Skip navigation

Call for Applications: Gothic and Horror Division Head

The International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts is accepting applications for the position of Division Head of the Gothic and Horror (GAH) Division. (Please see division description below.)

Division Heads are appointed by the President, on the recommendation of the First Vice-President, who chairs the Council of Division Heads, after formal discussion and majority vote of the Board. The term is for three years. The GAH Division Head will begin immediately without a shadow year.

Each Division Head organizes and supervises all conference activity within a subdivision of fantastic scholarship. Division Heads work under the guidance of the First Vice-President. Division Heads are responsible for recruiting session proposals and papers and are responsible for formatting these to the requirements of the First Vice-President. Division Heads are responsible for forwarding all information to the First Vice-President in a timely fashion. Division Heads have the responsibility to check the draft program for accuracy and AV needs. Division Heads are expected to liaise with other Division Heads and the First Vice-President. The First Vice-President is the final arbiter of the program under the aegis of the Executive Board. At the conference the Division Heads oversee sessions in their respective Divisions and collect suggestions for future topics, special guests, etc.

Those interested in applying must send a cover letter explaining their interest in and qualifications for the position, and a current CV, to the First Vice-President, Valorie Ebert at iafa.1vp@fantastic-arts.org, no later than 20 May 2019.

Division description:
The Gothic and Horror Literature division focuses not only on Gothic and Horror as often-overlapping literary modes, but also on closely related modes including the Grotesque and the Weird. Papers may explore any aspect of literary horror (including but not limited to body horror, psychological horror, philosophical horror, or folk horror) including the evolution, cultural significance, and theory of horror. Papers exploring related topics, such as the role of the supernatural, the sublime, monstrosity, or affects including horror, terror, dread or anxiety, as well as interconnections between horror literature and other media, including film, comics and games, are also welcome.

2019 Dell Magazines Award for Undergraduate Excellence in Science Fiction and Fantasy Writing

Ana Maria Curtis Named 2019 Dell Magazines Award Winner

The International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts and Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine have named Ana Maria Curtis of Swarthmore College the winner of the 2019 Dell Magazines Award for Undergraduate Excellence in Science Fiction and Fantasy Writing, for the story, “Military Sunset.”

First Runner-up for the 2019 award is Cody D. Campbell of Oregon State University for the story, “Crossing Over.”

Second Runner-up for the 2019 award is Wenmimareba Klobah Collins of the University of Puerto Rico – Rio Piedras Campus for the story, “Unexplained Phenomena.”

Third Runner-up for the 2019 award is Joseph O’Connor of Florida Gulf Coast University for the story, “Music in the Other Room.”

Honorable Mentions for the 2019 award go to Emmalee Gagnon from Arcadia University for the story “Say Her Name,” Josephine Su from the University of Alberta for the story “The Gilding of the Stray,” Claire Spaulding of Columbia University for the story “Baucis,” and Arthur Davis of Swarthmore College for the story “Gawain.”

Curtis attended the annual International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts, March 13-16, 2019, to receive the award plaque and a check for $500 from Sheila Williams, Editor of Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine during the conference awards banquet. Collins, Spaulding and Davis also attended the conference and received their certificate awards from Williams during the awards banquet.

Also in attendance as part of the celebration of the Dell Award’s twenty-fifth year of recognizing and celebrating the best in undergraduate writing in science fiction and fantasy was the first winner of the award, Eric Choi, Canadian aerospace engineer and science-fiction and fantasy writer and editor, who won the 1994 award for the story, “Dedication,” which he wrote as an undergraduate at the University of Toronto.

The deadline for submissions for the 2020 Dell Magazines Award is 11:59 p.m. on January 7, 2020. Submissions should be made through the award’s website at www.dellaward.com. The award also has a site on Facebook. For more information or submission guidelines contact Award Director Dr. Rick Wilber (Rickwilber@tampabay.rr.com) or see the magazine’s website.

The International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts is a worldwide network of scholars, educators, writers, artists, filmmakers, critics, editors, publishers, and performers who
share an interest in studying and celebrating the fantastic in all artforms, disciplines and media: literature, art, film, drama, music, philosophy, religion, the sciences, popular culture, and interdisciplinary areas. IAFA publishes an interdisciplinary quarterly, Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts, the IAFA Newsletter, and an annual IAFA Membership Directory. IAFA also sponsors and organizes the annual International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts (ICFA), which hosts the world’s broadest and largest selection of scholarly papers on the fantastic and has become the major forum for the exchange of ideas and dissemination of scholarship on the
fantastic.

