The 44th International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts

Afrofuturism

Guest of Honor: Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki

Guest Scholar: Isiah Lavender III

March 15-18, 2023

Orlando Marriott Lakeside Hotel

The theme of the 2023 ICFA will be “Afrofuturism.” If Afrofuturism is rising, as the title of Isiah Lavender III’s groundbreaking study of the literary movement proclaims, or is already risen like Africa itself, as the title of Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki’s jointly edited anthology asserts, it does so as part of a groundswell across fantastic modes, genres and media. From the cosmic artistry of Sun Ra, and iconic visionaries speaking from and for estranged and defamiliarized spaces such as Olaudah Equiano, W.E.B. DuBois, Chinua Achebe, Samuel R. Delany, Octavia E. Butler, Herbie Hancock, Earth, Wind and Fire, Ben Okri, Michelle Cliff, Maryse Condé, Stafford L. Battle, Tananarive Due, Steven Barnes, N.K. Jemisin, Nalo Hopkinson, Tobias L. Buckell, and Nisi Shawl, to fast-rising stars such as Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki, Wanuri Kahiu, Fanuel Leul, Sheree Renée Thomas, Zelda Knight, Manzi Jackson, P. Djeli Clark, Mame Boukouma Diene, Deji Bryce Olukotun, C.L. Clark, Rivers Solomon, Tade Thompson, Dilman Dila, Olatunde Osunsanmi, Justina Ireland, and Tlotlo Tsamaase, the 44th Annual ICFA will celebrate the fantastic imaginations of creators from Africa and its Global Diaspora, crossing linguistic and other identity and communicative boundaries and borders to arrive at Afrofuturism’s unifying, edifying, uplifting, and often terrifying revelations.

Topics may address, but need not be limited to:

• Representations of African-ness in space and time
• Afrofuturism among Othered futurisms
• Depictions of relations in the process of power-shifting by African and Diaspora creatives and scholars addressing race, gender, class, ethnicity, traditional versus colonial nationalities, and/or mechanisms of exclusion, exploitation, appropriation, or reparation, among other topics
• Exploring traditional, colonial and de-colonialist nationalities, ethnicities and boundary-defined affiliations
• Reclaiming and proclaiming by proto-claiming
• Problematics of representations of African-ness by non-African-descent creators
• Gatekeeping, stereotyping, eurocentrism, and the demand for Realism in African and Diaspora works in scholarship and publishing
• Being African or Diaspora in publishing: challenges and best practices regarding acceptance, revision and rejection of works, marketing, finding an agent, getting paid
• New technologies and platforms shaped by Afrofuturism’s creatives, scholars and fans, challenging Eurocentric conceptions of futurism
• Global applications of an Afrofuturist lens
• Chattel enslavement and its legacies, as represented in Afrofuturism
• Globalizing and negotiating identities
• An African and Diaspora canon
• Masking, unmasking and empowerment
• Monstrous, demonic and shapeshifting Afrofuturism
• Afrofuturism troubling, querying and/or challenging concepts of utopias and dystopias
• Pandemics, plagues, poxes, and Afrofuturism: the spread of colonizing, eugenicist, genocidal, and/or resistance infections
• Afrofuturism in languages other than the colonial
• Globalized neoliberalism
• Politics, ideologies and revolution

We welcome proposals for individual papers and for academic sessions and panels on any aspect of Afrofuturism in any media. We encourage work from creatives, institutionally affiliated scholars, independent scholars, international scholars who work on the fantastic in languages other than English, and students.

Proposals not related to the conference theme are also welcome.

Submit abstracts here: https://forms.gle/67JJZeKoSWMyhRvQ8

Abstracts due: October 31st

ICFA 44 Guest of Honor – Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki

Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki is an African speculative fiction writer, editor and publisher from Nigeria. He has won the Nommo award for Best Speculative Fiction by an African, twice, for Short Story and Novella, as well as the Nebula, Otherwise and British Fantasy Awards. He is the first African to have won the Nebula Award for Best Novelette and be a Hugo finalist as well, in the same category. He’ll be the first Black writer to be a Hugo award best editor short form finalist alongside Sheree Renee Thomas and the first BIPOC to be a finalist in both the Hugo Award Editing and Fiction categories in the same year. He has also been a finalist for the Locus, Sturgeon, British Science Fiction and World Fantasy award. His fiction and non-fiction have appeared in Tordotcom, Asimov’s, Uncanny Magazine, Apex Magazine, Strange Horizons, Galaxy’s Edge, Tordotcom, NBC and more.

