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Monthly Archives: November 2013

IAFA GRADUATE STUDENT AWARD

The International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts presents an annual award and stipend to the graduate student submitting the most outstanding paper at the Association’s conference. The award, and a check for $250, will be presented to the winner at the Awards Banquet on Saturday evening. Students must submit their completed paper (3500 words, excluding bibliography) and verification of student status by February 1. You can find a list of past winners of the Graduate Student Award by following this link: http://fantastic-arts.org/awards/iafa-graduate-student-award/

CRITERIA & INSTRUCTIONS

1. The student will have had a paper accepted for presentation at the Conference. The paper submitted for the competition should be essentially the same as that presented at the conference. The maximum length for entries is 3500 words (about 2 pages over the recommended reading length of 8-9 pages). Students should be aware that funds are limited and that only one award will be given. The paper selected will be published in the Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts, and therefore must not have been previously published or submitted for publication elsewhere. Please note that acceptance of a paper for the Conference does not guarantee an award.

2. It is the responsibility of the student to send a copy of the paper by 1 February 2014 to the 1st VP Dale Knickerbocker (knickerbockerd@ecu.edu), as well as a copy of the letter of acceptance and verification of student status. Submissions may be in Word, RTF or PDF format.

3. The committee is looking for clear, coherent, and interesting writing. Essays should be solidly grounded in scholarly tradition, showing awareness of previous studies and of historical and theoretical contexts. Essays may use any suitable method of analysis, including historical and sociological approaches as well as those that originate in literary theory. Essays will be evaluated for their originality and quality of insight into the text.

 

The judges for the 2014 award will be:

Cassandra Bausman, University of Iowa

Neil Easterbrook, Texas Christian University

Farah Mendlesohn, Anglia Ruskin University

Reminder – CFA: Supernatural in the Nineteenth Century

(abstracts: 30 November 2013, articles: 31 March 2014)

full name / name of organization:
Supernatural Studies Association Journal
contact email:
supernaturalstudies@gmail.com

The Supernatural Studies Journal is now accepting proposals for a themed issue on the supernatural in the nineteenth century (due Winter 2014), guest edited by Janine Hatter and Sara Williams.

Articles may examine any aspect of the representation of the supernatural within the context of worldwide literature, arts and material culture in the nineteenth century. We welcome any approach, but request that authors minimize jargon associated with any single-discipline studies.

Suggested topics include, but are not limited to:
folklore & mythology, monstrosity, hybridity, vampires, shapeshifters, goblins, fairies and fairy tales, ghosts and hauntings, demons and angels, possession and/or mind control, death and dying, burial rites, occult, mysticism, spiritualism and séances, spirit photography, religion, superstition, voodoo, culture, philosophy, desire, politics, gender, race, sexuality and class.

Additionally, we are seeking reviews of books that engage with elements of the nineteenth century supernatural (800-1,000 words in length).

For articles: please send a 300-500 word abstract (or complete article, if available) and C.V. by 30 November 2013. All submissions will be acknowledged. Notification of acceptance will be e-mailed by 15 December 2013. If your abstract is accepted, the full article (3,000 – 6,000 words, including references using MLA style) will be 31 March 2014.

For reviews: please send a C.V. and description of the book you would like to review, or alternatively, see the journal’s website for available books.

Further information, including Submission Guidelines, are available at the journal site: supernaturalstudies.org

Please e-mail submissions to both j.hatter@hull.ac.uk and s.williams2@hull.ac.uk. If emailing the journal directly at supernaturalstudies@gmail.com please quote ‘nineteenth century’ in the subject box.

PhD opportunities

AHRC funding for UK/EU Arts and Humanities research students
The Midlands3Cities Doctoral Training Partnership will be awarding 410 PhD studentships over a five year period to excellent research students in the Arts and Humanities. The DTP, a collaboration between Nottingham Trent, Nottingham, Birmingham, Birmingham City, Leicester and De Montfort universities, provides research candidates with cross-institutional mentoring, expert supervision, including cross-institutional supervision where appropriate, subject specific and generic training, and professional support in preparing for a career.

Nottingham Trent University is inviting applications from students whose research interests include:

American and British Cinemas
British and American Television
East-Asian Cinemas
Film and work
Postcolonial and Third World cinemas
Political and Third cinema
Experimental/Underground/Avant-Garde film
Gay and Lesbian cinema
European cinemas (especially French and Italian)
Film Theory
Film, television, technology
Cinema and television policy and regulation

The deadline for AHRC funding applications is 9th January 2014, by which time students must have applied for a place to study and have provided two references to a university within the DTP. For full details of eligibility, funding and research supervision areas, please visit www.midlands3cities.ac.uk or contact enquiries@midlands3cities.ac.uk.

Doris Lessing

Nobel Prize-winning novelist Doris Lessing, 94, died at her home in London on November 17.  Lessing was Guest of Honor for ICFA’s tenth annual conference in 1989, only a year after the conference relocated to Fort Lauderdale, and proved quickly to be one of ICFA’s most accessible and popular guests—working out on the hotel treadmills in the morning, hanging out by the pool in the afternoon, and inadvertently giving rise to one of the conference’s enduring anecdotes.

Lessing had expressed an interest in taking a short cruise while she was in Florida—meaning an ocean day cruise—but ICFA organizers instead booked her on a riverboat called the Jungle Queen, a notorious tourist trap largely for senior citizens, which made its way up the New River past various celebrity homes to a proprietary island, where a rather tacky rib dinner was served on picnic benches to the accompaniment of a live accordion band.  Then-IAFA president Marshall Tymm was appalled, but Lessing, in good spirits, commented that she had learned a good deal more about Florida culture than she had expected.

A few IAFA members kept in touch with Lessing over the next few years, during which she continued to express her support for science fiction and fantasy both in her own writing and in interviews, revealing a knowledge of the field that ranged from Arthur C. Clarke to her friend Brian Aldiss (who had helped arrange her guest of honor appearance) to more contemporary writers like Greg Bear.  Along with Isaac Bashevis Singer, she is one of two ICFA Guests of Honor to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Story and photo courtesy of Gary K. Wolfe

Brown, Wolfe, and Lessing

Charles Brown, Gary K. Wolfe, and Doris Lessing in 1989

Other posts on Doris Lessing:

NYTimes…
Telegraph…
Washington Post…
LA Times…
FT…
Bloomberg…
Margaret Atwood…
Justin Cartwright…
Eileen Battersby…

ICFA 35 acceptance letters have gone out

Conference acceptance letters were sent out on or before November 17th, 2013.  If you have not heard anything yet, please check your spam filter, then contact the appropriate Division Head. Thank you.