International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts

Call for Proposals: Interdisciplinary Nineteenth-Century Studies (INCS) 2016

11/2/15; 3/10-13/15

Theme: Natural and Unnatural Histories

Keynote Speakers: Kate Flint (University of Southern California) and Elaine Freedgood (NYU)

March 10-13, 2016, Renaissance Asheville Hotel, Asheville, NC

incs2016.appstate.edu

Historicism achieved its full flowering in the nineteenth century, when the historical methods of inquiry envisioned by figures such as Vico, Herder, and von Ranke were taken up and transformed in philosophy, art criticism, hermeneutics, philology, the human sciences, and, of course, history itself. By 1831, John Stuart Mill was already declaring historicism the dominant idea of the age. Taking human activity as their central subject, some nineteenth-century historicisms extended Hegel’s distinction between historical processes governed by thought and non-historical processes governed by nature. At the same time, scientists like Lyell and Darwin radically challenged nineteenth-century understandings of history by arguing that nature itself is historical. Powered by fossil fuels, industrialization began to prove this point by profoundly altering global ecologies at a previously unimaginable scale. We seek papers that investigate nineteenth-century histories and natures. How do natures, environments, or ecologies interact with histories at different scales—the local, the national, the transnational, or the planetary? What role does the nineteenth century play in the recent idea of an Anthropocene era? How might nineteenth-century natural histories help us to rethink historicism in the present? What are the risks and promises of presentist approaches to the nineteenth century? Possible topics include, but are not limited to:

Narrating history, narrating nature

Ideas of the natural, the unnatural, and/or the supernatural

Nineteenth-century ecologies broadly construed: domestic ecologies, aesthetic ecologies, imperial and postcolonial ecologies, synthetic or technological ecologies

Evolution and extinction

Posthuman histories

History, nature, and/or science in art

Family histories, social histories

Climate change, geosystems, geohistories

Bioregionalisms, transregionalisms, literature and “sustainability”

Queer ecologies/histories

Disability histories/Cripping nature

Life and non-life

Flora, fauna, and fossils

Ecopoetics, Environmental justice

Reporting events/recording nature

Commemorative musical compositions/performances

Biopolitics, biopoetics

Discourses of pollution, toxicity, garbage, waste

Resource imperialism

Political ecologies and economies

Cross-cultural, indigenous, mestizo, subaltern nature writing

Creaturely life, life forms, nonhumans, monstrosity

Landscape aesthetics

Global South studies

Utopian/dystopian, steampunk, or neo-Victorian natures and/or histories

Nineteenth-century histories of philosophy, religion and/or theology

History of science, history of medicine, public health discourses

Natural disasters, cataclysmic events

Sexological, criminological, and/or psychiatric narratives

Resources, capital, economies

Biography and autobiography, case studies, archives

History as genre: history painting, Bildungsroman, epic, historical novel, historical drama, etc.

Deadline: November 2, 2015. Upload proposals and a one-page CV via incs2016.appstate.edu.  For individual papers, send 250-word proposals; for panels, send individual proposals plus a 250-word panel description. Proposals that are interdisciplinary in method or panels that involve multiple disciplines are especially welcome. Questions? Contact Jill Ehnenn at incs@appstate.edu

2016 Northeast MLA convention in Hartford, CT (3/17-3/20)

Abstracts are due no later than September 30, 2015, and should be submitted via the NeMLA conference website: https://www.cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/15692 . A description of the session follows below. 

“Medieval European literature played a defining role in the development of modern fantasy fiction, and genre fantasy has already received a great deal of critical attention in the academic study of medievalism. By comparison, the complex relationship of genre science fiction to the Middle Ages has been sorely understudied, and this session will include papers that consider either or both of the topics in its title, that is, on the one hand, the appearance or influence of “the medieval,” broadly conceived, in modern science fiction. Such papers might examine how certain works of SF (re)construct the medieval: fruitful examples would include a text like Frank Herbert’s Dune, where neo-feudalism prevails; time travel novels in which contemporary characters return to an imagined Middle Ages; SF narratives written by medievalists (such as C. S. Lewis’s Space Trilogy); or space operas that follow romance or folkloric formulae. Alternatively, papers in search of “science fiction in the Middle Ages” might apply to medieval texts concepts central to the academic study of science fiction — Darko Suvin’s “cognitive estrangement,” Fredric Jameson’s theory of utopia, and so on — or examine any set of medieval discourses, impulses, or individual works that might be productively understood as some kind of equivalent to contemporary SF. Examples here might include dream visions in which the narrator traverses the celestial spheres, tales of impossible gadgets, or narratives of alchemical success or folly. Finally, papers that argue from a perspective denying the compatibility of the medieval worldview and the rationalist-empiricist discourse of science fiction would also be welcome. This session will advance our understanding of the place of (proto-)science in medieval fictions, but also attempt to account for the frequent reappearance of the medieval in the distinctly modern science fiction genre, which often takes pride in its modernity and defines itself against pre-Enlightenment epistemologies.”

