The Man in the High Castle and Philosophy

deadline for submissions:
September 1, 2016

full name / name of organization:
Bruce Krajewski / U of Texas at Arlington

contact email:
TMITHCandPhilosophy@gmail.com

The Man in the High Castle and Philosophy, edited by Bruce Krajewski and Joshua Heter, will be a book in Open Court Publishing Company’s Popular Culture and Philosophy series: http://www.opencourtbooks.com/categories/pcp.htm.The Saturn Award-nominated Amazon Production entitled “The Man in the High Castle” is based on the Philip K. Dick novel of the same name. The series explores a counter-factual history for a post-World War II USA, an answer to the question: What if the United States had lost WWII and been divided between Germany’s National Socialists and the Japanese? This takeover of the United States in connection to fascist power seems unfortunately relevant to the present, in which the United States, like parts of Europe, finds itself struggling with a rise in white supremacist groups, fears of colonization, and with capitalism in desperation, which is a working definition for fascism. As Amazon’s most-streamed original series, “The Man in the High Castle” has been booked for a second season, and is poised to become a cultural phenomenon.

Submit abstracts of no more than 300 words to: TMITHCandPhilosophy@gmail.com
Abstracts due: September 1st, 2016, but you can send them in sooner.

Notification of accepted abstracts: September 15, 2016
First draft of papers due: November 1st, 2016

3,000 to 3,500-word philosophy papers are written in a conversational style for a lay audience. Papers must frequently refer to ideas, arguments, characters, events, and circumstances in the Amazon series “The Man in the High Castle” or to the series’ source material. A detailed call for proposals can be found here: http://www.popularcultureandphilosophy.com/?p=791.

Science Fiction Film and Television is seeking articles for a special issue on Women & Science Fiction Media, intended to mark the 200^th year anniversary of the publication of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

Although sf was once stereotyped as a male genre, more recently women’s contributions as authors, fans, editors, and more have become more widely acknowledged. Central to this new understanding of women’s contributions to sf has been the realization that women have always been a part of the genre, resisting another stereotype that links women’s emergence in the field to the feminist fiction of the 1960s and 1970s. In recognition of the bicentenary of the publication of Frankenstein (1818) by Mary Shelley, arguably the first sf novel, we seek essays that recognize, interrogate, respond to and celebrate women’s contributions to media sf. We are interested in reviewing any work that explores this topic, but we are particularly interested in contributions on the following topics:

• Female directors of sf film and television
• Female sf showrunners
• Female scriptwriters in sf
• Gender and Mary Shelley’s legacy in sf’s imagination of created beings
• Frankenstein remakes, adaptations, reboots and reinventions
• Gender and casting, and character arc in media sf
• Gender in sf fandom and criticism

Articles should be 7000 to 9000 words in length, including footnotes and bibliography. Submissions (in word or rtf, following MLA style) should be made via our website at http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/lup-sfftv.

Any queries should be directed to the editors, Mark Bould (mark.bould@gmail.com),  Gerry Canavan (gerrycanavan@gmail.com) and Sherryl Vint  (sherryl.vint@gmail.com).

The deadline for submissions for this special issue is March 15, 2017.

Call for Submissions for an anthology volume: Fantastic Fan Cultures and the Sacred

They ways in which people pursue religion has changed in America and the West. Traditional, institutional religions are in decline, and even among those who claim “None” as their identity, an individualized spirituality of seeking is growing in popularity. As a part of this quest, the sacred often comes in seemingly nonreligious forms. Gary Laderman, a scholar of religion asks in light of this situation:

“So what if the sacred is not only, or even primarily, tied to theology or religious identity labels like more, less, and not religious? We might see how religious practices and commitments emanate from unlikely sources today…”

One of those unlike sources of the sacred is fantastic fan cultures. Science fiction, fantasy, and horror genres are incredibly popular and have become multimillion dollar facets of the entertainment industry. But there is more here than meets the eye. Fantastic fandom has also spawned subcultures that include sacred aspects.

Fantastic Fan Cultures and the Sacred will be an edited anthology that explores the sacred aspects of fantastic fandom.  Its content will be academically informed, but accessible to average readers so that it appeals not only to scholars wanting to learn more about pop culture and religion, but also to average fans who will expand their understanding of their fandom and culture.

Possible topics for this volume include but are not limited to:

• Buffyverse fandom and other genre “cult fandoms”
• Collecting and sacred relics – Of special interest is Guillermo del Toro’s and Bleak House, and his connection of this to his unique form of primal spirituality:  “I’m not a collector. I’m a religious man.”
• Convention participation as religious pilgrimage
• Cosplay as immersion in sacred narrative and identity
• Fantasy and science fiction conventions as Transformational Festivals (akin to Burning Man Festival)
• Horror conventions as worlds “of gods and monsters”
• Pop culture phrases as sacred wisdom teachings
• Science fiction, fantasy, and horror as sacred narratives and mythology
• Star Trek fandom as secular civil religion/spirituality

This volume will be edited by John Morehead. Morehead is the proprietor of TheoFantastique.com. He has contributed to various online and print publications including Cinefantastique Online, the Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts, andExtrapolation. In addition, he is the co-editor of The Undead and Theology, Joss Whedon and Religion, and the editor of The Supernatural Cinema of Guillermo del Toro.