He edited and published the first ever Year’s Best African Speculative Fiction anthology, a Hugo, WFA, Locus, and BFA finalist, and the non-fiction anthology, Bridging Worlds: Global Conversations on Creating Pan-African Speculative Literature in a Pandemic. He co-edited the British Fantasy award-winning Dominion anthology and the Africa Risen anthology, which has a starred review from Publishers Weekly and Booklist. He guest-edited the collections window of Interstellar Flight Press, is the founder of Jembefola Press and the Emeka Walter Dinjos Memorial Award for Disability in Speculative Fiction. He co-organized the Discon 3 African stream and 2021 Nommo Award ceremony, and is a Guest of Honour at the 2022 Can*Con. He is the first African-born Black writer and the youngest writer to be Guest of Honor at the International Conference for the Fantastic in the Arts 44 taking place in 2023. You can find him on Twitter https://twitter.com/penprince_ and his latest works on his website https://odekpeki.com/2022/09/11/2022-awards-eligibility-post-list/.

Please follow these links to immerse yourself in the works of Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki:

“Destiny Delayed” in the May/June issue of Asimov’s – https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Kl0Iks1M8xk-zMC-FE3Xl3FsNf8Ce4f9/view?usp=drivesdk

Bridging Worlds anthology:

Bridging Worlds: Global Conversations On Creating Pan-African Speculative Literature In a Pandemic

Too Dystopian for Whom? A Continental Nigerian Writer’s Perspective
https://www.uncannymagazine.com/article/too-dystopian-for-whom-a-continental-nigerian-writers-perspective/

Africa Risen anthology pre-order: https://publishing.tor.com/africarisen-shereereneethomas/9781250833006/

Guest Scholar – Dr. Isiah Lavender III

Isiah Lavender III is Sterling-Goodman Professor of English at the University of Georgia, where he researches and teaches courses in African American literature and science fiction. His books include Race in American Science Fiction (Indiana UP, 2011), Black and Brown Planets: The Politics of Race in Science Fiction and Dis-Orienting Planets: Racial Representations of Asia in Science Fiction (UP of Mississippi, 2014 and 2017 respectively), Afrofuturism Rising: The Literary Prehistory of a Movement (Ohio State UP, 2019), and Literary Afrofuturism in the Twenty-First Century (Ohio State UP, 2020), co-edited with Lisa Yaszek. His interview collection Conversations with Nalo Hopkinson is forthcoming from UP of Mississippi in early 2023. He is currently hard at work on The Routledge Handbook of CoFuturisms, co-edited with Bodhisattva Chattopadhyay, Grace Dillon, and Taryne Jade Taylor as well as his manuscript-in-progress, Critical Race Theory and Science Fiction. If you would like to know more about Dr. Lavender, check out https://narrativeencounters.aau.at/how-reading-shapes-us-isiah-lavender/

The title of his ICFA Guest Scholar presentation shall be “Imaginary Amendments and Executive Orders: Race in United States Science Fiction.”

For a list of the IAFA Divisions and Division Heads, see https://iaftfita.wildapricot.org/Division-Heads.

For information about the IAFA BIPOC Caucus, see https://iaftfita.wildapricot.org/BIPOC-Caucus.

For information about the IAFA Student Caucus, see https://iaftfita.wildapricot.org/Student-Caucus.

For more information, visit our website https://iaftfita.wildapricot.org/.

Follow us on Twitter @IAFA_TW. Our conference hashtag is #ICFA44.

“Like” us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FantasticArts/.

To learn more about our Guests of Honor, please see: https://www.fantastic-arts.org/2022/icfa-44-guest-of-honor-and-guest-scholar/

ICFA 44 will feature the debut of some new registration categories. “Underfunded” rates have been added at the student price for anyone without the means to attend ICFA otherwise. Several registration levels now have an optional version called “Supporting Rates.” These are a new option that allows some registrants to help the IAFA support the registrations of underfunded attendees. Those selecting this option will be listed and thanked in the conference program (except for the Late Registration Supporting Rate, which will be listed on the errata paper).