“It’s Happening Again”: Twenty-Five Years of Twin Peaks: EXTENDED DEADLINE! (new submission date: September 30 2015)

 Call for Papers for “It’s Happening Again”: 25 Years of Twin Peaks, a proposed edited collection on the television show Twin Peaks. Eric Hoffman and Dominick Grace solicit essays for a new collection celebrating one of television’s greatest cult phenomena. Originally airing in 1990/91, Mark Frost and David Lynch’sTwin Peaks will be returning, just over twenty-five years after it went off the air, and this collection will explore the show in the context of its time, and its legacy. We are interested in papers on all aspects of the television program as well as on tie-ins and connected materials (e.g. the film Fire Walk with Me, the new Log Lady material added for the show’s run on Bravo, the book The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer, etc.). Possible subjects include but are not limited to:

narrative and the televisual medium
cinema versus television textuality
Twin Peaks in relationship to Lynch’s oeuvre
Twin Peaks as pop culture phenomenon
Twin Peaks as satire
Twin Peaks as cult/experimental television
Twin Peaks and sexuality/gender/feminist contexts
generic explorations – specifically murder mystery/film noir, soap opera, horror, fantasy, science fiction, etc.

Completed papers can be submitted, in Word, to Dominick Grace (dgrace2@uwo.ca) or to Eric Hoffman (diamondjoecity@gmail.com). Papers should be between 5,000 and 7,000 words and should follow MLA guidelines. Inquiries and proposals are also welcome. Eric Hoffman and Dominick Grace are the co-editors of Dave Sim: Conversations, Chester Brown: Conversations and Seth: Conversations, all of which are part of the University Press of Mississippi’s Conversations with Comics Artists series.

Deadline for submission: September 30, 2015.

Panel: The Impact of War on Science Fiction or Fantasy Literature

Northeast Modern Language Association

March 17-20, 2016

Hartford, CT

Paper Proposal/ Abstract   deadline: September 25th, 2015

Various wars have had a profound impact on many utopian, dystopian and apocalyptic science fiction and fantasy writers. For example, the repercussions of the Civil War were one of the factors of late nineteenth century society in America reflected in the “non-combative” revolution of Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward: 2000-1887.  In addition, war or the aftermath of war figures strongly in various novels and stories of Philip Dick, Marge Piercy, and Ursula Le Guin, among others. It seems that world events, many tumultuous, are reflected in some of their dystopian tales. Discussing the effect of war and the possibility of annihilation on literature, including early writers such as Lord [George Gordon] Byron who wrote the poem “Darkness” reflecting the end of the world after total annihilating warfare implies the need to perhaps use writing as a catharsis. The focus of this panel is to indicate the effect of war on literature at various periods in history.

Please e-mail your 200-250 word paper proposal/ abstract, subject line: War-SciFi Panel before 9/25/15.  Please send your proposal as an attached MS Word, doc or docx. In the body of your message, please include your proposal title, your name, affiliation, address, phone number and e-mail address and send to: Annette Magid <a_magid@yahoo.com<mailto:a_magid@yahoo.com>>.

Proposers need not be members of NeMLA to submit, but panelists must be members in order to present.

Call for Papers

Texts and Contexts: The Cultural Legacies of Ada Lovelace

“That brain of mine is more than merely mortal; as time will show.”

A workshop for graduate students and early career researchers

Tuesday 8 December 2015

Mathematics Institute and St Anne’s College, Oxford

The mathematician Ada Lovelace (1815-1852), daughter of poet Lord Byron, is celebrated as a pioneer of computer science. The notes she added to her translation of Luigi Menabrea’s paper on Charles Babbage’s analytical engine (1843) are considered to contain a prototype computer program. During her short life, Lovelace not only contributed original ideas to the plans for this early computer; she also imagined wider possibilities for the engine, such as its application to music, and meditated on its limitations. Lovelace leaves a legacy not just as a computer scientist, but also as a muse for literary writers, a model to help us understand the role of women in science in the nineteenth century, and an inspiration for neo-Victorian and steampunk traditions.

As part of the University of Oxford’s celebrations to mark the 200th anniversary of Lovelace’s birth, this one-day workshop will bring together graduates and early career researchers to discuss the varied cultural legacies of this extraordinary mathematician. The day will feature an expert panel including graphic novelist Sydney Padua and biographer Richard Holmes, as well as a keynote address from Professor Sharon Ruston, Chair in Romanticism in the Department of English and Creative Writing at Lancaster University.

