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Monthly Archives: October 2020

The International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts is accepting applications for the position of Division Head of the International Fantastic (IF) Division and the Film and Television (FTV) Division. (Please see division descriptions 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.

Both the IF Division Head and the FTV Division Head will begin full Division Head duties immediately following the conference in March of 2021 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 10 November 2020.

IF Division description:
The International Fantastic division welcomes scholarship in all subgenres of the fantastic in world media. “International” means either non-anglophone or originating in a culture considered foreign within the anglophone world; this may include minority or Indigenous texts within an anglophone country. Projects in postcolonial and diaspora studies, area and language studies, translation theory and studies, comparative literature and media, non-anglophone epistemologies and technocultures, the role of the international division of labor and global finance in textual development, gender and queer studies especially in the Global South, international justice movements, global research methodologies and national archives, and Indigenous and Trans-Indigenous Studies are welcome.

FTV Division description:

The Film and Television division welcomes critical scholarship, panels, and theory roundtables that deal with cinema and television and engage any genre of the Fantastic, including science fiction, fantasy, and horror. As with other narrative forms, the analysis of film and television can be taken up multiple ways and through varied critical lenses.

Call for Papers for the 42nd Annual International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts, Climate Change and the Anthropocene

March 18-21, 2021

ICFA 42 will be a virtual event.

THE DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS HAS BEEN EXTENDED TO 4 DECEMBER.

Since the turn of the millennium, the term Anthropocene has been widely popularized to describe the massive changes humanity has inflicted upon the planet through our technologies and ways of living—influences so substantial that some believe we have entered into a new geological epoch. Climate change, and its related crises of ecological damage, forced migrations as weather and arable land shift, and mass extinctions of nonhuman species, are imaginative and materially entwined. Climate change asks us to think in spatial and temporal scales that exceed human lifetimes and perceptions, while the concept of the Anthropocene encourages us to think in global, perhaps cosmic registers about humanity’s pasts and possible futures.

Amitov Ghosh suggests in The Great Derangement (2017) that among the difficulties of confronting climate change is the fact that it is “unthinkable” via the conventions of realist fiction. Taking our cue from Ursula K. Le Guin’s phrase “realists of a larger reality” in her acceptance speech for the Medal for Distinguished Contributions to American Letters, IAFA 42 (March 18-21, 2021) will explore the power of fantastic genres to make climate change and other crises of the Anthropocene visible and intelligible. How have fantastic genres helped us represent and respond to this reality? How might these genres offer us new ways for thinking about humanity, our planet, and the complex entanglements between them? How might we reimagine ourselves and the future in the face of climate change? We welcome papers and panel proposals addressing these and related questions across any genre, every language, and across all media of the fantastic. We encourage submissions about Black authors, filmmakers and creators, and by Black scholars.

Possible topics might include, but are not limited to:
• Texts engaging questions of eco-horror aesthetics and themes
• Environmental racism
• Critiques of the term Anthropocene from a Critical Race Studies perspective, and those from the intersection of Black Studies and the Environmental Humanities.
• Non-anglophone speculative fictions related to the anthropocene
• Fantastic texts by that explore indigenous worldviews on ecology
• Analyses of how specific motifs or themes emerge and change with time, such as climate-driven apocalypse or images of urban worlds
• Texts that imagine innovative technologies and/or new lifeways that offer new patterns for human habitation
• Texts or other media that interrogate questions of ontology, especially humanity’s relationship with other life
• Engagements with alternative terms used to frame our present era—Donna Haraway’s Cthulhucene, Jason Moore’s Capitalocene, and the like
• Work emerging from ecocritical frameworks and methodologies
• Work emerging from posthumanist frameworks and methodologies, especially human-animal studies
• Work emerging from environmental humanities and petrocultures frameworks and methodologies
• Dystopian and/or utopian responses to climate change
• YA and children’s literature and its distinct strategies for representing climate change
• Work on significant authors of ecologically themed works, such as Kim Stanley Robinson or N.K. Jemisin or the subgenre solarpunk
• Analyses of texts or other media that question the human/animal boundary
• The role of fantastic texts in offering new theoretical rubrics for thinking about climate change and the Anthropocene

The conference will feature Guest Scholar Stacy Alaimo (University of Oregon) and Guest of Honor Jeff Vandermeer. We encourage proposals that engage the work of these two distinguished guests.

