International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts

ACCSFF ‘19
Call for Papers

The 2019 Academic Conference on Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy will be held Friday and Saturday, June 7-8, 2019, in Toronto, Ontario, at the Merril Collection of Science Fiction, Speculation and Fantasy, one of the most important collections of fantastic literature in the world.

We invite proposals for papers in any area of Canadian science fiction and fantasy, including:

-studies of individual works and authors;
-comparative studies;
-studies that place works in their literary and/or
cultural contexts.

Papers may be about Canadian works in any medium: literature, film, graphic novels and comic books, and so on. For studies of the audio-visual media, preference will be given to discussions of works produced in Canada or involving substantial Canadian creative contributions.

Papers should be no more than 20 minutes long, and geared toward a general as well as an academic audience. Please submit proposals (max. 2 pages), preferably by email, to:

Dr. Allan Weiss
Department of English
York University
4700 Keele St.
Toronto, ON M3H 3N4
aweiss@yorku.ca

Deadline: February 1, 2019

Glasgow International Fantasy Conversations

Mapping the Mythosphere

23rd-24th May 2019

In her novel The Game (2007) Diana Wynne Jones speaks of the ‘Mythosphere’, an expanding system of inter-related narratives ‘made up of all the stories, theories and beliefs, legends, myths and hopes, that are generated here on Earth […] constantly growing and moving as people invent new tales to tell or find new things to believe’. Fantasy as a mode or genre can be said both to draw on this organic system and to show an intense awareness of the links between its many roots and branches. Whether we approach the Fantastic through the study of written literature, the visual arts, games, journalism, internet culture or film and television theory, a close study of its workings enables us to better understand the dominant strands of Jones’s Mythosphere and to explore its rapidly widening outer limits. Sometimes refusing to endorse the subjective values and cultural commitments that sustain contemporary ideologies, sometimes imaginatively confirming them with its own misguided rebellions, the Mythosphere is an expanding web of intertextual narratives which we are all both producers and products of. Over the course of the 23rd and 24th of May 2019, Glasgow International Fantasy Conversations (GIFCon) seeks to celebrate all aspects of critical and creative work that help to map-out this intricate network of intersecting narratives.

Constantly disrupting genres and disintegrating the designations of canonicity, Fantasy delights in breaking down borders and defying expectations, a fact supported by numerous contemporary scholarly studies. For instance, Celtic mythology emerges transformed from the pages of twenty-first century children’s literature in the work of the University of Glasgow’s own Dimitra Fimi, while Darryl Jones points out that the Fantastic ‘slasher’ film’s obsession with violence and gore can be found in both classical sculpture and Christian artworks from as early as the twelfth century. As such writers have shown, Fantasy draws connections through history, geography and the full range of representational media, upsetting and questioning everything as it does so by exploring and reinventing every corner of our psyches, philosophies and societies. Driven by the desire to imagine the impossible, spurred on by radical shifts in politics, economics, technology and available means of communication, Fantasy has become the language of our time, the aptest means of tracing, altering and extending the contours of the myths and stories we live by.

GIFCon 2019 is a two-day symposium that seeks to examine and honour the relationships between the different strands of Fantasy and the individual Fantastic works that make up the Mythosphere, be they books, films, games or comics. We welcome proposals for papers relating to this theme from researchers and practitioners working in the field of Fantasy and the Fantastic across all media, whether within the academy or beyond it. We are particularly interested in submissions from postgraduate and early career researchers.

It is worth noting that GIFCon uses a broad definition of Fantasy, so if you are unsure whether your topic would be of interest to Fantasy scholars and academics, please do submit your abstract and we can help decide this. We will also offer workshops in creative writing for those interested in exploring the creative process.

We ask for 300-word abstracts for 20-minute papers, as well as creative presentations that go beyond the traditional academic paper. Suggested topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

The concept of ‘the mythosphere’ itself, its history or critical analysis
Intersections, connections, or relationships between Fantasy authors and/or Fantastic texts
Challenges to boundaries, whether of genre, canonicity, or narrative medium
Authors’ self-reflective theorising of Fantasy and the Fantastic
Fear of or hostility to Fantasy and the Fantastic
Mythology, folktales & legends, both traditional and in their more modern forms of expression such as games or comics
Fantasy narratives in games and the implementation of virtual worlds
Modern myths, urban legends etc.
Literary/artistic lineages
Translations, adaptations and adaptation theory (particularly adaptations from one media form to another)
Fantasy and the Internet (such as Creepypasta or the Slenderman mythos)
Speculation about what lies beyond the Mythosphere’s cultural, psychological or cognitive boundaries (i.e. the Unknown)
Geographies and politics of the Fantastic (such as in Discworld, Narnia or Middle Earth)
Fantasy literature/art as subversive (or, indeed, as restrictive)

Submission deadline is Monday, 14th of January 2019, at 23:00!

Click here for more information.

2nd Science Fiction and Communism Conference
American University in Bulgaria
1-3 March 2019, Blagoevgrad

The American University in Bulgaria is pleased to announce a call for papers for the second edition of the Science Fiction and Communism Conference. The conference will discuss science fiction (SF) in the context of the Communist regime and the Cold War and will focus on the ways political regimes on both sides of the Iron Curtain utilized the concept of the future.

TOPICS AND OBJECTIVES OF THE CONFERENCE:

The Second Science Fiction and Communism Conference will continue to explore the political and cultural importance of SF in film, literature, architecture, science and politics.

