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Monthly Archives: January 2015

2015 Crawford Award

For the first time in its 30-year history, the William L. Crawford Fantasy Award, presented annually by the International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts for an outstanding first fantasy book, has resulted in a tie. The winners for 2015, each of whom will receive the full award, are Zen Cho for her story collection Spirits Abroad (Buku Fixi) and Stephanie Feldman for her novel The Angel of Losses (Ecco).

According to award administrator Gary K. Wolfe, both books won broad support from the nominating committee, which felt both were deserving of the award. The other books included on this year’s Crawford shortlist are Ghalib Islam, Fire in the Unnameable Country  (Hamish Hamilton); Sarah Tolmie, The Stone Boatmen (Aqueduct); Greg Bechtel, Boundary Problems (Freehand Books); and

Jessie Burton, The Miniaturist  (Ecco).

 

Participating in this year’s nomination and selection process were Farah Mendlesohn, Ellen Klages, Graham Sleight, Karen Burnham, Candas Jane Dorsey, Jedediah Berry, Niall Harrison, and last year’s winner Sofia Samatar.  The award will be presented on March 21 during the 36th International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts in Orlando, Florida. The IAFA’s Distinguished Scholarship Award will be presented to Colin Milburn, and the Jamie Bishop Memorial Award for a work of scholarship written in a language other than English will go to Fernando Ángel Moreno, Mikel Peregrina, and Steven Bermúdez Antúnez. Awards for student scholarship will be announced later.

Hotel Registration Deadline

Dear ICFA Attendees:

The hotel deadline is fast approaching, and rooms will not be available at the conference rate after February 6–and will probably not be available at any rate.

2015 Jamie Bishop Award Winners

The 2015 Winners of the Jamie Bishop Award are Fernando Ángel Moreno, Mikel Peregrina, and Steven Bermúdez Antúnez.

The Finalists are Sophie Beaulé,Teresa López Pellisa, Francisca Noguerol.

Further information can be found on the Jamie Bishop Memorial Award page.

CfP: “Speculative Humanities: Steampunk to Afrofuturism.” SHORT NOTICE

2015 Conference: Abstracts due Sunday, January 18, 2015

The submission deadline for panel and individual presentation abstracts for the 2015 Humanities Conference is Sunday, January 19, 2015. Please email abstracts (250-300 words) to both of the conference co-chairs: Prof. Jennifer Wager (jwager@essex.edu) and Prof. Rebecca Williams (wrebecca@essex.edu) by Sunday, January 18, 2015.

Call For Papers
On March 11-12, 2015, the Humanities Division at Essex County College will host its Spring 2015 Conference, “Speculative Humanities: Steampunk to Afrofuturism.” This two-day conference offers space for writers, musicians, artists, and academicians to explore, expand upon, and rethink the implications of speculative humanities. This year’s conference will feature a special emphasis on the life, work, and influence of Octavia E. Butler.

Speculative humanities encompasses a diverse array of works, from the  18th century mysticism of Swedenborg to the 20th century spiritual teachings of Gurdjieff, along with the 19th century texts of authors such as Mary Shelley, Samuel Butler, and Jules Verne to the 20th and 21st century works of H.G. Wells, Octavia E. Butler, Margaret Atwood, Samuel Delany, Cormac McCarthy, and L.A. Banks. The revolutionary wave sweeping across Europe during the 19th century along with the publication of texts such as The Communist Manifesto influenced generations of writers to produce works featuring both urban utopias and dystopian metropolises. Historical and fictional texts include post-apocalyptic narratives, invasion literature, steampunk, Afrofuturism, fantasy, fan fiction, fabulist, anime, horror, and what was once categorized as science fiction.

Open to all humanities disciplines–literature, music, history, religion, philosophy, art, architecture, theater, dance, and media–we invite papers, panel presentations, screenings, and performances of works that can be included in the admittedly broad category of “speculative humanities.” We welcome interactive, unorthodox panels, screenings, exhibits, musical performances, and other presentations related to our central theme. Papers on the works of Octavia E. Butler are especially encouraged for submission.

Please email (abstracts of 250-300 words) for panels and individual presentations to both of the conference co-chairs: Prof. Jennifer Wager (jwager@essex.edu) and Prof. Rebecca Williams (wrebecca@essex.edu) by Sunday, January 16, 2015.

CfP: Monstrum Volume 1: Issue 1

For Goya, ‘Fantasy abandoned by reason produces impossible monsters: united with her, she is the mother of the arts and the origin of their marvels’, though some see his etching as revealing the dark undercurrents of Enlightenment. The monster, according to Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, offers ways of understanding the cultures which bear them; ‘the monstrum is etymologically “that which reveals”’.
The inaugural issue of the journal Monstrum will showcase the kinds of cultural themes which will be revealed in this new venture from Spectral Visions Press of the University of Sunderland. The journal is a refereed academic journal and invites original articles on all aspects of monsters and the monstrous. The perspective is that of literary studies but, in keeping with the boundary-defying nature of the monster, welcomes an interdisciplinary approach that may draw on (among others) cultural studies, philosophy, psychology, anthropology, and the history of ideas, and which explores monstrosity in a variety of genres and media.
Proposals for individual or collaborative papers are invited on the cultural meanings of representations of monsters and the idea of the monstrous via diverse theoretical approaches in literature from realist fiction, drama, and poetry through the Gothic novel, modernism, horror, SF, fantasy, paranormal romance, comedy, YA and children’s literature to myth, epic, and folklore (or in such other media as film, TV, comics, or video games).
Possible topics might include (but are not limited to):

  • Monsters and the Other (racial, ethnic, sexual, ideological, etc.
  • Monsters and the Self (what we are and what is repressed)
  • Reason, the fantastic, and the monstrous
  • The monstrous human
  • Monstrous taxonomies (how monsters escape and confuse classificatory systems)
  • The sympathetic monster and the Demon Lover
  • The Eternal Return of the Monster (how the form of the monster both endures and mutates)
  • The inanimate monster (architecture, machinery, and landscape; colossuses both natural and cultural)
  • Monstrous scales (size and sublimity; the monstrously gigantic or the insidiously microbial
  • Species of monster: vampires, werewolves, zombies, ogres, dragons, basilisks, dinosaurs, sharks, giant squid, aliens, mutants, half-breeds, perverts, criminals, terrorists
  • Infamous monsters: Lycaon, Medusa, Lamia, Satan, Lilith, Gargantua, Dracula, Frankenstein’s creature, King Kong, Godzilla, Hitler, Hannibal Lecter, Cthulhu, Moby Dick, the Daleks

Please send electronic copies of proposals (approx. 500 words) and a brief biography (100 words) in MS Word format by 31 January 2014 to each of:

We will notify you over acceptance shortly after. Completed articles of approximately 6,000 words, formatted in MHRA style, will be due by 30 April 2015.