The Dell Magazines Award for Undergraduate Excellence in Science Fiction and Fantasy Writing is co-sponsored by Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine and the International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts and supported by Western Colorado University’s Graduate Program in Creative Writing, Low-Residency MA and MFA, Genre Fiction Concentration.

CFP: The Senses of Science Fiction: Visions, Sounds, Spaces (Warsaw, December 2019)

The Senses of Science Fiction: Visions, Sounds, Spaces

An international conference organized by the Speculative Texts and Media Research Group, American Studies Center, University of Warsaw

December 5-7, 2019
University of Warsaw, Poland

For most of its history, or at least since the late 19th century, the core conversations of science fiction (SF) have not been kind to the senses. For different reasons in different decades, the creative communities and the critical circles have focused on the genre’s status as the supreme expression of western technomodernity, its imbrications with the discourses of science and technology, and its subversive political potential. While always already present in SF’s structural, material, and creative dimensions, the formal, the aesthetic, and the sensible have been largely neglected at the expense of the functional, the political, and the cognitive. The questions of language and literary style have been discussed only with regard to selected writers, such as J.G. Ballard or William Gibson, while spectacle in film and television has been treated with a degree of suspicion and distrust—as something that dilutes the core values of rigorous speculation. Other less narrative media—forms in which the aesthetic plays the central role—have received very little or virtually no critical attention. And yet, for all its scientific bent and political urgency, science fiction has always strived to appeal to the senses and to instill in its audiences a sense of the beautiful, the harmonious, and the sublime.

The notion of aisthesis, that is sense perception, has recently regained prominence in humanities, playing a significant part in the philosophy of speculative realism, the turn towards the posthuman, and the shift away from anthropocentrism brought about by the increasingly widely embraced paradigm of the Anthropocene. In recognition of this newfound appreciation of the aesthetic, this conference seeks to recuperate the invisible and forgotten history of the sensible in the cultures of science fiction. It also seeks to find new ways of talking about these dimensions of SF texts across all media that in one way or another appeal to and engage all things sensible: sight, hearing, touch, movement, composition, but also smell, taste, auras, and speculative senses. Such attentiveness to the sensory in science fiction does not entail abandoning narrative, political, or scientific perspectives. Indeed, historically, many cultural forms have successfully intertwined formal elegance with political agency and emotional appeal with philosophical reflection. We believe science fiction is—and has always been—among these forms.

While the conference specifically namechecks science fiction, we follow in the footsteps of Sherryl Vint, Mark Bould, and John Rieder, treating the genre as a practice and a discourse, rather than an object of finite parameters. In fact, from a more traditional perspective, many SF texts that appeal to the senses as much as to the mind have been generically “impure,” borderline, slipstream, or otherwise hybrid.

Possible topics and areas of inquiry include, but are not limited to, the following:

styles and schools in science fiction literature and media
aesthetics and politics
aesthetics and fantastic identities (race, gender, sexuality)
science fiction sublime(s)
science fiction art, illustration, graphics
science fiction music, radio, and podcasts
fantastic architectures: real, visionary, speculative
design and typography
science fiction and stage arts: theater, opera, dance
SF art in/of the Anthropocene
outsider art
non-western SF aesthetics
speculative avant-gardes
new materialist perspectives on science fiction
affects, senses, and sensations in science fiction
hapticity and tactility in science fiction texts
immersive worlds of science fiction
the virtual and the actual
fantastic synaesthesias
senses and sensations of SF universes and franchises
SF soundscapes in movies, television, music, and games
science fiction fashion: upcycling, recycling, DIY, slow fashion, haute couture
sounds and spaces of Ethnofuturisms: Afrofuturism, Sinofuturism, Gulf Futurism, and others
material-discursive entanglements of science fiction
spatial dis/orientation
science fiction aesthetics around the world
social inequalities and aesthetic differences

For individual papers, please send proposals of up to 300 words. For multiple participant formats (e.g. discussion panels, roundtables, etc.), proposals may be up to 500 words long. We also welcome and encourage non-traditional forms of participation and presentation: performances, lightning presentations (1 slide & 5 minutes), speed panels, poster discussions, and others. Pre-formed multiple participant panels that are all-male will not be considered for inclusion in the conference. All submissions should be sent to SFSenses2019@gmail.com by May 1, 2019. Applicants will receive a response by May 15, 2019.