We would like to invite submissions on the following topics in particular:

• Utopia and communist ideology
• Ideological control and its utilization
• Cosmism and Communist rhetoric
• Political commentary in Sci Fi East and West
• Gender and emancipation
• Practices of distribution and transmission of cultural products

The conference is open to all disciplines, approaches and methods. We welcome researchers, practitioners and students.

SUBMISSION:

Please send your proposals for papers, panels and/or presentations (CV, abstract of 300 – 500 words) to Yulia Pechanova at yulia@aubg.edu.

The conference language for presentations and discussions will be English.

Presentations should last no more than 20 minutes and be open to discussion afterwards.

Deadline for application is Dec. 21, 2018.

The applicants whose papers were selected will be informed by Jan. 7, 2019.

Participants are responsible for their own traveling and accommodation arrangements.

Attendees who are not submitting papers are encouraged to register.

Transportation from Sofia to Blagoevgrad will be organized by the host.

Gothic Terror, Gothic Horror
15th conference of the International Gothic Association: IGA 2019
July 30 – August 2, 2019, Lewis University, Romeoville, Illinois, United States

Gothic writers from Ann Radcliffe to Stephen King have differentiated terror and horror: the former is intellectual, imminent, and escapable; the latter, visceral, immediate, and unavoidable. Terror excites the mind, while horror convulses the body. Terror elevates, while horror debases. The oppositional yet mutually constitutive relationship between Radcliffean terror and Lewisite horror joins a constellation of unstable binaries, including mind/body, high/low, and feminine/masculine, which have proven valuable for producers and consumers of the Gothic since the eighteenth century. Today, they offer us a potent theoretical framework within which to engage not only classical Gothic texts, but also contemporary ones ranging from political propaganda to body horror. With a focus at once sharp and wide, Gothic Terror, Gothic Horror will stimulate an eclectic and inclusive conversation about the essence of the Gothic.

We invite the submission of abstracts that explore the theme of Gothic Terror, Gothic Horror. We welcome proposed panels of three related papers. Since this IGA conference is the first to be held in the United States, we encourage proposals that consider the theme in relation to the American Gothic.

Topics may include—but are by no means limited to—the following.

Conceptual and creative distinctions and intersections between terror and horror across time periods, genres, geographies, media, etc.
Stimulating terror and horror in audiences
Masculine and feminine Gothic
Mind and body in the Gothic
Gothic propaganda
High and low Gothic
“On the Supernatural in Poetry,” Danse Macabre, and other critical approaches to terror and horror
Body horror
Terror and terrorism
Gothic subjectivity and objectivity
Torture porn
Ann Radcliffe and Matthew Lewis
Terror, horror, and the uncanny
Gothic veiling and unveiling
The Gothic sublime
Eco-Horror and Eco-Terror
Queering Terror and Horror
Deconstructing the Gothic

Please submit a 250-word abstract by January 31, 2019 to igalewis@lewisu.edu, including your name, a short biography, affiliation (if any), and contact details.

http://www.internationalgothic.group.shef.ac.uk/

IV INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE VISIONES DE LO FANTÁSTICO:
“Women Creators and the Fantastic”
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
5, 6 and 7 of June 2019

​There is no doubt that an increasing number of women creators employ the fantastic as a form of expression, whether in literature, theater, film, TV, comics and other arts. This is opening new paths in the genre, including the development of themes and forms that are absent or little explored in the works by male authors.

However, at the same time it should also be noted that the presence of the women in the canons and academic studies on the fantastic is unsatisfactory (except for honorable exceptions), and aspect that negatively affects our understanding of the panorama of the fantastic and the cultural production carried out by women in general.

The main objective of this Conference is to highlight and make visible the work of the women creators (especially in genres apparently reserved for men, such as cinema, TV or comics), and to offer studies on the forms, themes, and styles of the multiple poetics of the feminine fantastic and their relationship with the fantastic in general.

Confirmed keynote speakers include five renowned specialists in the fantastic, gender studies, TV and comics: Carmen Alemany Bay (Universitat d’Alacant, Spain), Ana Merino (The University of Iowa, USA), Cecilia Eudave (Universidad de Guadalajara, Mexico), Concepción Cascajosa (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Spain) and Meri Torras (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain).

The Grupo de Estudios sobre lo Fantástico (GEF) invites submission of abstracts focusing on fantastic women creators of the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries, both in literature as well as theatre, cinema, comic, TV or videogames, in any language and from any country.

Main themes:
Theoretical perspectives on the feminine fantastic
The feminist fantastic: ideology, criticism and transgression
Fantastic and feminine identity
Rhetorics of Fear
Female monsters
Fantastic spaces
Fantastic bodies
Representations of sexuality in the fantastic and its neighboring forms (hybridizations with science fiction and the marvelous)

To participate

Abstracts of a maximum of 300 words (including title, author and affiliation) must be submitted to:

visionesdelofantastico@gmail.com

Deadline for submissions is January 15, 2019. The organizing committee will notify the reception of proposals, and those accepted will be contacted before February 15, 2019.

Presentations must not exceed 20 minutes and can be in Spanish, Catalan, Galician, English, French, Italian, and Portuguese.

Those researchers who want to have their papers published as part of the conference proceedings must send them within the deadline (TBA). The academic committee will evaluate the papers and select the best proposals for their inclusion in the proceedings.