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VICFA 3 Errata

Hello, all!

This blog post will be updated daily during VICFA 3 with the latest program errata. Please continue to check back here throughout the IAFA’s annual virtual conference for information on changes to the scheduled programming.

Thanks!

—

Saturday Errata

 

31. Workshop

Puddle Photography and Native American Creation Stories

Nancy Hightower, Author and Photographer

Has been moved to 4-5:30pm ET, Deep Space
—-
ADDED:
Panel Discussion and Author Readings
Modern Legacies of the Mesoamerican Pantheon
Moderating panelist: Michael DeLuca, Reckoning Press
With E.G. Conde and Guillermo Guadarrama Mendoza
6-7:30pm ET, Counter Space
—–
44. Panel Discussion and Author Readings
Writing in Conversation with our Ancestors and Heritages
With Sally Wiener Grotta and Marisca Pichette
6-7:30 pm, Interstellar Space
Now includes Carol B. Duncan, Emily Jiang, and Stina Leicht
—–
ADDED:
POOLSIDE AFTERPARTY
Come join friends and colleagues to debrief, chat, and celebrate! Thank you for being a part of VICFA 3!
9:30-11pm ET, Counter Space

CFP: The Sixth International Symposium on the Poetics of Science Fiction, 17-18 March 2019, Tel-Aviv University

The Sixth International Symposium on the Poetics of Science Fiction

Re-Collections:

Memory, History and Mindspace in Science Fiction

Department of English and American Studies

and the Porter School of Cultural Studies,

Tel-Aviv University

17-18 March 2019

While science fiction excels at alternating between hopeful and bleak visions of possible futures, perhaps the most unsettling scenario the genre has to offer involves modification of individual and/or collective memory. So often thought of as the foundation of identity, memory has been shown to be unstable, malleable and subject to falsification. Science fiction writers have poked and prodded at the basic tenets of cognition and memory, constructing nightmarish visions of identity crises, fractured psyches, and mental projections with the depth and detail of an entire world. But memory is also a collective endeavor, shaping our cultural ontologies and our perception of history. Here as well, SF has shown how manipulation of collective memory is capable of generating dystopian societies and altering our perception of both past and future.

Whether hard or soft, space opera or cyberpunk, technological and ideological encroachment on our memories and minds remains a subject that continues to fascinate authors across space and time: from Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward to George Orwell’s 1984 to Octavia Butler’sKindred, from Philip K. Dick’s “We Can Remember It For you Wholesale” to Roger Zelazny’s The Dream Master to Ted Chiang’s “Story of Your Life” (the basis for the blockbuster movie Arrival). Memory, both individual and collective, remains at the forefront of SF’s engagement with technological, social and psychological change.

Our conference, the sixth in the annual series of SF symposia, is jointly hosted by the Department of English and American Studies and the Porter School of Cultural Studies at Tel-Aviv University, and seeks to address cultural, historical, and narrative questions raised by representations of memory and the mental realm in science fiction. We welcome multimedia, transmedia and interdisciplinary proposals, from literary texts to film and television to video games and more. Topics can include, but are not limited to:

  • Technological manipulation of memory (e.g. false memories, artificial memories, memory transfer/erasure, uploading minds)
  • Artificial intelligence and memory
  • The interrelation between mental, physical and virtual spaces in SF
  • Alternative history and memory
  • Memory and temporality (e.g. time travel)
  • Posthuman and Transhuman memory
  • Alien memory (e.g. “mind-melds” with alien species)
  • Utopian/Dystopian memory
  • Memory as commodity (e.g. cyberpunk)
  • Memory and Nostalgia in the SF genre
  • Digital ghosts and virtual memories

Proposals of up to 300 words for individual papers and/or panels are to be submitted alongside a short bio to egomel@post.tau.ac.il and tausfsymposium@gmail.com by September 30, 2018. Notifications of acceptance will be sent by the end of October 2018.