Keynote speakers will be announced in early April 2019, when the conference website opens.

Any questions and inquiries can be addressed to SFSenses2019@gmail.com .

The Organizing Committee:

Filip Boratyn
Jędrzej Burszta
Paweł Frelik (chair)
Agnieszka Kotwasińska
Stanisław Krawczyk
Anna Kurowicka

CFP: Embodying Fantastika, an Interdisciplinary Conference, 8-10 August 2019, Lancaster University, UK

  • March 20, 2019 – 4:50 pm
  • Posted in CFP
  • Comments Off on CFP: Embodying Fantastika, an Interdisciplinary Conference, 8-10 August 2019, Lancaster University, UK

Please see the linked CFP for Embodying Fantastika, an Interdisciplinary Conference, 8-10 August 2019, Lancaster University, UK

Keynote Speakers Sherryl Vint (UC Riverside, USA) and Sara Wasson (Lancaster, UK)

Embodying Fantastika CFP

ICFA 40 “Politics and Conflict” Really Final Note!

ICFA 40 “Politics and Conflict”

When: March 13–16, 2019

Where: Marriott Orlando Airport Hotel, Orlando, Florida, USA

Guest Scholar: Mark Bould (University of the West of England)

Guest Author: G. Willow Wilson (Ms. Marvel, Alif the Unseen)

SEE YOU SOON

Thanks for registering for ICFA 40! Are you somehow unable to make it? Please let me know so I can inform any relevant people and ensure your attendance is canceled in the computer system. We don’t give refunds this late but rather will credit you; you must use the credit within 2 years.

WE HAVE AN APP FOR THAT

ICFA 40 is available to registered attendees via the Sched app! Although we have hard-copy schedules in both long and short forms for your use, the app will be continuously updated and therefore will be the most correct.

You can access Sched in both a web browser and through the app. You will need a password for either one. Please see the email account linked to your IAFA membership for the password.

In a web browser…

Website: https://icfa40politicsandconflict20.sched.com/
You will now be able to see a schedule of sessions, which you can filter.
From Schedule, you have several other options. Click around and have fun!

In the Sched app…

Download the app to your phone.
At the search prompt, type “icfa” and you should see the ICFA40 conference, which you must select.
The app view of sessions is like the pocket program. It is not as detailed as the web browser view.
If you have created an account, you can add and remove sessions from your personal schedule through the app. We encourage you to add a headshot to your profile.

IMPORTANT NOTES

View ICFA’s Accessibility Policy: http://www.fantastic-arts.org/2016/icfa-accessibility-policy/

Please note that the hotel’s airport shuttle is not handicapped accessible.

We sent out a survey regarding the future of the conference, particularly in regard to cost and travel-related challenges. We want to hear your voice. Please plan to attend an important business meeting to discuss this topic on Thursday, March 14, 2019, at 6p in Captiva.

Highly collectible merch featuring this year’s artwork will be available for purchase at the Registration desk. Meal tickets will be available for purchase until sold out ($48 for the luncheons and $65 for the banquet). Outstanding membership and registration fees must be paid before you can get your packet. The Reg desk accepts cash, checks, and credit cards (but cannot take AmEx on site).

This year’s hashtag is #ICFA40.

REMEMBER TO BRING…

Your stylish IAFA badge holder. (If you don’t yet have one, they are available for purchase on site for $5.) Pro tip: put it in your luggage and leave it there at all times.
Your computer dongle if you are using AV.
Your call for papers, graduate program description, or other handout you wish to target to this specialized audience. A table is set aside for these handouts. Pro tip: People have stopped taking handouts in favor of photographing them on their phones. Design accordingly!

SOCIAL MEDIA
IAFA Listserv: http://lists.iafa.org/listinfo.cgi/iafa-l-iafa.org
IAFA on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FantasticArts/?fref=ts
IAFA on Twitter: https://twitter.com/iafa_tw?lang=en
Student Caucus (SCIAFA) on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/833849033305627/

I’m on site already, so if you get here early, ping me if you like, although warning! you may be pressed into service. See you soon!

