International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts

Call for Papers

Conference: Caspar Walter Rauh and Phantastic Realism

Within German 20th century art, the graphic artist, illustrator, painter and writer Caspar Walter Rauh (1912-1983) is an outsider who has not yet received the attention that he deserves. The critical exploration of his oeuvre is still at an early stage.

Since Rauh started his career as an artist during the years of World War II, his work has unsettled viewers as he juxtaposes representations of the most frightening and traumatizing events of the epoch with joyful scenes of escapism into idyllic “alternate” worlds and into humour. Rauh’s dream-like images confront the viewer with the barbarism of the 20th century, with suffering, death and destruction on the one hand, and utopian sketches of better worlds on the other hand. His works have a strong narrative quality telling stories in a visual language based on fantasy and surrealism. They display private mythologies in which fish and birds, weird plants and imaginary vehicles play a major role.

The proposed conference will explore the specific “fantastic” dimensions in Rauh’s work. It will focus – although not exclusively – on the following key questions:

1. How can Rauh’s Phantastik be conceptualised and what is its significance in relation to the wider context of fantasy theory? What concepts of genre, what theoretical approaches can help to define it? Which concepts from philosophy, psychology, art history or literary criticism can be applied? To what extent can theories of dream contribute to an understanding of the “dreamlike” qualities in Rauh’s works?

2. What is the relationship between Rauh’s work and the canon of fantastic art and literature? What does Rauh’s oeuvre owe to iconographic traditions of fantastic art – from Hieronymus Bosch to Alfred Kubin and Félicien Rops? What role does literature play for him? Was it only relevant for Rauh as illustrator of works by authors such as E.A. Poe, Jean Paul, E.T.A. Hoffmann and Mary Norton, or was literature a general source of artistic inspiration for him?

3. For a brief period of not quite ten years following the Second World War, German writers and visual artists engaged significantly with a concerted attempt to describe war experiences through the medium of fantastic realism. Is there a taxonomy for this Nachkriegsphantastik and how does Rauh’s oeuvre contribute to it? Comparisons with other artistic and literary outputs of the late forties and fifties are invited, as are investigations into the causes for the proliferation of fantastic art and its subsequent decline over the given period.

The interdisciplinary conference is aimed at historians and theorists of art, literature and other cultural sciences. Multidisciplinary contributions are welcome, as are interpretations of individual works and motifs. Contributions should not exceed 30 minutes in length; conference languages are English, Portuguese and German.

Interested participants should send their proposed topic, including a working title, abstract (200 words) and short CV to one of the following before 31st May 2017:

Prof. Dr. John Greenfield: jgreenfi@letras.up.pt
Prof. Dr. Hans-Walter Schmidt-Hannisa: h.schmidthannisa@nuigalway.ie

Costs of accommodation (and, if possible, travel expenses) will be refunded to contributors.
Selected papers will be published.

Time and venue:
Palacete dos Viscondes de Balsemão / Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto, Porto, 26-28 October 2017

The conference is hosted by the DEG (Departamento de Estudos Germanísticos) / Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto and CITCEM (Centro de Investigação Transdisciplinar Cultura – Espaço – Memória).

The event is sponsored by the Câmara Municipal do Porto and the Goethe-Institut, Porto.

Organisation:
John Greenfield (Universidade do Porto),
Hans-Walter Schmidt-Hannisa (National University of Ireland, Galway)

Exhibition:
The conference will be accompanied by an exhibition of selected etchings by Caspar Walter Rauh in the Palacete dos Viscondes de Balsemão, Porto.
The opening of the exhibition will be on Thursday, 26 Oktober 2017 at 6 p.m..

The Handbook to Horror Literature – select chapters needed!

Most handbooks on the subject of horror focus specifically on film, whereas books on the literary manifestations of horror tend to be bound to the idea of the “Gothic.” The current field of Gothic studies grows out of the study of Romanticism, and refers specifically to a late eighteenth-century genre, but has also come to denote a critical approach to literature, film, and culture, drawing on psychoanalysis, post structural criticism, feminist and queer theory. These perspectives are all to be included here, but the book responds to a growing sense that “horror” is itself a worthwhile focus of analysis. This handbook will focus very strongly on literature, giving it specific value on established English literature University courses worldwide, and allowing for an exploration of horror that looks further back than the Gothic. It also takes an international approach. Each chapter will achieve a balance between a useful overview or context of the selected topic as well as posing an original argument.