Update: The IAFA Executive Board has decided to extend the submission deadline for the March 2022 ICFA until 11:59 p.m. November 15, Eastern U.S. time.

The 43rd International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts

FANTASTIC COMMUNITIES

March 16-20, 2022

Orlando Marriott Lakeside Airport Hotel

The Oxford English Dictionary defines “community” as the sharing of something: a geographically or politically defined space, an activity (professional or not), a mentality (attitude or interest), an identity (voluntary or inherent), or a legal or economic interest (e.g., ownership, “a commonality of goods”). The fantastic may arguably be understood as a metaphorical collective space occupied by communities that self-identify  based on a shared interest in the creation, appreciate and/or study of the fantastic arts, activities that frequently have financial and sometimes legal dimensions.

The theme of the 2022 ICFA will be fantastic communities. The IAFA invites proposals for papers, paper sessions, panels and roundtables on the representation of communities in works belonging to the fantastic genres in any media, or on any aspect of one or more fantastic communities. Why do they exist, what do they do, what challenges and/or opportunities do they face, or how do they and their members interact internally or with other communities. This topic includes both the representation of communities in works belonging to the fantastic genres in all media and the various communities that exist within its creation, mediation, interpretation, valorization and consumption. Examples of such communities would be the creators of narrative, film, music, gaming and other arts; the enterprises that develop, fabricate, market and provide the product to consumers (publishing, film and television, music and video game production companies—both commercial and non-profit—, as well as translators and editors); the various groups constituting the category of consumers: readers, viewers, gamers, listeners and the others commonly known collectively as “fandom”. Commercial and not-for-profit scholarly presses, magazines and literary reviews, scholarly journals, editors, and scholars and critics also form part of the world of fantastic communities. Within each segment of this world, communities self-organize into collectives such as fan clubs, creative or scholarly organizations and trade groups, to cite but a few examples. These are many times organized around identities of nation, language, gender, race, ethnicity or even ideology. The activities of these communities are equally multitudinous and diverse: from producing works to evaluating, developing and delivering them to a public; sharing information, common interests and opinions; and judging or interpreting works in the fantastic.

Topics may include, but are not limited to:

• Analyses of how “communities” are represented in fantastic works. Why are they represented a certain way, in a certain place, at a certain time?
• Relations of power in representation of community in fantastic works: race, gender, class, ethnicity, nationality; mechanisms of exclusion, exploitation, appropriation, etc.
• Relations of power are at play within or between fantastic communities. What challenges and opportunities do communities face in achieving greater social justice within its ranks or without? Examples of topics of interest would be challenges or best practices regarding acceptance/rejection of works or scholarship (gatekeeping), reviews, awards; the job market, salaries, promotions and positions in leadership, and equity in funding opportunities.
• How new media technologies and platforms (podcasts, blogs, fan sites, informational web sites) has been used by and shaped by fantastic communities. Have they changed the nature of the fantastic itself, how it is conceived, perceived or defined and if so, how?
• Economic factors and fantastic communities: the effects of globalized neoliberalism.
• Politics, ideologies and fantastic communities. How have they changed the nature and functioning of a fantastic community or communities?
• Fantastic communities and the nation state: to what extent is national identity still relevant in our ever-more globalized world? Is there an “international canon”? Can one be created?
• Fantastic communities and languages: What is the relationship between language and the creation, development, and delivery of fantastic arts? Is a global fandom possible and, if so, how can it be created? How does the creative community go about marketing to other cultures? What are the roles of the production/publishing companies, editors and translators in this process, what challenges and opportunities do they face?
• COVID-19 and fantastic communities: How has the pandemic affected and changes the nature of fantastic communities and how they operate? What are the challenges and opportunities created by it? What might the future hold?

We also welcome proposals for individual papers and for academic sessions and panels on any aspect of the fantastic in any media.  We encourage work from institutionally affiliated scholars, independent scholars, international scholars who work on the fantastic in languages other than English, and students.