Karen Hellekson, IAFA Registrar (iafareg AT gmail.com)

IAFA Business Meeting at ICFA 40

Please join us for this year’s IAFA Business Meeting on Thursday, March 14th at 6:00 PM in Captiva. Concerns about costs and travel-related challenges have us concerned about the future of ICFA. Come discuss the survey results and the options moving forward for the future of our conference.

We look forward to seeing you in Orlando!

This year’s hashtag is #ICFA40
IAFA Listserv: http://lists.iafa.org/listinfo.cgi/iafa-l-iafa.org
IAFA on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FantasticArts/?fref=ts
IAFA on Twitter: https://twitter.com/iafa_tw?lang=en
Student Caucus (SCIAFA) on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/833849033305627/

Mullen Archival Research Fellowships; DEADLINE 4/2/19

Call for Applications: R.D. Mullen Fellowships

 

Named for the founder of our journal, Richard “Dale” Mullen (1915-1998), the Mullen fellowships are awarded by Science Fiction Studies to support archival research in science fiction.

 

We have three categories of awards:

 

  1. Postdoctoral Research Fellowship

Amount: Up to $3000

Number: 2 awards each year

Qualifications: Candidates must have received their PhD degree but must not hold (or be contracted to begin) a tenure-track position. Also eligible are ABD students who have not yet been conferred their degree but who are scheduled to do so before taking up the award, for research in support of a new project only. The relation between the new research and the topic of the dissertation should be clarified in the proposal, particularly in cases of closely related projects.

 

  1. PhD Research Fellowship

Amount: Up to $2000

Number: 3 awards each year

Qualifications: Research must be in support of a dissertation, and students may apply at any stage of their degree. The proposal should make it clear that applicants have familiarized themselves in some detail with the resources available at the library or archive they propose to use. Projects with an overall science fiction emphasis, other things being equal, will receive priority over projects with a more tangential relationship to the field.

 

  1. MA Thesis Research Fellowship

Amount: Up to $1000

Number: 1 award each year

Qualifications: Candidates may be in an MA program or in the MA phase of a combined graduate program. The award must be used in support of a graduate research project, which may be an article or an MA thesis. The proposal should specify which materials are unique to the archive the student proposes to visit and why they are essential to the project.

 

Application Process

 

All projects must centrally investigate science fiction, of any nation, culture, medium or era.

 

Project descriptions should concisely but clearly

  1. Define the project,
  2. Include a statement describing the relationship of this project to science fiction as a genre and to sf criticism as a practice,
  3. show familiarity with the specific holdings and strengths of the archive in which the proposed research will be conducted to explain why archival research is essential to the project, and
  4. Offer a research plan (including time frame and budget) that is practical for the time-frame proposed.

 

Applications may propose research in—but need not limit themselves to—specialized sf archives such as the Eaton Collection at UC Riverside, the Maison d’Ailleurs in Switzerland, the Judith Merril Collection in Toronto, or the SF Foundation Collection in Liverpool. Proposals for work in general archives with relevant sf holdings—authors’ papers, for example—are also welcome.

 

For possible research locations, applicants may wish to consult the partial list of sf archives compiled in SFS37.2 (July 2010): 161-90. This list is also available online at: <http://sfanthology.site.wesleyan.edu/files/2010/08/WASF-Teachers-Guide-2Archives.pdf>.

 

Applications should be written in English and should include

  1. the project description (approximately 500 words),
  2. a work plan and an itemized budget,
  3. a cover letter clearly identifying which fellowship or award is sought,
  4. an updated curriculum vitae, and
  5. two letters of reference, including one from the faculty supervisor in cases of PhD and MA research.

 

Students who receive awards must acknowledge the support provided by SFS’s Mullen Fellowship program in any completed theses, dissertations or published work that makes use of research supported by this fellowship. After the research is conducted, each awardee shall provide SFS with a 500-word report on the results.

 

Successful candidates will be reimbursed for expenses incurred conducting research, up to the amount of the award, once they complete the research and submit relevant receipts. Valid research expenses include

  • airfare or ground transportation costs from one’s home to the archive,
  • meals for the scholar,
  • accommodation costs, and
  • costs associated with using an archive, such as photocopying, camera fees, or other institutional costs.

 

Funds cannot be used in support of

  • conference travel (one may attend a conference at the same venue as the archive),
  • capital items such as computers or other equipment,
  • the purchase of books or other research material, and
  • meals, travel, or accommodation costs for anyone other than the researcher.