The IAFA Portal open for submissions on 2 November and close on 29 November, URL forthcoming.

We are pleased to announce that the themes for our 2022 and 2023 conferences will be “Fantastic Alterities” and “The Black Fantastic: The African Diaspora and Speculative Fiction”, respectively.

Submission process:

Paper or session proposals will go to the appropriate Division Head as usual.
Once accepted, the author may choose one of the following formats:
• Papers will only be accepted in .pdf, maximum 2000 words.
• Presentations will be accepted in PowerPoint or MP4 format, and should be between 10-15 minutes.

The papers/presentations must be read before the sessions, which will be limited to discussing of them. Authors will not be allowed to summarize them due to time limitations.

Panels will be synchronous, limited to 3-4 participants, and proposals should be sent to the appropriate Division Head, or to the 1st VP.

More information forthcoming at https://iaftfita.wildapricot.org/.

Dates to remember:

The submissions portal will open Monday 2 November
SUBMISSION DEADLINE EXTENDED TO 4 DECEMBER 11:59 p.m. (all time Eastern US)
ALL registration ends on Monday 22 February 11:59 p.m.
Papers/Presentations due Monday 1 March 11:59 p.m.

Special Issue to Appear in Transmotion: An Online Journal of Postmodern Indigenous Studies http://journals.kent.ac.uk/index.php/transmotion

Extended Deadline for Abstracts: December 1, 2020

Late in March of 2014, Oglala Sioux Tribal President Bryan Brewer declared war on the Keystone XL, a pipeline projected to snake through reservation land in the northern United States. In support of this effort, Indigenous activists from various communities (and their allies) coordinated a wave of protests against the development of oil-pipelines and the extraction of tar sands on Native lands, igniting what came to be known internationally as the #NODAPL movement. Sioux scholar Nick Estes has chronicled how this movement sparked a desire for the “tradition of Indigenous resistance that is a radical consciousness […] one that expresses the ultimate desire for freedom” (48). ed

The events at Standing Rock have been driven by global forces and thus resonate on a global level. This past year, Australia experienced severe drought and wildfires of unparalleled scope, both of which were fueled by deforestation and other destructive land use practices. In response to this eco-cataclysm, Aboriginal activists, such as Alexis Wright, have called on Australia’s leaders “to recognize the depth and value of Aboriginal knowledge and incorporate our skills in hazard management” (2020). Speaking on behalf of Marshall Islanders, Indigenous poet and activist, Kathy Jetñil-Kijiner, has illustrated how rising sea-levels have resulted in flooding, drought, and the erosion of her ancestral homeland—epistemological as well as geological injuries. In response to this dilemma, Jetñil-Kijiner has also advocated for the importance of listening to communities who can draw on deep collective histories to envision strategies for navigating what Elizabeth DeLoughrey has called the “submarine futures of the Anthropocene.” These examples are just a few instances in a global pattern, where extreme resource extraction is linked to the persecution of frontline communities, those who experience the first and the worst of climatological collapse. Yet these instances also speak to the powerful ways that Indigenous communities across the globe are spearheading movements to redress and counteract the violence of anthropogenic climate change, along with it is driving forces of colonialism and capitalism. These movements help us critically reflect on how we define our relationship to the land, to other humans and non-humans, and to history and time, in order to push back against the genocidal wave of ecological violence. Inspired by the work of such activists and thinkers, Transmotion calls for submissions to contribute to a special issue on the topic of Global Indigenous Literature and Climate Change.

