speculative texts, and we particularly encourage more submissions on this topic. The conference will also be preceded, on the afternoon of October 15, by the fifth Science Fiction Studies Symposium on the topic of “Retrofuturism,” with speakers Arthur B. Evans, Rachel Haywood Ferreira, and Paweł Frelik. Keynote speakers and special guests will be announced as they are confirmed on a conference website currently in preparation.
Conference sessions will be held at the centrally located Riverside Marriott Hotel, with rooms at a reduced rate ($109). For more about the hotel, see their website at <http://www.marriott.com/hotels/hotel-information/ travel/ralmc-riverside-marriott>. Rooms are limited and will be available on a first-come, first-served basis.
Abstracts of 500 words (for papers of 20 minutes in length) should be submitted by March 1, 2015. We also welcome panel proposals gathering three papers on a cohesive topic. Electronic submissions should be sent to Sherryl Vint (sherryl.vint@ucr.edu) with the subject heading: EATON CONFERENCE PROPOSAL. Please include a brief bio with your abstract and indicate whether your presentation will require A/V. Participants will be informed by April 1, 2015 if their proposals have been accepted.
Online advance registration for ICFA will continue through next Wednesday, 12 March 2014, 11:59 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (UTC-05:00). Then we will shut down registration so that registration can finalize preparations.
This does not mean that people cannot register for the ICFA.
“On site” registration will open Wednesday, 19 March 2014. Day passes will also be available.