We have collected several chapters for this handbook and are looking to fill some gaps. These include:
-Horror in Early Modern Europe
-Horror in Renaissance Drama (such as revenge tragedy)
-The Twentieth and/or Twenty First-Century Horror Novel
-Zombie Fiction
-Vampire Fiction
-Serial Killer Fiction
-Real-life Horror Stories
-Horror in Fairytales
-Horror and Censorship
-Transgressive Horror and Politics
-Horror and/or Beyond Psychoanalysis
-Other Theoretical Approaches to Horror (feminism, queer theory…)

Entries can be either longer (around 6000 words) or shorter (around 3000 words). Please specify which word count you would be interested in providing. Please send a 350-word abstract for one of these specific chapters to Kevin Corstorphine (k.corstorphine@hull.ac.uk) and Laura Kremmel (LauraRKremmel@gmail.com) by April 30th. Full articles will be due by June 30th.

Penny Dreadful, Gothic Reimagining and Neo-Victorianism in Modern Television

It’s been less than a year since Penny Dreadful ended dramatically in its third season, but this week brings the announcement of a collection of academic essays dedicated to the show. Edited by Manchester Metropolitan University‘s Jon Greenaway and Stephanie Reid, the collection looks to explore the show’s Gothic and Victorian heritage, as well as its contemporary contexts.

If you’re working on Penny Dreadful, do consider submitting an abstract to Penny Dreadful: Gothic Reimagining and Neo-Victorianism in Modern Television. The deadline is 15 May.

Penny Dreadful (2014-2016) has become one of the most critically well-regarded shows of the post-millennial Gothic television revival, drawing explicitly on classic tropes, texts and characters throughout its three-season run. However, despite the show’s critical success and cult following, a substantive academic examination of the show has yet to be undertaken.

This edited collection seeks to address the current lack within Gothic studies scholarship, and situate Penny Dreadful as a key contemporary Gothic television text. This collection will seek to trace the link between the continued expansion of Gothic television, alongside the popular engagement with Neo-Victorianism. In addition, the collection seeks to examine notions around the aesthetic importance of contemporary Gothic that become particularly prominent against the narrative re-imaginings that occur within Penny Dreadful. This collection explores exactly where Gothic resides within this reflexive, hybridized and intertextual work; in the bodies, the stories, the history, the styling, or somewhere else entirely?
Possible contributions could include, but are no means limited to the following:

Gothic adaptation and/or appropriation?
Pastiche and parody and Gothic aesthetics
‘Global Gothic’ in the sense of its commercialisation
Neo-Victorianism (styling, politics, economics); as well as explorations of the impact of ‘historicizing’ Gothic
Representation of gender within the text, specifically female monstrosity
The Post/Colonial context, as well racialized characterisation and presentation
The reworking/restyling of monsters in contemporary Gothic
Consideration of a ‘Romance’ aesthetic and how this alters conceptions of ‘Gothic’ texts and the influence of ‘romantic’ themes/styles in contemporary Gothic

What the proposal should include:

An extended abstract of 500 words (for a 6,000-word chapter) including a proposed chapter title, a clear theoretical approach and reference to some relevant sources.

Please also provide your contact information, institutional affiliation, and a short biography.

Abstracts should be sent as a word document attachment to j.greenaway@mmu.ac.uk or stephanie.m.reid@stu.mmu.ac.uk by no later than May 15th 2017 with the subject line, “Penny Dreadful Abstract Submission.”

Please click here for more information.

Journal of Dracula Studies

deadline for submissions:
May 1, 2017

full name / name of organization:
Anne DeLong/Transylvanian Society of Dracula

contact email:
journalofdraculastudies@kutztown.edu

We invite manuscripts of scholarly articles (4000-6000 words) on any of the following: Bram Stoker, the novel Dracula, the historical Dracula, the vampire in folklore, fiction, film, popular culture, and related topics.

Submissions should be sent electronically (as an e-mail attachment in .doc or .rtf). Please indicate the title of your submission in the subject line of your e-mail. Send electronic submissions to journalofdraculastudies@kutztown.edu.

Please follow MLA style. Contributors are responsible for obtaining any necessary permissions and ensuring observance of copyright. Manuscripts will be peer-reviewed independently by at least two scholars in the field. Copyright for published articles remains with the author.

Submissions must be received no later than May 1 in order to be considered for that year’s issue.

Call for Papers: Fafnir 3/2017

Fafnir – Nordic Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy Research invites authors to submit papers for the upcoming edition 3/2017. Theme for the edition is ‘reception, audience/s and fandom studies’ (e.g. The World Hobbit Project). The theme issue has been moved from issue 2/2017 to issue 3/2017. We invite papers that focus on all aspects of the study of ‘audiences’ for cultural and media products and practices that are connected to speculative fiction. As Finland is hosting the 75th Worldcon in 2017, for this edition we would also be interested in studies of fan societies, conventions, and their history in Nordic countries and beyond. ‘Audience’ is here understood broadly without any specific theoretical orientations.

