Thirty-Sixth International Conference
on the Fantastic in the Arts
The Scientific Imagination
March 18-22, 2015
Marriott Orlando Airport Hotel
The Scientific Imagination will be the theme for ICFA 36. Join us as we explore the possibilities and intersections of science and imagination—from Faust and Frankenstein, through the Golden Age and the New Wave, to steampunk and mash-ups—in all their guises, including fiction, film, television, music, theater, comics, visual art, and social media. Papers might explore topics such as rationalism vs. belief, science for good and ill, alternate and speculative technologies and biologies, futurism, imaginary sciences, time travel, and the tensions inherent in discovery, among other topics. We welcome papers on the work of our guests: Guest of Honor James Morrow (winner of the Sturgeon Award, the World Fantasy Award, and two Nebula Awards), Guest of Honor Joan Slonczewski (winner of two Campbell Awards), and Guest Scholar Colin Milburn (author of Nanovision: Engineering the Future). We also welcome proposals for individual papers and for academic sessions and panels on any aspect of the fantastic in any media. The deadline for proposals is October 31, 2014. We encourage work from institutionally affiliated scholars, independent scholars, international scholars who work in languages other than English, and graduate students.
Guest of Honor
James Morrow
James Morrow is a science fiction writer and author of the Godhead Trilogy, which includes the novels Towing Jehovah, Blameless in Abaddon, and The Eternal Footman. He has won the Theodore Sturgeon award for Shambling Towards Hiroshima, the World Fantasy Award for Only Begotten Daughter, and Nebula Awards for “City of Truth” and “Bible Stories for Adults, No. 17: The Deluge.” A self-described “scientific humanist,” he is widely recognized as one of our premiere satirists of religion, philosophy, and human belief systems. He is also a playwright. His most recent novels are The Philosopher’s Apprentice and Shambling Towards Hiroshima.
Guest of Honor
Joan Slonczewski
Joan Slonczewski is a Professor of Microbiology at Kenyon College and an award-winning science fiction writer. She holds a Ph.D. in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry from Yale University and teaches courses including Microbiology, Virology, and Biology in Science Fiction at Kenyon, in addition to mentoring students conducting research in Kenyon’s Bacterial pH Laboratory. She has won grants for her research from the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and other major donors. She has twice received the John W. Campbell Award for best science fiction novel, for The Highest Frontier and A Door Into Ocean.
Guest Scholar
Colin Milburn
Colin Milburn holds the Gary Snyder Chair in Science and the Humanities at UC Davis, where he is an Associate Professor of English and Director of the UC Davis Humanities Innovation Lab. His research focuses on the intersections of science, literature, and media technologies, and he is affiliated with programs in Cinema and Technocultural Studies, Performance Studies, Cultural Studies, and Critical Theory, as well as the W. M. Keck Center for Active Visualization in the Earth and the Center for Science & Innovation Studies. His books include Nanovision: Engineering the Future and Mondo Nano: Fun and Games in the World of Digital Matter, forthcoming in 2014.
Our submissions portal, will open Sep. 15 to receive proposals!
http://www.fantastic-arts.org/annual-conference/submissions/