The conference will feature Guest of Honor Nisi Shawl and Guest Scholar Farah Mendlesohn. We encourage proposals that engage the work of these two distinguished guests.

The submissions portal is open (https://www.fantastic-arts.org/icfa-submissions/) and the deadline is 11/15/2021. Further instructions regarding submissions will be available at this link, including instructions regarding how to prepare submissions, IAFA’s Division Structure and Division Head contact information where questions may be sent.

GUEST OF HONOR: Nisi Shawl

Multiple award-winning author and editor Nisi Shawl is best known for fiction dealing with gender, race, and colonialism, including the 2016 Nebula Award finalist Everfair, an alternate and more optimistic history of Africa’s Congo region.  They’re the co-author of Writing the Other: A Practical Approach, a standard text teaching techniques for inclusive representation in fiction, and a co-founder of the Carl Brandon Society, an inclusivity-focused nonprofit.  They’re also a critic and essayist, with work appearing in Ms. Magazine, the Washington Post, Uncanny Magazine, and other periodicals, and as the introduction to a volume of the Library of America.  They have spoken at Duke University, Spelman College, Sarah Lawrence College, University of Hawaii Manoa, and many other institutions, both in person and online.

Shawl has edited and co-edited several anthologies, including Strange Matings: Science Fiction, Feminism, African American Voices, and Octavia E. Butler; Stories for Chip: A Tribute to Samuel R. Delany; and New Suns: Speculative Fiction by People of Color.  Their short story collection Filter House is a co-winner of the Otherwise Award, formerly the James Tiptree, Jr. Award.  Additional awards include the Kate Wilhelm Solstice Award, the World Fantasy Award, two Locus Awards, and an inaugural 2020 FIYAH Magazine Ignyte Award.  They have served for over two decades on the board of the Clarion West Writers Workshop.  Both Shawl and their cat, Minnie, like to watch birds–but for very different reasons.

GUEST SCHOLAR: Farah Mendlesohn

Farah Mendlesohn won a Hugo with Edward James in 2005 for The Cambridge Companion to Fantasy Literature. She is also the author of Diana Wynne Jones: The Fantastic Tradition and Children’s Literature, Rhetorics of Fantasy, with Edward James, A Short History of Fantasy, The Inter-galactic Playground: A Critical Study of Children’s and Teens’ Science Fiction, with Michael M. Levy (President of IAFA from 2004 to 2007) Children’s Fantasy Literature: An Introduction, which won the World Fantasy Award and the Mythopeic Award in 2017. In 2019 year she published, The Pleasant Profession of Robert A. Heinlein, and and her book, Creating Memory: Historical Fiction and the English Civil Wars was published in 2020. She was President of IAFA from 2007 to 2010.

*Join us in Orlando in 2022.  We will add your intellectual and creative distinctiveness to our own.  Resistance is futile.*

The submission portal for ICFA 43: Fantastic Communities will be opening on October 4th, rather than August 31st as was stated on the original CFP. This is to reduce confusion with our upcoming special symposium. The updated CFP can be found below.

Best,

Emily Midkiff

IAFA Registrar

The 43rd International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts

FANTASTIC COMMUNITIES

March 16-20, 2022

Orlando Marriott Lakeside Airport Hotel 

The Oxford English Dictionary defines “community” as the sharing of something: a geographically or politically defined space, an activity (professional or not), a mentality (attitude or interest), an identity (voluntary or inherent), or a legal or economic interest (e.g., ownership, “a commonality of goods”). The fantastic may arguably be understood as a metaphorical collective space occupied by communities that self-identify  based on a shared interest in the creation, appreciate and/or study of the fantastic arts, activities that frequently have financial and sometimes legal dimensions.

