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.