The central theme of this issue has inspired a significant amount of critical interest in recent years. In their influential essay “On the Importance of a Date, or Decolonizing the Anthropocene,” Heather Davis and Zoe Todd (Métis) examine the ways that climate change discourse might productively shift if we reconsider the Anthropocene’s origin point. Challenging the typical mid-20th century start-point, Davis and Todd propose linking the Anthropocene to the Columbian exchange (1610). Using a date that coincides with colonialism in the Americas, they explain, allows us to understand the current state of ecological crisis as inherently ascribed to a specific ideology that is animated by proto-capitalist logics based on extraction and accumulation through dispossession—“logics that continue to shape the world we live in and that have produced our current era” (764). It is precisely this long-standing intimacy with environmental disruption that attunes Indigenous communities to our contemporary climatic shifts. For Potawatomi philosopher, Kyle Powys Whyte, this sense of “colonial déjà vu” allows Indigenous communities to consider how their accumulated knowledges might productively disrupt and undo the universalizing and violent logics of the Anthropocene. His work is dedicated to crafting what he calls “Indigenous climate change studies”—a mode of praxis that “perform[s] futurities that Indigenous persons can build on in generations to come. [It is] guided by our reflection on our ancestors’ perspectives and on our desire to be good ancestors ourselves to future generations” (160). This vital work has been amplified by the critical energies of scholars like Candis Callison, Joni Adamson, Marisol de la Cadena, Elizabeth Povinelli, Leanne Simpson, and Jaskiran Dhillon, among others.

We invite work that explores this flourishing branch of Indigenous Studies, focusing on the significance of Anthropocene narratives in a global Indigenous arena. Bringing together scholars researching climate and environmental change in relation to diverse geographical and historical contexts, we hope to explore questions surrounding what an anti- and decolonial Anthropocene discourse might look like and what potential it holds for transnational solidarity and Indigenous sovereignty. What are some of the ways that Indigenous perspectives understand—and re-inscribe—climate change knowledge? How do Indigenous artists and activists reconcile the local exigencies of their environment with the global discourse on climate change? How do literary texts reflect and intervene in these contexts? And what is to be gained from studying disparate literatures and societies under the unifying frame of climate change? This special issue aims to explore these and other questions, featuring work that spans a plurality of forms, such as literature, art, film, or related modes of cultural production. We invite articles, creative pieces, or hybrid works that engage with these topics and which align aesthetically with the aforementioned editorial emphasis.

We particularly welcome submissions that engage with the following topics:

Reflections on the relationship between activism and aesthetics.
The genres of climate fiction.
The relationship between environmental humanities (EH), disability studies, and queer theory—as understood from Indigenous perspectives.
Indigenous studies and related EH fields, such as energy humanities, new materialisms, medical humanities, and oceanic studies.
The similarities and differences between postcolonial ecocriticism and Indigenous climate change studies.
Affect, Indigeneity, and the Anthropocene.
Examinations of temporality.
Questions of interdisciplinarity, particularly between the hard sciences and the humanities.
Questions of extraction, both material and informational.
The complicity of academic institutions in abetting climate violence (particularly those institutions built upon Indigenous lands).
Anti-colonial and Indigenous critiques of the settler-nation, neoliberalism, and globalization.
Transnational activism and decolonial movements around climate violence.

Any questions should be directed to Editor David Carlson, California State San Bernardino (dajcarls@csusb.edu), and to Guest Editor Martín Premoli, California State San Bernardino (marpremoli@gmail.com).

Timeline:

Abstracts (up to 300 words) and brief author CV to be sent to the Guest Editors by 1st December 2020.

Accepted pieces will be due by 1 March 2021 and should be submitted directly to the Transmotion website for peer review, in accordance with the journal guidelines. Projected publication in Fall 2021.

Download the CFP here: cfp-Global Indigenous Literature and Climate Change.

The International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts is accepting applications for the position of Division Head of the International Fantastic (IF) Division and the Film and Television (FTV) Division. (Please see division descriptions 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.

Both the IF Division Head and the FTV Division Head will begin full Division Head duties immediately following the conference in March of 2021 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 25 October 2020.

IF Division description:

The International Fantastic division welcomes scholarship in all subgenres of the fantastic in world media. “International” means either non-anglophone or originating in a culture considered foreign within the anglophone world; this may include minority or Indigenous texts within an anglophone country. Projects in postcolonial and diaspora studies, area and language studies, translation theory and studies, comparative literature and media, non-anglophone epistemologies and technocultures, the role of the international division of labor and global finance in textual development, gender and queer studies especially in the Global South, international justice movements, global research methodologies and national archives, and Indigenous and Trans-Indigenous Studies are welcome.

FTV Division description:

The Film and Television division welcomes critical scholarship, panels, and theory roundtables that deal with cinema and television and engage any genre of the Fantastic, including science fiction, fantasy, and horror. As with other narrative forms, the analysis of film and television can be taken up multiple ways and through varied critical lenses.