Facebook Page

 

CFP: Laboring Bodies and the Quantified Self, University of Mannheim, Oct 5-6, 2018

CALL FOR PAPERS: LABORING BODIES AND THE QUANTIFIED SELF

University of Mannheim, Oct 5-6, 2018

The body has become central to practices of self-tracking and self-improvement. Quantifying the self, for example by counting steps, calories, tracking sleep patterns, heart rate, blood pressure etc., aims at optimizing the body. Moreover, new technologies have made it easier and thus more pervasive to monitor, analyze, and control the body as a project. Although self-improvement through quantification can serve to enhance physical performance and well-being, many users are unaware of the economic value of their data. While providing access to a deeper knowledge of the self, our own data and by extension, our bodies, are turned into a commodity, particularly when data is correlated to create specific marketing profiles or when quantification is used to adjust bodies to normative standards. This quantified data of the self is instrumental in unlocking the body’s potential as a laboring body, and in turn, disciplining the individual according to market demands and biopolitical agendas. In this conference, we want to draw critical attention to the role that the laboring body plays in practices, discourses, and literary as well as other cultural representations of the quantified self. Moreover, we want to shed light on the ways that data collection and production redefine what passes as labor, including notions of immaterial and free labor in an increasingly virtual work environment.

We invite abstracts that address but are not limited to the following questions:

What function does quantification have in conceptualizing the body as a laboring body?
How does quantification contribute to disciplining the body?
How have practices of self-tracking, self-monitoring, and self-optimization evolved historically?
How does literature contribute to the redefinition of the laboring body in the context of self-quantification?
What are the specific benefits of literature in imagining, reflecting on, and negotiating the implications of self-tracking practices on the individual and society?
What can an American Studies perspective contribute to the discourse on the quantified self as a laboring body?

Please send abstracts of no more than 350 words to adrei@rumms.uni-mannheim.de by May 15, 2018.

This conference is part of the DFG project ‘Probing the Limits of the Quantified Self: Human Agency and Knowledge in Literature and Culture of the Information Age’

Conference organizers: Prof. Dr. Ulfried Reichardt, Dr. Regina Schober, Stefan Danter, Juliane Strätz

CfP: Edited Collection: Excessive Reflections: Doubles and Other Transmutations in Latin American Gothic

Edited Collection: Excessive Reflections: Doubles and Other Transmutations in Latin American Gothic

deadline for submissions:
November 30, 2017

full name / name of organization:
Edited Collection: Excessive Reflections:

contact email:
antonio.alcala@itesm.mx

Background:

The collection Excessive Reflections focuses on a recurrent motif that is fundamental in the Gothic—the double. Dating back to ancient times and civilizations, the double acquires modern relevance when Otto Rank examines it in his essay published in 1914, and is later quoted by Sigmund Freud in “The Uncanny” (1919). This volume is interested in exploring how this ancient notion acquires tremendous force in a region, Latin America, which is itself defined by duplicity (indigenous/European, autochthonous religions/Catholic). Despite this duplicity and at the same time because of it, this region has also generated “mestizaje”, or forms resulting from racial mixing and hybridity. Special attention will be paid to the eruption of the indigenous through the figure of the nahual (also nawal or nagual), the guardian spirit or alter-ego embodied in animal form, as well as to other doubles and numerous transformations present in Latin American Gothic constructions.

Justification:

In recent years, much attention has been paid to national manifestations of the Gothic, as well as to what Glennis Byron termed “Globalgothic,” “the emergence of cultural and transnational gothics” (Globalgothic 1). Thus, several collections have aimed to examine manifestations of this mode in the Anglophone realm (Scottish, Canadian, American, Australian, etc.), while others have chosen to examine other regions of the world that had been previously overlooked by the Gothic Studies lens, such as Asian Gothic and Latin American Gothic.

Objective:

This collection, then, aims to contribute to the current discussion about the Gothic in Latin America by looking at the doubles and hybrid forms that result from the violent yet culturally fertile process of colonization that took place in the area. This will be done by acknowledging the literary and artistic richness that has been shaped and fueled by a legacy of conquest, as well as the violent encounters and the oppression of indigenous people resulting from the consequent establishment of European hegemony during colonization, but in equal measure by powerful forms of resistance and cultural hybrids that have emerged from this intense phenomenon.

Excessive Reflections aims to answer questions such as:

How central is the presence of doubles, split personalities and hybrid bodies in the discussion around Latin American Gothic?

Is there a connection between the tradition of Magic Realism, a genre native to this region and closely associated to ghostly presences, and the Gothic?

Is there a link between the historical and geographical identity of the region and the presence of doubles in the literature, film and art produced in it?

What is the connection between the presence of hybrid bodies in the present and the pre-Columbian heritage in the area?