 

Applications should be submitted electronically to the chair of the evaluation committee, Sherryl Vint, at sherryl.vint@gmail.com.  Applications are due April 2, 2019 and awards will be announced in early May.

 

The selection committee for 2019 consists of SFS Advisory Board members Carl Freedman and Graham Murphy, and SFS editors Istvan Csicsery-Ronay and Sherryl Vint.

ICFA 40 “Politics and Conflict” Final Note

ICFA 40 “Politics and Conflict”

When: March 13–16, 2019

Where: Marriott Orlando Airport Hotel, Orlando, Florida, USA

Guest Scholar: Mark Bould (University of the West of England)

Guest Author: G. Willow Wilson (Ms. Marvel, Alif the Unseen)

REGISTRATION IS CLOSED

On-site registration is $165 for nonstudents, $110 for students.

Attendees are now on their own for finding hotel rooms, as the conference hotel is sold out and the overflow hotel’s rate has expired.

The final program is online: https://www.fantastic-arts.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/ICFA-40-program_Feb21.pdf

IMPORTANT NOTES

View ICFA’s Accessibility Policy: http://www.fantastic-arts.org/2016/icfa-accessibility-policy/

Please note that the hotel’s airport shuttle is not handicapped accessible.

Highly collectible merch (T-shirts and totes) featuring this year’s artwork will be available for purchase at the Registration desk. Meal tickets will be available for purchase until sold out ($48 for the luncheons and $65 for the banquet). In addition, outstanding membership and registration fees must be paid before you can get your packet. The Reg desk accepts cash, checks, and credit cards (but cannot take AmEx on site).

This year’s hashtag is #ICFA40.

REMEMBER TO BRING…

Your stylish IAFA badge holder. (If you don’t yet have one, they are available for purchase on site for $5.) Pro tip: put it in your luggage and leave it there at all times.
Your computer dongle if you are using AV.

VOLUNTEERING

It’s not too late! The Registration and AV areas are still welcoming volunteer help. IAFA Bucks at a rate of $10 an hour will be provided. These may be used for merch and meal tickets at this year’s convention, or they may be held and put toward next year’s registration. IAFA Bucks may not be used in the Book Room. Sign up here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1q19mG_IL7ezdXmrzd-RCIF2ELla-9w3o-FpiLnskJow

STUDENT CAUCUS

SCIAFA is offering a job materials review workshop; is recruiting mentors and mentees for its mentorship program; and is offering its paper publishing workshop (no need to sign up; show up with a paper in progress), conducted this year by Rachel Haywood Ferreira. More info here: https://www.fantastic-arts.org/2019/icfa-40-student-caucus-updates/

SOCIAL MEDIA

IAFA Listserv: http://lists.iafa.org/listinfo.cgi/iafa-l-iafa.org
IAFA on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FantasticArts/?fref=ts
IAFA on Twitter: https://twitter.com/iafa_tw?lang=en
Student Caucus (SCIAFA) on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/833849033305627/

See you soon!

Karen Hellekson, IAFA Registrar (iafareg AT gmail.com)

CFP: Deadline Extended – GFF 2019 in Berlin (September)

The call for papers for the GFF conference has been extended. We will accept papers until Mar 15, 2019 … please do think about coming over to Berlin in September.

The ROMANTIC FANTASTIC
Romanticism again and again! In autumn 1979, Michael Ende’s novel The Neverending Story was published in the Federal Republic of Germany. Even to Ende’s contemporaries, Bastian’s journey to Fantastica and back seemed to be the beginning of a revitalization of romantic longings and ideas within popular culture. Almost at the same time, US-American cinema discovers the genre of fantasy film. The motif of Campbell’s hero’s journey, a world that needs healing and the interconnectedness of all things becomes a constitutive trait of these films’ poetics.

On the one hand, the corresponding novels and films emerged in answer to the uncertainty of a bipolar world – fear of the atomic bomb and nuclear fallout as ultima ratio of the Cold War – and the nascent awareness of environmental vulnerability. On the other hand, they, like their famous predecessors, have been accused of a penchant for escapism and ill-conceived inwardness.

A similar area of tension can be observed in the fantasic today. Once again, the potential of recent speculative fiction as well as its critique seem to be indicating a core collection of romantic notions. Like at the end of the 18th century, romanticism and the fantastic provide a corrective to the frigid, mercantile rationality of a world that no longer knows any secrets. In light of contemporary political, economic and ecological distortions, speculative fiction is looking for ways of rethinking the world – and man’s place in it. And once again, the fantastic is accused of turning its back on hard facts and necessities to take refuge in sentimentalized other-worlds.