The day will conclude with a reception and buffet when there will be opportunities to meet with speakers from the Ada Lovelace 200 Symposium, which will also take place in the Mathematics Institute on the following two days (9-10 December). Researchers from all disciplines are invited to submit proposals for papers on the influences of Lovelace’s work, on topics including, but not limited to, literature, history, mathematics, music, visual art, and computer science. This might include:

• Lovelace’s place in the study of the history of science;
• Lovelace and women in science in the nineteenth century;
• Early nineteenth-century scientific networks, including Lovelace’s relationship with such individuals as Charles Babbage and Mary Somerville. We also encourage papers which consider other scientific networks from this period, beyond Lovelace’s circle;
• Lovelace and discussions about the role of the imagination in scientific practice in the nineteenth century;
• Lovelace as translator and commentator;
• Mathematics and music, and the musical possibilities Lovelace envisaged for Babbage’s engine;
• Lovelace’s own textual legacies, such as her correspondence, childhood exercises and mathematical notes held in the Bodleian;
• Lovelace’s technological legacies, from her seminal work on Babbage’s Analytical Engine to her impact on computer programming today;
• Lovelace’s role in the steampunk tradition, from Gibson and Sterling’s The Difference Engine to Sydney Padua’s The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage, and neo-Victorian fashion;
• Efforts and activities to commemorate and memorialise Lovelace, from the recent Google Doodle to the annual Ada Lovelace Day.

Proposals, not exceeding 250 words, for 15-minute papers should be submitted to adalovelaceworkshop@ell.ox.ac.uk by Midnight, Friday 18 September 2015. Those who are accepted to speak at this graduate workshop will also be offered free registration for the Ada Lovelace 200 Symposium taking place on the following two days.

Ada Lovelace Postgraduate and ECR Workshop Organising Committee

Email: adalovelaceworkshop@ell.ox.ac.uk

Website: https://adalovelaceworkshop.wordpress.com/

Twitter: @AdaLovelacePGs

Call for Papers for the Acacia Group’s Philip K. Dick Conference to be held at Cal State Fullerton, April 29-30, 2016. Confirmed Special Guests: Dr. Ursula Heise, Jonathan Lethem, Tim Powers and James Blaylock.

Deadline for proposals: Interested individuals should submit a titled, 250-word abstract and complete contact information—name, institutional affiliation (if applicable), mail and email addresses, and telephone number—by December 1st, 2015. Submission email: dsandner@fullerton.edu 

Our theme: Philip K. Dick, Here and Now.

Philip K. Dick’s visionary works often occur in places he lived, set in a dystopic present just around the corner, the day after tomorrow. The conference calls for papers on Philip K. Dick’s works, and on his attention to setting (or undermining of setting?) in terms of both place and time. But we want much more besides. We call for papers on PKD’s presence and influence in sf literature and visionary literature. We want papers that explore how writers and film-makers have produced work influenced by his ideas. How does sf today, how does literature today, reflect his concerns, his style, his visions? How have his themes, such as a dis-ease with our surveillance society, our precarious hold on our identity, our uneasy relationship with  power, technology and progress, continued to resonate? What other writers explore the intersection of time, place and identity? Why does PKD’s work still feel so urgent to the problem of being human today? What does it mean that we continue to experience PKD, here and now? Write papers that tell us what PKD’s presence has meant and means to our culture and its conversation about itself. 

The conference will be held at CSUF’s Titan Student Union and Pollak Library. We encourage work from institutionally affiliated scholars, independent scholars, graduate students and advanced undergraduates. Acacia is the Graduate Student Group of the English Department at Cal State Fullerton.

Gender and Fantasy

In her seminal Fantasy: A Literature of Subversion, critic Rosemary Jackson calls fantasy “a literature of desire”, one that “traces the unsaid and unseen of culture, that which has been silenced, made invisible, covered over and made ‘absent'”. This issue of gender forum concerns itself with the manifold ways in which the fantasy genre is used to renegotiate these unseen desires, seeking to examine if and how it has moved on from the genre-specific stereotypes of wise wizard, wicked witch, strong hero, and damsel in distress. We are looking for contributions that analyse the role of gender in

• high and low fantasy

• the different subgenres (urban fantasy, dark fantasy, etc.)

• the genre’s classic as well as contemporary texts

• fantasy films

• fantasy TV shows

• theatrical representations

• the adaptation process (novel to film or vice versa)

• …

Abstracts of 400 words plus a brief biography should be submitted by October 15th, 2015. The deadline for the completed papers is January 7th, 2016. (Publication date: Early 2016)

gender-forum@uni-koeln.de