Submission process and deadlines (also questions):

Those interested are asked to send a 300 word abstract, plus a 50 word bio note to:

ilsebussing@gmail.com

&

antonio.alcala@itesm.mx

ABSTRACT SUBMISSION DEADLINE: NOVEMBER 30, 2017

COMPLETE ESSAY SUBMISSION DEADLINE: APRIL 30, 2018

CfP: The Fourth Annual Dartmouth Illustration, Comics and Animation Conference. May 26th and 27th, 2018

The Fourth Annual Dartmouth Illustration, Comics and Animation Conference. May 26th and 27th, 2018.

deadline for submissions:
December 1, 2017

full name / name of organization:
Dartmouth College

contact email:
michael.chaney@dartmouth.edu

The Fourth Annual Dartmouth Illustration, Comics and Animation Conference. May 26th and 27th, 2018.

Scholars, artists, and researchers at all levels are encouraged to submit a paper related to the following areas:

Representations of neurodiversity, Autism/Aspergers, cognitive or neurodevelopmental difference, disability studies or medical humanities.
Insurgent pedagogies using visual media, teaching comics beyond the classroom, teaching comics as a form of social justice, visual literacies and social activism.
Images and the sacred, iconophobia and theories of theology and religion in relationship to drawn media.
Adaptations, translations, remixes, transmedial practices.
The futures of visual-verbal media.

Other questions which could become the germ for panels or papers:

Can there be closure in animation?
How do digital technologies impact the comics image?
How do qualities of stasis, simultaneity, and sequence associated with the comics image apply to animation?
In what ways do the word-image tensions of the illustrated book or picture book differ from those of a graphic novel?
What is the phenomenology of the contemporary graphic novel, illustrated book, or animated film?
How do these forms presage the future of the human or the humanities?
And finally, the location of the conference may also be a source of inspiration for prospective participants. Not only does Dartmouth College lie in close proximity to the Center for Cartoon Studies in White River Junction, Vermont, but it is also the historic home of Theodore Geisel (Dr. Seuss).

Interested participants may propose individual papers or panels. Individual papers should be no longer than 20 minutes. Panels shall be ninety minutes long and should be comprised of three presenters and one (ideally separate) panel chair. Please send 300 word abstracts and a brief bio for each proposed paper no later than December 1, 2017.

Send all proposals and inquiries to
michael.chaney@dartmouth.edu

CfP: Generation BioWare conference (December 2017), Wroclaw

Conference website: https://generationbioware.wordpress.com/2017/03/10/generation-bioware-international-academic-conference-wroclaw/

American Literature and Culture Section (Department of English Studies, University of Wrocław) and New Media and Popular Literature Section (Department of Polish Studies, University of Wrocław) invite paper abstracts for “Generation BioWare,” a conference focused exclusively on the Canadian developer and their games.

Founded in 1995, BioWare have been responsible for some of the most acclaimed titles in the history of the industry. The studio’s games are famous for multi-layered narratives and complex characters, both of which originated in titles set in the well-established worlds: Faerûn from the Dungeon and Dragons pen-and-paper RPG system and the Star Wars universe. Since their release, Baldur’s Gate (1998), Baldur’s Gate II: Shadows of Amn (2000), and Knights of the Old Republic (2003) have enjoyed critical and commercial success and the two franchises have enabled the studio to create its own proprietary worlds in Jade Empire (2005), Mass Effect (2007), and Dragon Age: Origins (2009) as well as to further refine story-telling structures, character writing, karmic mechanics, and worldbuilding techniques.

The positive reception of BioWare titles has been accompanied by the development of a dedicated fanbase, whose general video game literacy was centrally shaped by BioWare’s design decisions and techniques. As a result, BioWare games have come to be regarded as templates for many western RPGs: the recent Kickstarter success of Divinity Original Sin (2014), Pillars of Eternity (2015), and Tyranny (2016) can be partly ascribed to the impact the Baldur’s Gate series had on these titles.

Consequently, BioWare’s impact on the medium as well as the industry can be perceived as nothing short of critical. To address this influence, we would like to create a platform for academic exchange and invite submissions from scholars and researchers across disciplines, including game studies, literary studies, linguistics, fan studies, media studies, sociology, and cultural studies.

Suggested areas of research include but are not limited to: • narratology and character research, • literary and ludological dimensions, • sociology of BioWare games and their fan communities, • BioWare games and classic RPGs, • worldbuilding techniques, • narrative techniques, • gameplay design, • poetics of BioWare games, • ethical and moral issues in BioWare games, • localization and adaptation, • paratextuality and transmediality, • video game market and the evolution of BioWare as a studio, • Interplay, BlackIsle, Troika, and Obsidian as competitors and creators of alternative worldbuilding and narrative techniques, • narrative and character design methods, • visuality and sound in BioWare games.

