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Monthly Archives: April 2022

IAFA Online Conference
October 7-9, 2022
“The Global Fantastic”

Deadline extended to July 31, 11:59 PM, EDT.

For a very long time, the fantastic and its spectrum of genres—science fiction, fantasy, horror, old and new weird, and others—has been perceived as very white and very English and French. The privileged circulation of texts by authors rooted in these two languages has been largely responsible for this condition, but the bias was also perpetuated by the international scholarship on these genres. Moreover, while the attention to Western authors and texts is definitely part of the problem, it can be argued that the very ways in which the conceptions of genres were originally formulated also contributed to the predominance of the Anglo-American (and, in some cases, Francophone) bias.

Things have changed, and, in 2022, attention has turned to the global fantastic that extends beyond a handful of former colonial centers. Several interrelated—albeit not necessarily mutually reinforcing—factors have been responsible for the new fantastic geography. First, the global spread of neoliberal capitalism, of which culture industries are an integral part, has seeded elements of Western imaginaries and transplanted models of production around the globe but also carved out opportunities for interaction with many local artists and creators. Second, the arrival and spread of digital technologies has dramatically expanded and democratized production and distribution of cultural texts, among which the broadly understood fantastic accounts for a sizable share. Most importantly, a range of political and cultural transformations going beyond storytelling has fostered a slow but steady realization that the category of the fantastic in general, and the genres of science fiction and fantasy in particular, can mean very different things in different places, and that a range of fantastic traditions has long flourished in many nations and regions around the world. This new lens reconfigures an understanding of not just the contemporary cultural landscape but allows for a discovery and recuperation of past traditions of the fantastic in the countries beyond the Anglo-French axis.

It is thus very apt that our inaugural October online conference, open to both regular ICFA attendees and those who cannot, for any reason, come to in-person events, should focus on the global fantastic to bring these traditions to the forefront.

The Guest of Honor is Tananarive Due, the winner of the American Book Award for The Living Blood (2001), the author of a dozen other speculative and mystery novels, and a film historian with expertise in Black horror. The Guest Scholar is Bodhisattva Chattopadhyay (University of Oslo), an internationally recognized scholar of global fantastic and the leader of the prestigious European Research Council grant “CoFutures: Pathways to Possible Presents.”

We invite paper proposals responding to, but not limited to, the following thematic areas and topics:

● Afrofuturism
● Africanfuturism
● Indigenous Futurisms
● non-Anglophone fantastic of the Global North
● local varieties of Western genres
● the fantastic produced in languages other than English
● slipstreams and interstitial genres
● non-Western genres of the fantastic
● postcolonial fantastic imaginaries
● non-Western media production in the fantastic: film, short film, television, video games
● theories of the fantastic beyond the Global North

Proposals not related to the conference theme are also welcome.

To submit a proposal, see https://forms.gle/souxbD9SjvN769cJ6. Deadline extended to July 31, 11:59 PM, EDT.

For a list of the IAFA Divisions and Division Heads, see https://iaftfita.wildapricot.org/Division-Heads.

For more information, visit our website https://iaftfita.wildapricot.org/.

Follow us on Twitter @IAFA_TW #IAFAGlobalFantastic
“Like” us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FantasticArts/

After a lengthy selection and interview process, the Executive Board of the International Association of the Fantastic in the Arts is pleased to announce the Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts’ new Editorial Collective: Mailyn Abreu Toribio, who will serve as Reviews Editor-in-Chief; Cat Ashton, who will be Project Editor-in-Chief; Novella Brooks de Vita, who will be Acquisitions Editor-in-Chief; and Jude Wright, who will serve as Managing Editor-in-Chief. They will be taking over the duties of previous Editor Brian Attebery, for whose sixteen years of leadership we express our deep gratitude. We look forward with excitement to this new era for the JFA, and know that the Collective will provide innovative paths for the study of the fantastic. Please join us in welcoming our new group of editors!

On behalf of the IAFA Board,

Pawel Frelik

IAFA President

The IAFA Imagining Indigenous Futurisms Award recognizes emerging authors who use science fiction to address issues of Indigenous sovereignty and self-determination.

To be considered for the award, submit the following:

200-word statement with background & goals in writing SF

4,000-word maximum writing sample addressing Indigenous perspectives

Deadline: December 1, 2022

Send your materials as attachments to Professor Grace L. Dillon (dillong@pdx.edu)

Use Word Document or PDF format

Name and Page numbers on story and bio

Double space the story and use 12-point font

Proof the work for typos and other errors.

The contest winner will be announced at the ICFA Awards Banquet and on the Imagining Indigenous Futurisms Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/groups/349927541693986. Not a member? Think about joining!

This year’s judge: acclaimed author Andrea Hairston

The Master of Poisons https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250260543

Other Novels:

Will Do Magic for Small Change and Redwood and Wildfire

Published by Aqueduct Press at http://www.aqueductpress.com/

Website: http://www.andreahairston.com

For more information about the IAFA Imagining Indigenous Futurisms Award, please visit https://iaftfita.wildapricot.org/Imagining-Indigenous-Futurisms-Award/.