The theme of the 2022 ICFA will be fantastic communities. The IAFA invites proposals for papers, paper sessions, panels and roundtables on the representation of communities in works belonging to the fantastic genres in any media, or on any aspect of one or more fantastic communities. Why do they exist, what do they do, what challenges and/or opportunities do they face, or how do they and their members interact internally or with other communities. This topic includes both the representation of communities in works belonging to the fantastic genres in all media and the various communities that exist within its creation, mediation, interpretation, valorization and consumption. Examples of such communities would be the creators of narrative, film, music, gaming and other arts; the enterprises that develop, fabricate, market and provide the product to consumers (publishing, film and television, music and video game production companies—both commercial and non-profit—, as well as translators and editors); the various groups constituting the category of consumers: readers, viewers, gamers, listeners and the others commonly known collectively as “fandom”. Commercial and not-for-profit scholarly presses, magazines and literary reviews, scholarly journals, editors, and scholars and critics also form part of the world of fantastic communities. Within each segment of this world, communities self-organize into collectives such as fan clubs, creative or scholarly organizations and trade groups, to cite but a few examples. These are many times organized around identities of nation, language, gender, race, ethnicity or even ideology. The activities of these communities are equally multitudinous and diverse: from producing works to evaluating, developing and delivering them to a public; sharing information, common interests and opinions; and judging or interpreting works in the fantastic.

Topics may include, but are not limited to:

• Analyses of how “communities” are represented in fantastic works. Why are they represented a certain way, in a certain place, at a certain time?
• Relations of power in representation of community in fantastic works: race, gender, class, ethnicity, nationality; mechanisms of exclusion, exploitation, appropriation, etc.
• Relations of power are at play within or between fantastic communities. What challenges and opportunities do communities face in achieving greater social justice within its ranks or without? Examples of topics of interest would be challenges or best practices regarding acceptance/rejection of works or scholarship (gatekeeping), reviews, awards; the job market, salaries, promotions and positions in leadership, and equity in funding opportunities.
• How new media technologies and platforms (podcasts, blogs, fan sites, informational web sites) has been used by and shaped by fantastic communities. Have they changed the nature of the fantastic itself, how it is conceived, perceived or defined and if so, how?
• Economic factors and fantastic communities: the effects of globalized neoliberalism.
• Politics, ideologies and fantastic communities. How have they changed the nature and functioning of a fantastic community or communities?
• Fantastic communities and the nation state: to what extent is national identity still relevant in our ever-more globalized world? Is there an “international canon”? Can one be created?
• Fantastic communities and languages: What is the relationship between language and the creation, development, and delivery of fantastic arts? Is a global fandom possible and, if so, how can it be created? How does the creative community go about marketing to other cultures? What are the roles of the production/publishing companies, editors and translators in this process, what challenges and opportunities do they face?
• COVID-19 and fantastic communities: How has the pandemic affected and changes the nature of fantastic communities and how they operate? What are the challenges and opportunities created by it? What might the future hold?

We also welcome proposals for individual papers and for academic sessions and panels on any aspect of the fantastic in any media.  We encourage work from institutionally affiliated scholars, independent scholars, international scholars who work on the fantastic in languages other than English, and students.

The conference will feature Guest of Honor Nisi Shawl and Guest Scholar Farah Mendlesohn. We encourage proposals that engage the work of these two distinguished guests.

The submissions portal will open on 10/4/2021 (https://www.fantastic-arts.org/icfa-submissions/) and the deadline is 10/31/2021. Further instructions regarding submissions will be available at this link, including instructions regarding how to prepare submissions, IAFA’s Division Structure and Division Head contact information where questions may be sent. More information forthcoming.

GUEST OF HONOR: Nisi Shawl

Multiple award-winning author and editor Nisi Shawl is best known for fiction dealing with gender, race, and colonialism, including the 2016 Nebula Award finalist Everfair, an alternate and more optimistic history of Africa’s Congo region.  They’re the co-author of Writing the Other: A Practical Approach, a standard text teaching techniques for inclusive representation in fiction, and a co-founder of the Carl Brandon Society, an inclusivity-focused nonprofit.  They’re also a critic and essayist, with work appearing in Ms. Magazine, the Washington Post, Uncanny Magazine, and other periodicals, and as the introduction to a volume of the Library of America.  They have spoken at Duke University, Spelman College, Sarah Lawrence College, University of Hawaii Manoa, and many other institutions, both in person and online.