Winners of the 2014 Ditmar Awards

At Continuum X, 6-9 June 2014, the following were the winners and runners-up of the annual Australian SF Awards (Ditmars). Winners in each category are in bold.

Best Novel

Ink Black Magic, Tansy Rayner Roberts (FableCroft Publishing)

Fragments of a Broken Land: Valarl Undead, Robert Hood (Wildside

Press)

The Beckoning, Paul Collins (Damnation Books)

Trucksong, Andrew Macrae (Twelfth Planet Press)

The Only Game in the Galaxy (The Maximus Black Files 3), Paul Collins (Ford Street Publishing)

Best Novella or Novelette

“Prickle Moon”, Juliet Marillier, in Prickle Moon (Ticonderoga

Publications)

“The Year of Ancient Ghosts”, Kim Wilkins, in The Year of Ancient

Ghosts (Ticonderoga Publications)

“By Bone-Light”, Juliet Marillier, in Prickle Moon (Ticonderoga

Publications)

 “The Home for Broken Dolls”, Kirstyn McDermott, in Caution:

Contains Small Parts (Twelfth Planet Press)

“What Amanda Wants”, Kirstyn McDermott, in Caution: Contains Small

Parts (Twelfth Planet Press)

Best Short Story

 “Mah Song”, Joanne Anderton, in The Bone Chime Song and Other

Stories (FableCroft Publishing)

 “Air, Water and the Grove”, Kaaron Warren, in The Lowest Heaven

(Jurassic London)

“Seven Days in Paris”, Thoraiya Dyer, in Asymmetry (Twelfth Planet

Press)

“Scarp”, Cat Sparks, in The Bride Price (Ticonderoga Publications)

 “Not the Worst of Sins”, Alan Baxter, in Beneath Ceaseless Skies 133

(Firkin Press)

“Cold White Daughter”, Tansy Rayner Roberts, in One Small Step

(FableCroft Publishing)

Best Collected Work

The Back of the Back of Beyond, Edwina Harvey, edited by Simon

Petrie (Peggy Bright Books)

Asymmetry , Thoraiya Dyer, edited by Alisa Krasnostein (Twelfth

Planet Press)

Caution: Contains Small Parts, Kirstyn McDermott, edited by Alisa

Krasnostein (Twelfth Planet Press)

The Bone Chime Song and Other Stories, Joanne Anderton, edited by

Tehani Wesseley (FableCroft Publishing)

The Bride Price, Cat Sparks, edited by Russell B. Farr

(Ticonderoga Publications)

Best Artwork

Cover art, Eleanor Clarke, for The Back of the Back of Beyond by

Edwina Harvey (Peggy Bright Books)

Illustrations, Kathleen Jennings, for Eclipse Online (Nightshade

Books)

Cover art, Shauna O’Meara, for Next, edited by Simon Petrie and Rob

Porteous (CSFG Publishing)

Cover art, Cat Sparks, for The Bride Price by Cat Sparks

(Ticonderoga Publications)

Rules of Summer, Shaun Tan (Hachette Australia)

Cover art, Pia Ravenari, for Prickle Moon by Juliet Marillier

(Ticonderoga Publications)

Best Fan Writer

Tsana Dolichva, for body of work, including reviews and interviews

in Tsana’s Reads and Reviews

Sean Wright, for body of work, including reviews in Adventures of

a Bookonaut

Grant Watson, for body of work, including reviews in The Angriest

Foz Meadows, for body of work, including reviews in Shattersnipe:

Malcontent & Rainbows

Alexandra Pierce, for body of work, including reviews in Randomly

Yours, Alex

Tansy Rayner Roberts, for body of work, including essays and reviews

at www.tansyrr.com

Best Fan Artist

Nalini Haynes, for body of work, including “Defender of the Faith”,

“The Suck Fairy”, “Doctor Who vampire” and “The Last Cyberman” in Dark

Matter

Kathleen Jennings, for body of work, including “Illustration

Friday”