Based on these findings, the conference will pursue two goals: First, it intends to take a critical look into the relationship of romantic ideas, poetics, and images to possible genealogies of the fantastic. What is to be gained by locating fantastic works in a romantic tradition? Does this dialogue facilitate a deeper understanding of the continued effect of romanticism or poetics of the fantastic? Second, the resilience of speculative fiction’s inherent capability for critique is to be scrutinized in reference to its romantic origins. Can the relation between fantastic worlds and everyday reality be conceptualized in a way that forgoes the dichotomy of critical realism and ahistorical escapism? Would it be possible to illustrate, using its stories, images, and audiovisual presentations, the untenability of accusations which label the fantastic as being politically reactionary and aesthetically conservative – or do the subversive moments in its poetics remain marginal?

All contributions are welcome which examine the complex relationship between romanticism and specific implementations/ of the fantastic, its types and genres, protagonists, and media, on a theoretical, historical, and analytical level.

Possible Topics:

• Universal poetry and worldmaking (atmosphere, synesthesia, science and art as modes of knowing and experiencing)
• Media of the supernatural: romantic concepts of media and their influence on the mediality of the fantastic
• Romantic conceptions of history and the faculty of historic imagination as driving forces of the fantastic (recourse to the Middle Ages)
• Fairy tales, myths, and legends as genres and modalities of fantastic narratives
• Traditions of gothic fiction in modern fantasy
• Updating gothic topoi in contemporary horror cinema (for instance ghosts, living dolls and possessed clerics in the Conjuring-franchise, or witches and religious mania in folk forror)
• The beautiful and the sublime, the gruesome and the grotesque as models for poetics of affect in horror and fantasy
• Romantic imagery and its influence on visual forms of the fantastic (art, comic, film, series, computer game etc.)
• Forms, practices and theories of the fantastic in the era of romanticism (ghost and witch lore, demonology, phantasmagoria etc.)
• Soundscapes which establish a quasi-natural stance beyond the human (as in Dark Ambient or Drone Metal)
• Poetics of fantasy as modes of magical thinking
• Romantic poetics and the becoming-fantastic of the ordinary
• Forms of romantic love in fantasy
• Fantasy as a form of political romanticism

As usual at GFF conferences, there will be an open track for all lectures which are not directly related to the topic of the conference. Hence, we are open to further proposals.

The GFF offers two scholarships of 250 euros each to students to help cover their travel expenses to the conference. Please indicate if you would like to be considered when submitting your abstract.

Deadline for abstracts and short biographies (max. 2000 characters): January 1st-March 15th, 2018.

Submission of constituted panels (3-4 speakers) is encouraged.

Submission form: https://www.conftool.org/gff2019/

For additional inquiries, mail to: gff2019@fu-berlin.de.

Conference Board: Jun.-Prof. Dr. Jan-Hendrik Bakels, Regina Brückner, Jun.-Prof. Dr. Matthias Grotkopp, Dr. Tobias Haupts, Dr. Daniel Illger, Cilli Pogodda, Prof. Dr. Michael Wedel

CFP: Contemporary American Science Fiction Film: The Bush, Obama and Trump Years

Contemporary American Science Fiction Film: The Bush, Obama and Trump Years

deadline for submissions:
May 31, 2019

full name / name of organization:
Dr Stuart Joy, Solent University & Dr Terence McSweeney, Solent University

contact email:
stuart.joy@solent.ac.uk

Since the turn of the millennium the United States of America has undergone what many have considered to be a series of political, financial, and institutional crises. At the same time, the increasing popularity of the science fiction genre has, in many ways, frequently both dramatized and provided a commentary on the fears and anxieties this period has evoked. The philosopher and cultural critic Walter Benjamin argued that allegory emerges most frequently in periods of crisis and uncertainty, correspondingly it is no coincidence that some of the most powerful films to emerge from American cinema in the last two decades are allegorical texts and many of which have come from the science fiction genre. What are they able to tell us about the turbulent times in which they were made? How might they be uniquely positioned to function as cultural artefacts intrinsically connected to their historical moments? How do the fears and anxieties they portray resonate beyond the frames of the screens?

