International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts

Call for Papers

An edited volume on

CONTEMPORARY INDIGENOUS POPULAR CULTURE ACROSS THE GLOBE

Editors: Svetlana Seibel and Kati Dlaske

Indigenous Popular Culture is currently one of the fastest-growing fields of contemporary cultural production in the United States and Canada, but also other regions across the globe. Indigenous artists, writers, musicians, filmmakers, and entrepreneurs of all walks of life proliferate increasingly on the contemporary popular cultural landscape in all its various incarnations, from popular fiction to animation to the fashion world. Diverse Indigenous practitioners of the popular throughout the world not only intervene powerfully into the landscape of popular culture and representation—a cultural field which is notorious for its various appropriations and misrepresentations of Indigenous people and cultures—but also draw attention to the pressing social and political challenges which Indigenous communities are facing today. With its ever expanding scope, Indigenous popular culture harnesses the vibrant and mutable energies of popular culture, fan culture, and geek culture in order to not only indigenize the cultural field of the popular, but also to advance Indigenous cultural archives in a multiplicity of forms. Thus, Indigenous popular culture is not only a field of a dynamic creative expression, but often also in one way or another stands in dialogue with contemporary Indigenous activist groups and causes working towards the goal of decolonization and Indigenous resurgence.

The proposed volume seeks to bring together researchers and practitioners of Indigenous popular culture in order to illustrate the cultural vibrancy, complexity, and importance of this flourishing field. We therefore invite contributions from academics as well as artists, entrepreneurs, event organizers, cos players etc. Contributions may focus on any aspect of Indigenous popular culture in any of the geographic areas throughout the globe.

Academic articles should be 6000-8000 words in length. Contributions by practitioners of Indigenous popular culture can be of artistic/creative/analytical/(self)reflexive nature and allow for wider variation in scope, i.e. could be as short as one page (text, comic strip, image, etc.). Please send an abstract of 300-500 words for an academic article, a short description up to 500 words for other kinds of contribution, plus a short biography to indigenouspopculture@gmail.com by December 31, 2018. The completed first draft of the articles/contributions will be due on March 1, 2019. The academic papers will go through a peer review process, the volume will be published prospectively in 2021 with Wilfrid Laurier University Press.

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Reading Reality through Science Fiction

deadline for submissions:
June 1, 2019

full name / name of organization:
University Stefan cel Mare of Suceava, 13 University Street, 720229 Suceava, Romania

contact email:
onoriucolacel@litere.usv.ro

Reading Reality through Science Fiction

The academic journal Messages, Sages and Ages (http://www.msa.usv.ro/), based at the English Department, University of Suceava, Romania, invites contributions for an issue on “science fiction as reality-check”; the theme issue is guest edited by Roberto Paura (University of Perugia, Italy).

As speculative fiction, science fiction (SF) in literature and film has proved able to lay bare the contradictions of modernity’s techno-utopian projects far ahead of its time, prompting readers to reflect on the relationship between humankind and technological civilization. Over seventy years ago, in his robot stories Isaac Asimov anticipated today’s debate on the relationship between automation and technological unemployment. In the Cold War years, post-apocalyptic fiction played a decisive role in making exceedingly clear the dangers of nuclear war as well as in stimulating reflection on its likely long-term consequences. In the 1960s and 70s, the emphasis on the issues of overpopulation and the ecological bomb influenced the rise of the ecological movement. In the 80s, the cyberpunk scene foreshadowed the pervasive social impact of cyberspace on our lives, examining the emergence of large corporations based on the power of big data. Today, at the core of SF lie 1) climate change (i.e. ‘climate fiction’ – Kim Stanley Robinson), 2) the boundary between reality and simulation (i.e. Matrix and Westworld), 3) the pitfalls of the digital age (i.e. The Circle, Black Mirror), 4) the trade-off between opportunity and risk in the context of genetic engineering (i.e. Jeff VanderMeer, Annalee Newtiz or Paolo Bacigalupi) and 5) the rise of post-human species (i.e. Charles Stross, Greg Egan or Altered Carbon).

Therefore, in our effort to come to terms with SF’s popularity and broad reach, we ask: what do we learn from SF narratives? How can SF novels, movies and TV-series be used as a ‘reality-check’ for the whims and desires of western culture?

We invite submission on topics including, but not limited to:

– Anthropocene in contemporary SF

– SF and transhumanism

– Climate fiction

– Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction

– Technological existential risks in contemporary fiction

– Technological unemployment in SF

– SF and futures studies

– The images of science in contemporary SF

– SF and contemporary philosophy (i.e. hyperobjects)

– SF as postmodern literature

We welcome original papers in English and invite proposals (no more than 9,000 words) from senior as well as junior academics. The blinded manuscript, abstract (cca. 200 words) with 5 keywords and a brief curriculum vitae (cca. 300 words) should be in Word and PDF format. Each electronic copy must be sent by email attachment to: msa@usv.ro AND msa_usv@hotmail.com.

Deadline: June 1, 2019.

Fan Cultures and the Premodern World

History Faculty, University of Oxford, 5-6 July 2019

Following the success of the July 2018 colloquium, we are announcing a conference “Fan Cultures and the Premodern World” to be held at Oxford on 5 and 6 July 2019. We welcome proposals on various aspects of premodern (ancient, medieval, early modern) culture which can be better understood through the lens of the modern phenomena of fanfic, cosplay, celebrity studies, LARP, gaming etc. Questions discussed may include but are not limited to:

– Premodern authors as fanboys and fangirls

– Intersectionality and fandom

– The “dark side” of fandom – negative consequences of fannish devotion, including backlash to changes in canonical fan works

– Media as message(s) – the impact of media type on fandom and fan communities

– Game as a spiritual experience

– “Democratisation” of narrative

– Canon, fanon, sequels and adaptations

– Authorial self-inserts

– Theories of fanfiction and how they intersect or intervene in conversations around premodern texts, authorship and readership

– Scholars as fans

– Politics of co-opting another’s identity

– Readers as (re-)writers

– Cosplay as a part of ritual

Please send your proposals (of about 250 words) by 15 March to Juliana.dresvina@history.ox.ac.uk

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