Fafnir – Nordic Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy Research is a peer-reviewed academic journal which is published in electronic format four times a year. Fafnir is published by The Finnish Society for Science Fiction and Fantasy Research (FINFAR) from 2013 onwards. Fafnir publishes various texts ranging from peer-reviewed research articles to short overviews and book reviews in the field of science fiction and fantasy research.

The submissions must be original work, and written in English (or in Finnish or Scandinavian languages). Manuscripts of research articles should be between 20,000 and 40,000 characters in length. The journal uses the most recent edition of the MLA Style Manual. The manuscripts of research articles will be peer-reviewed. Please note that as Fafnir is designed to be of interest to readers with varying backgrounds, essays and other texts should be as accessibly written as possible. Also, if English is not your first language, please have your article proof-read by an English language editor. Please pay attention to our journal’s submission guidelines available in: http://journal.finfar.org/for-authors/submission-guidelines/

The deadline for submissions is 15th June 2017.

In addition to research articles, Fafnir constantly welcomes text proposals such as essays, interviews, overviews and book reviews on any subject suited for the journal.

Please send your electronic submission (saved as RTF-file) to the following address: submissions(at)finfar.org. For further information, please contact the editors: jyrki.korpua(at)oulu.fi, aino-kaisa.koistinen@jyu.fi, bodhisattva.chattopadhyay@ikos.uio.no. More detailed information about our journal is available at our webpage: journal.finfar.org.

This edition is scheduled for the end of September 2017.

Best regards,
Bodhisattva Chattopadhyay, Aino-Kaisa Koistinen & Jyrki Korpua
Editors, Fafnir – Nordic Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy Research

From: Gregorio Montejo
Date: 16 March 2017 at 17:47:44 GMT-7

Call for Submissions:

Feast of Laughter is a journal dedicated to the American writer R.A. Lafferty, the creator of a modern literary mythos informed by Western, Irish, Native American, Catholic and other literary traditions. Even though Lafferty ostensibly wrote fiction from within the SF genre, his work routinely transcends generic boundaries and subverts conventional science fictional tropes and topics.

We are in the process of planning our fifth volume, and are actively looking for scholarly articles about Lafferty, his work, its reception, and his influence. All disciplinary and theoretical perspectives and diverse research methods are welcome. Authors who are interested in submitting a paper for this volume should send a short abstract-length proposal to Gregorio Montejo (montejo@bc.edu). Any general enquiries can also be directed to this address.

The deadline for proposals is June 1, 2017. The deadline for submissions is September 1, 2017.

We invite submissions to the 2017 Science Fiction Research Association (SFRA) Conference, held at the Marriott Riverside at the Convention Center and hosted by University of California, Riverside.

Our conference theme is Unknown Pasts / Unseen Futures and our keynote speaker is Nnedi Okorafor, author of fantasy, sf, and speculative fiction. Sf author Ted Chiang will also be in attendance for a special screening of Arrival (2016, dir. Denis Villeneuve), which is based on Chiang’s short story “Story of Your Life.” A Q&A with Chiang will follow the screening.

In her acceptance speech for the National Book Foundation’s medal for Distinguished Contributions to American Letters, Ursula K. Le Guin reminded us of the importance of the speculative imagination: such visions can help us recognize that social and political structures of our present are only one option among many rather than inevitable formations. In this spirit, we invite papers that explore science fiction’s pasts from innovative perspectives and that focus on its power to envision alternative futures that are more than just the intensification of urgent problems of the present.

Topics can include, but are not limited to:

– Science fiction without the label: speculative cultural productions that might be understood as part of an expanded frame for science fiction

– Neglected voices: authors or works once prominent in the field who have been forgotten

– New voices: works by the next generation of sf writers and creators and how their work is changing our field

– New methodologies: new ways of asking questions about and with science fiction

– Overlooked media: what other media can we think about in sf terms—visual art, performance art, and more?

– New futures: how can we think beyond or outside of the various crises—economic, ecological, social, democratic—in which we find ourselves in the twenty-first century?

– Reinventing sf: it has become axiomatic to say that the future resembles science fiction in reference to contemporary technology such as augmented reality or biotechnology; so if we are now living in the world as envisioned by Gernsback’s sf, what should be the project for another kind of sf for the twenty-first century?

Please send proposals of 250 words to sfra2017@ucr.edu by March 31, 2017. Proposals should include your name and affiliation, and be accompanied by a brief bibliography. Proposals can be made for pre-constituted panels and these must include email addresses for all proposed speakers.