Those interested in being a part of this volume are encouraged to send a 300 word proposal and your curriculum vitae by email. Both should be in MSWord or PDF format. The deadline for submission is September 2, 2016. Materials and questions should be sent to John Morehead at johnwmorehead@msn.com.

Gothic Traditions and Departures

Universidad de las Américas Puebla (UDLAP), Cholula, Mexico

18 – 21 July 2017

Where does Gothic begin and where does it end? Can we recognise a Gothic tradition or has Gothic always stood at the margins of the critical tradition? Over the past decades, we have witnessed a rekindled awareness of the popularity of Gothic in literature, media, and culture. Gothic has also become widely acknowledged around the world, and there are currently many studies dedicated to understand what it means in other regions, traditions, and cultures. On the other hand, the critical tradition has condemned Gothic for its excessive, formulaic, and immature plots and motifs, thus leaving it at the margins of more well-regarded works. The reconsidered significance of Gothic today prompts to think of it as an established tradition, but does it still offer points of departure through what Fred Botting refers to as its ‘negative aesthetics’ (2014)? More importantly, as we look again at the popularity of Gothic to address and understand both global and regional supernatural narratives, events, and experiences, it is also relevant to inquire about the influence of local traditional folklore and legends in the development and current understanding of Gothic. At the same time, this provides us with an opportunity to consider the relevance and presence of Gothic in contemporary debates on literature, art, and popular culture.

We seek to explore how Gothic today may be considered a tradition or a departure from tradition, as well as how it has been inspired by local traditions, legends, or true stories. We seek to address how we look at past Gothic in comparison with contemporary Gothic, that is, where Gothic is now and what Gothic is for today. This exploration is not limited to the literary Gothic, but also seeks to keep on addressing Gothic manifestations across arts, media, and popular culture.

Thus, we seek to make the following inquiries: Do we understand Gothic as a tradition or as a departure from tradition? What is the relationship between Gothic, folklore, and traditional myths and legends? What is the current state of Gothic? What is happening with Gothic now? Why is Gothic still relevant today? How do we understand local and regional Gothic manifestations when we compare them with global Gothic? Is Goth culture a tradition too? Does Gothic in media, other arts, and popular culture depart from its literary tradition?

Topics could include, but are not limited to, the following:

-Gothic origins

-The Gothic as tradition

-The Gothic as a departure from tradition

-Gothic crossovers

-Gothic departures and journeys

-Gothic divergences

-Gothic digressions and deviations

-Gothic in popular culture

-Gothic and folklore

-Gothic and traditional legends

-Gothic and urban legends

-True histories of the Gothic

-Goth culture and traditions

-Goth culture as tradition

-Global Gothic vs local Gothic

-Gothic now vs Gothic then

-Post-Millennial Gothic

-20^th Century Gothic

-Victorian Gothic

-Romanticism and the Gothic

-Pre-Gothic traditions

-Gothic and the media (old and new)

-Digital Gothic

-Gothic and the arts

-Performance Gothic

-Gothic Studies: past, present, and future

We welcome abstract proposals of no more than 300 words, along with a 50 word bio-note, for 20 minute papers. Please include your contact e-mail and affiliation. Abstracts may be submitted to igamexico2017@gmail.com. The submission deadline is December 16, 2016. We also welcome submissions for panels (consisting of three papers) that address specific topics.

Accepted proposals will be notified in early January 2017.

https://igamexico2017.wordpress.com/acerca-de/

The call for papers for articles for the sections “Monograph” and “Miscellaneous” for the Vol. IV n.º2 issue of Brumal. Revista de Investigación sobre lo Fantástico /Brumal. Research Journal on the Fantastic is now open.

Scholars who wish to contribute to either of these two sections should send us their articles by december 15, 2016, registering as authors on our web page. The Guidelines for Submissions may be found on the Submissions section of the web page.

Monographic issue “The Fantastic in Comics” (José Manuel Trabado, Coord.)

The aim of this monographic issue is to offer an overview the possibilities of fantastic comics both on a narrative level and as regards graphic formulation. We also try to look into the relationship between different formats (comic strip, Sunday page, album, sketchbook, comic book, etc) and the introduction of fantastic, with the goal of understanding the basic mechanisms of the formulation of fantastic within comics and define its relevance in different eras. Authors should take into account the concept of fantastic hold by the review: “the always problematic coexistence between the possible and the impossible in a world similar to the real one. This explains why the contents of Brumal exclude some neighbouring categories, for examples cience fiction, the marvellous or fantasy, since in them such conflict is absent”.  However this neighboruing genres can be dealt with in cases of generic hybridization

Possible theme lines:

• Poetic and graphic narratives of fantastic comics
• Fantastic and its relationship with formats
• Authors for a canon of fantastic comics
• The importance of magazines in the consolidation of the fantastic. Fantastic as editorial line
• Cultural Traditions and fantastic comics: the fantastic and the bd, the fantastic in manga, the fantastic in superheroes comic books, etc.

Miscellaneous Section

This Miscellaneous section is open all year to receive any type of article on any of the diverse artistic manifestations of the fantastic (narrative, theater, film, comics, painting, photography, video games), whether theoretical, critical, historical or comparative in nature, concerning the fantastic in any language or from any country, from the nineteenth century to the present.

http://revistes.uab.cat/brumal/index