Shawl has edited and co-edited several anthologies, including Strange Matings: Science Fiction, Feminism, African American Voices, and Octavia E. Butler; Stories for Chip: A Tribute to Samuel R. Delany; and New Suns: Speculative Fiction by People of Color.  Their short story collection Filter House is a co-winner of the Otherwise Award, formerly the James Tiptree, Jr. Award.  Additional awards include the Kate Wilhelm Solstice Award, the World Fantasy Award, two Locus Awards, and an inaugural 2020 FIYAH Magazine Ignyte Award.  They have served for over two decades on the board of the Clarion West Writers Workshop.  Both Shawl and their cat, Minnie, like to watch birds–but for very different reasons.

GUEST SCHOLAR: Farah Mendlesohn

Farah Mendlesohn won a Hugo with Edward James in 2005 for The Cambridge Companion to Fantasy Literature. She is also the author of Diana Wynne Jones: The Fantastic Tradition and Children’s Literature, Rhetorics of Fantasy, with Edward James, A Short History of Fantasy, The Inter-galactic Playground: A Critical Study of Children’s and Teens’ Science Fiction, with Michael M. Levy (President of IAFA from 2004 to 2007) Children’s Fantasy Literature: An Introduction, which won the World Fantasy Award and the Mythopeic Award in 2017. In 2019 year she published, The Pleasant Profession of Robert A. Heinlein, and and her book, Creating Memory: Historical Fiction and the English Civil Wars was published in 2020. She was President of IAFA from 2007 to 2010.

*Join us in Orlando in 2022.  We will add your intellectual and creative distinctiveness to our own.  Resistance is futile.*

Update: The IAFA Executive Board has decided to extend the submission deadline for the March 2022 ICFA until 11:59 p.m. November 15, Eastern U.S. time.

The 43rd International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts

FANTASTIC COMMUNITIES

March 16-20, 2022

Orlando Marriott Lakeside Airport Hotel

The Oxford English Dictionary defines “community” as the sharing of something: a geographically or politically defined space, an activity (professional or not), a mentality (attitude or interest), an identity (voluntary or inherent), or a legal or economic interest (e.g., ownership, “a commonality of goods”). The fantastic may arguably be understood as a metaphorical collective space occupied by communities that self-identify  based on a shared interest in the creation, appreciate and/or study of the fantastic arts, activities that frequently have financial and sometimes legal dimensions.

The theme of the 2022 ICFA will be fantastic communities. The IAFA invites proposals for papers, paper sessions, panels and roundtables on the representation of communities in works belonging to the fantastic genres in any media, or on any aspect of one or more fantastic communities. Why do they exist, what do they do, what challenges and/or opportunities do they face, or how do they and their members interact internally or with other communities. This topic includes both the representation of communities in works belonging to the fantastic genres in all media and the various communities that exist within its creation, mediation, interpretation, valorization and consumption. Examples of such communities would be the creators of narrative, film, music, gaming and other arts; the enterprises that develop, fabricate, market and provide the product to consumers (publishing, film and television, music and video game production companies—both commercial and non-profit—, as well as translators and editors); the various groups constituting the category of consumers: readers, viewers, gamers, listeners and the others commonly known collectively as “fandom”. Commercial and not-for-profit scholarly presses, magazines and literary reviews, scholarly journals, editors, and scholars and critics also form part of the world of fantastic communities. Within each segment of this world, communities self-organize into collectives such as fan clubs, creative or scholarly organizations and trade groups, to cite but a few examples. These are many times organized around identities of nation, language, gender, race, ethnicity or even ideology. The activities of these communities are equally multitudinous and diverse: from producing works to evaluating, developing and delivering them to a public; sharing information, common interests and opinions; and judging or interpreting works in the fantastic.