With this in mind we are seeking scholarly, research informed and dynamic chapter-length contributions to an edited volume on the topic of the contemporary science-fiction genre in American film. This collection of essays will examine and explore how recent films have reflected, portrayed and interrogated the social, political and cultural climate of this fractious period during the presidencies of George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump.

Topics for consideration may include, but are not limited to:

Allegories of 9/11 and the War on Terror
The threat of invasion: Aliens, immigration and border crossings
Disaster narratives: Mass extinctions, climate change and environmental damage
The post-human body and the rise of artificial intelligence
Young Adult dystopias
Representations of political and social resistance
Gendered nostalgia (with reference to movements such as #MeToo)
Nostalgia and contemporary political phenomena
Memory (e.g. false memories, artificial memories, memory transfer/erasure)
Alien Others: Race in the science fiction film
Global financial collapse
Cultures of science fiction fandom
The im/possibility of making America great again
Films for consideration may include, but are not limited to:

A Scanner Darkly (Linklater, 2006), A.I. Artificial Intelligence (Spielberg, 2001), Avatar (Cameron, 2009), Children of Men (Cuarón, 2006), Cloverfield (Reeves, 2008), Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (Reeves, 2014), Donnie Darko (Kelly, 2001), Dredd (Travis, 2012), Edge of Tomorrow (Liman, 2014), Elysium (Blomkamp, 2013), Equilibrium (Wimmer, 2002), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Gondry, 2005), Ex Machina (Garland, 2014), Gravity (Cuarón, 2013), Her (Jonze, 2013), The Hunger Games (Ross, 2012), Jurassic World (Trevorrow, 2015), I am Legend (Proyas, 2007), Inception (Nolan, 2010), Interstellar (Nolan, 2014), I Robot (Proyas, 2004), Looper (Johnson, 2012), Mad Max: Fury Road (Miller, 2015), Monsters (Edwards, 2010), Minority Report (Spielberg, 2002), Moon (Jones, 2009), Oblivion (Kosinski, 2013), Primer (Caruth, 2004), Rise of the Planet of the Apes (Wyatt, 2011), Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (Edwards, 2016), Safety Not Guaranteed (Trevorrow, 2012), Serenity (Whedon, 2005), Signs (Shyamalan, 2002), Snowpiercer (Joon-ho, 2013), Source Code (Jones, 2011), Star Trek (Abrams, 2009), Star Wars: The Force Awakens (Abrams, 2015), Super 8 (Abrams, 2011), The Day After Tomorrow (Emmerich, 2004), The Road (Hillcoat, 2009), The Martian (Scott, 2015), V for Vendetta (McTeigue, 2005), War of the Worlds (Spielberg, 2005), War for the Planet of the Apes (Reeves, 2017), Wall-E (Stanton, 2008).

About Us

The volume is edited by Stuart Joy co-editor of The Cinema of Christopher Nolan: Imagining the Impossible (Wallflower, 2015) and Through the Black Mirror: Reflections on ‘the Side Effects’ of the Digital Age (Palgrave Macmillan, forthcoming 2019) and Terence McSweeney author of The ‘War on Terror’ and American Film: 9/11 Frames Per Second (EUP, 2014), Avengers Assemble! Critical Perspectives on the Marvel Cinematic Universe (Wallflower, 2018) and editor of “In the Shadow of 9/11”: American Cinema in the ‘War on Terror’ Era (EUP, 2016). Stuart and Terence’s previous collections have included some of the foremost scholars in the fields of film and television studies (including Henry Jenkins, Geoff King, John Shelton Lawrence, Alison Landsberg, Warren Buckland, Will Brooker, Ian Scott, Todd McGowan and many others), it is intended that this book should be the definitive volume on contemporary American science fiction film. A number of publishers have already indicated an interest in the volume, but a final decision will be made by the editors when the structure of the collection is finalised.

Deadlines

The deadline for proposals will be 31st May 2019

Draft chapters of 7,000-8,000 words are due on or before 31st December 2019

Final versions no later than 31st March 2020.

Anticipated publication December 2020-January 2021, i.e. at the start of the new REF cycle.

Please send 500-word proposals (including a provisional title), along with a CV, to Stuart Joy (stuart.joy@solent.ac.uk) by April 30, 2019. Queries are welcome should there be questions about appropriate submission topics, perspectives and dates. Please note that invitation to submit a full essay does not guarantee inclusion in the volume.