Dick Jenssen, for body of work, including cover art for Interstellar

Ramjet Scoop and SF Commentary

Best Fan Publication in Any Medium

Dark Matter Zine, Nalini Haynes

SF Commentary, Bruce Gillespie

The Writer and the Critic, Kirstyn McDermott and Ian Mond

 Galactic Chat Podcast, Sean Wright, Alex Pierce, Helen Stubbs,

David McDonald, and Mark Webb

The Coode Street Podcast, Gary K. Wolfe and Jonathan Strahan

Galactic Suburbia, Alisa Krasnostein, Alex Pierce, and Tansy Rayner

Roberts

Best New Talent

Michelle Goldsmith

Zena Shapter

Faith Mudge

Jo Spurrier

Stacey Larner

William Atheling Jr Award for Criticism or Review

Reviews in Randomly Yours, Alex, Alexandra Pierce

“Things Invisible: Human and Ab-Human in Two of Hodgson’s Carnacki

stories”, Leigh Blackmore, in Sargasso: The Journal of William Hope Hodgson

Studies #1 edited by Sam Gafford (Ulthar Press)

Galactic Suburbia Episode 87: Saga Spoilerific Book Club, Alisa

Krasnostein, Alex Pierce, and Tansy Rayner Roberts

The Reviewing New Who series, David McDonald, Tansy Rayner

Roberts, and Tehani Wessely

“A Puppet’s Parody of Joy: Dolls, Puppets and Mannikins as

Diabolical Other”, Leigh Blackmore, in Ramsey Campbell: Critical Essays on

the Master of Modern Horror edited by Gary William Crawford (Scarecrow

Press)

“That was then, this is now: how my perceptions have changed”,

George Ivanoff, in Doctor Who and Race edited by Lindy Orthia (Intellect

Books)

Volume 55.1 (2014) of Extrapolation Now Available

Dear colleague:

Volume 55.1 (2014) of Extrapolation is now available on the liverpool.metapress.com website at http://liverpool.metapress.com/content/g6114146054k/.

Extrapolation is a leading international journal publishing academic work on the specialized popular culture genres of science fiction and fantasy. You can keep up to date with the journal by clicking here to sign up to new issue alerts, and can learn more about the title at its website page here.

This issue contains:

Contributors

p. i

DOI: 10.3828/extr.2014.1

“Two Sought Adventure”

p. 1

Mark Barr

DOI: 10.3828/extr.2014.2

On the Look-Out for a New Urban Uncanny

p. 25

Lars Schmeink

DOI: 10.3828/extr.2014.3

Critiques of Colonialism in Robin Hobb’s Soldier Son Trilogy

p. 33

Helen Young

DOI: 10.3828/extr.2014.4

Fear of a Stupid Planet

p. 51

James Campbell

DOI: 10.3828/extr.2014.5

Alien as a Comic Book

p. 75

Nicolas Labarre

DOI: 10.3828/extr.2014.6

Reviews of Books

p. 95

Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock, Wan Tang, William Dynes, et al.

DOI: 10.3828/extr.2014.7

Kindest regards

Jonathan

Extrapolation: Call for Reviewers

Call for Reviewers

The following books are available for review in Extrapolation. As always, if we haven’t worked together before, please send me an email explaining who you are and why you are qualified to review a particular book. Thanks!

Charles L. Adler. Wizards, Aliens & Starships: Physics & Math in Fantasy & SF.
Karen Burnham. Greg Egan.
Gerry Canavan and Kim Stanley Robinson, eds. Green Planets: Ecology & SF.
Thomas Clareson & Joe Sanders. The Heritage of Heinlein.
Robert Horton. Frankenstein. (Cultographies Series.)
Lauren J. Lacey. Women Writing Fantastic Fiction.
Peter Lang. Ukranian Science Fiction.
Frenchy Lunning, ed. Mechademia 8: Tezuka’s Manga Life.
Joshua Raulerson. Singularities: Technoculture, Transhumanism & SF in the 21st Century.
John R. Stilgoe. Old Fields: Photography, Glamour and Fantasy Landscape.
J.P. Telotte. Science Fiction TV. (Routledge Television Guidebooks).
Jeffrey Weinstock, ed. The Ashgate Encyclopedia of Literary and Cinematic Monsters.

New Student Caucus Representatives

We are pleased to announce the winners of the Student Caucus election: the next representative to the board will be Skye Cervone, and the Vice-Representative will be Stina Attebery. Congratulations, Skye and Stina!

Their terms will run from August 1, 2014 to July 31, 2016.