Topics may include, but are not limited to:

• Analyses of how “communities” are represented in fantastic works. Why are they represented a certain way, in a certain place, at a certain time?
• Relations of power in representation of community in fantastic works: race, gender, class, ethnicity, nationality; mechanisms of exclusion, exploitation, appropriation, etc.
• Relations of power are at play within or between fantastic communities. What challenges and opportunities do communities face in achieving greater social justice within its ranks or without? Examples of topics of interest would be challenges or best practices regarding acceptance/rejection of works or scholarship (gatekeeping), reviews, awards; the job market, salaries, promotions and positions in leadership, and equity in funding opportunities.
• How new media technologies and platforms (podcasts, blogs, fan sites, informational web sites) has been used by and shaped by fantastic communities. Have they changed the nature of the fantastic itself, how it is conceived, perceived or defined and if so, how?
• Economic factors and fantastic communities: the effects of globalized neoliberalism.
• Politics, ideologies and fantastic communities. How have they changed the nature and functioning of a fantastic community or communities?
• Fantastic communities and the nation state: to what extent is national identity still relevant in our ever-more globalized world? Is there an “international canon”? Can one be created?
• Fantastic communities and languages: What is the relationship between language and the creation, development, and delivery of fantastic arts? Is a global fandom possible and, if so, how can it be created? How does the creative community go about marketing to other cultures? What are the roles of the production/publishing companies, editors and translators in this process, what challenges and opportunities do they face?
• COVID-19 and fantastic communities: How has the pandemic affected and changes the nature of fantastic communities and how they operate? What are the challenges and opportunities created by it? What might the future hold?

We also welcome proposals for individual papers and for academic sessions and panels on any aspect of the fantastic in any media.  We encourage work from institutionally affiliated scholars, independent scholars, international scholars who work on the fantastic in languages other than English, and students.

The conference will feature Guest of Honor Nisi Shawl and Guest Scholar Farah Mendlesohn. We encourage proposals that engage the work of these two distinguished guests.

The submissions portal will open on 10/4/2021 (https://www.fantastic-arts.org/icfa-submissions/) and the deadline is 10/31/2021. Further instructions regarding submissions will be available at this link, including instructions regarding how to prepare submissions, IAFA’s Division Structure and Division Head contact information where questions may be sent. More information forthcoming.

GUEST OF HONOR: Nisi Shawl

Multiple award-winning author and editor Nisi Shawl is best known for fiction dealing with gender, race, and colonialism, including the 2016 Nebula Award finalist Everfair, an alternate and more optimistic history of Africa’s Congo region.  They’re the co-author of Writing the Other: A Practical Approach, a standard text teaching techniques for inclusive representation in fiction, and a co-founder of the Carl Brandon Society, an inclusivity-focused nonprofit.  They’re also a critic and essayist, with work appearing in Ms. Magazine, the Washington Post, Uncanny Magazine, and other periodicals, and as the introduction to a volume of the Library of America.  They have spoken at Duke University, Spelman College, Sarah Lawrence College, University of Hawaii Manoa, and many other institutions, both in person and online.

Shawl has edited and co-edited several anthologies, including Strange Matings: Science Fiction, Feminism, African American Voices, and Octavia E. Butler; Stories for Chip: A Tribute to Samuel R. Delany; and New Suns: Speculative Fiction by People of Color.  Their short story collection Filter House is a co-winner of the Otherwise Award, formerly the James Tiptree, Jr. Award.  Additional awards include the Kate Wilhelm Solstice Award, the World Fantasy Award, two Locus Awards, and an inaugural 2020 FIYAH Magazine Ignyte Award.  They have served for over two decades on the board of the Clarion West Writers Workshop.  Both Shawl and their cat, Minnie, like to watch birds–but for very different reasons.

GUEST SCHOLAR: Farah Mendlesohn

Farah Mendlesohn won a Hugo with Edward James in 2005 for The Cambridge Companion to Fantasy Literature. She is also the author of Diana Wynne Jones: The Fantastic Tradition and Children’s Literature, Rhetorics of Fantasy, with Edward James, A Short History of Fantasy, The Inter-galactic Playground: A Critical Study of Children’s and Teens’ Science Fiction, with Michael M. Levy (President of IAFA from 2004 to 2007) Children’s Fantasy Literature: An Introduction, which won the World Fantasy Award and the Mythopeic Award in 2017. In 2019 year she published, The Pleasant Profession of Robert A. Heinlein, and and her book, Creating Memory: Historical Fiction and the English Civil Wars was published in 2020. She was President of IAFA from 2007 to 2010.

*Join us in Orlando in 2022.  We will add your intellectual and creative distinctiveness to our own.  Resistance is futile.*