The full CFP and information about registration, travel, accommodations, and more can be found on the SFRA website at http://www.sfra.org/SFRA-Annual-Conference.

We are still accepting proposals for a special issue of JLCDS on The Intersections of Disability and Science Fiction. Deadline is March 15th!

The CFP follows:

Journal of Literary and Cultural Disability Studies

Special issue: The Intersections of Disability and Science Fiction

Guest editors: Ria Cheyne (Disability and Education, Liverpool Hope University) and Kathryn Allan (Independent Scholar, Canada)

“No other literary genre comes close to articulating the anxieties and preoccupations of the present day as clearly and critically as SF, making it a vital source of understanding advances in technology and its impact on newly emerging embodiments and subjectivities, particularly for people with disabilities.”
–Kathryn Allan, Disability in Science Fiction

Reflecting the status of science fiction as a genre that spans multiple mediums and audiences, this special issue of JLCDS seeks articles that explore the intersection(s) of science fiction, disability, and disability studies. What possibilities might science fiction or science fiction theory offer to disability activists and the field of disability studies? How might disability theory, or a disability-informed approach, enrich or transform our understanding of science fiction as a genre or as a mode of thought?

Topics might include, but are not limited to:

● Representations of disability in science fiction literature, comics/graphic novels, film, art, music, video games, or television, and their implications for our understanding of genre and/or disability.
● Science fiction fan culture (including conventions, fanfic and other forms of fan production).
● Science fiction and prosthesis.
● Science fiction and eugenics/genetic engineering.
● Science fiction and the posthuman.
● Accessibility and science fiction environments.
● The political and ethical consequences of imagining future worlds with or without disability.
● The figure of the alien or cyborg in science fiction and/or disability theory.
● Disability and queerness in science fiction.
● Disability and indigenous futures in science fiction.
● Science fiction, disability, and medical humanities.
● The influence of disability activism on professional or fan-based science fiction production.

Submissions that consider how disability intersects with other identity categories are particularly encouraged. The guest editors welcome contributions from independent scholars.

Please email a 500 word proposal to cheyner@hope.ac.uk and kathryn@academiceditingcanada.ca by March 15, 2017. Contributors can expect to be notified by April 26, 2017. Full drafts of the selected articles will be due by December 6, 2017. Please direct any questions to either guest editor.

NEW DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS: March 30, 2017

UNIVERSITY OF AVEIRO, PORTUGAL

29, 30 June & 1 July 2017

Keynote addresses by:

Roz Kaveney, Author and Activist

Toby Miller, University of California Riverside & Loughborough
University London

The conference will deal with particular practices and topics in
contemporary media and culture. A fuller cfp can be found under the
CFP menu, but basically it will be divided into two sections:

Section 1: Formal and Commercial Issues

The formation of global conglomerates has created the commercial
conditions for ever more lucrative exchanges between different media.
Hardware, software and entertainment generation are now in lock-step,
and they are like this because it makes it easier to function in
global markets, working the magic transformation of your money into
their money. In this regard, Sony-Columbia’s exploitation of its
hoary 1950s product Godzilla is a quaint example of a practice now
brought to considerable refinement. The franchise, the sequel and more
recently the prequel, are now industry norms, lurching fastly and
furiously into online multiplayer gaming after-life.

With these and more issues in mind, papers are invited in the
following general areas:

transmedia synergies and convergences
innovative business practices in media and merchandising
fandom, community and popular culture
crossover forms and digital interactivities
resistances to and rejections of popular cultural forms
Section 2: Thematic Content

Transformation of bodies is now an ever-present theme. Bodies may
develop special abilities through forms of cod-scientific causes, such
as being bitten by a spider developed in a scientific experiment, or
through forms of more plausibly scientific explanation, such as
current research on genetics or prosthetics extended into imagined
future possibilities, or actually present technologies in the
realisation of gender affirming surgery. From superheroes to
cyberbodies to transsexuals may be a forced conjunction of disparate
phenomena. On the other hand, these phenomena may also be different
points on a paradigm in which the stability of bodies has been
overtaken by logics of choice associated with varying possibilities,
real or promised, in a battle of not just warring super and enhanced
figures, but of the models of desire they embody.

Accordingly, the conference invites proposals for papers dealing with
these and related thematic phenomena.

bodies which refuse to die
superbodies and ordinary worlds
rehearsing technologically altered bodies
genetics and special bodies
identical bodies
choosing bodies; control over bodies

Proposals of between 200 and 300 words should be submitted by March
30th 2017 along with a short bionote to both Anthony Barker:
abarker@ua.pt & David Callahan: callahan@ua.pt, specifying which
section you wish to present in. It may appear to be obvious but given
that everything solid changes into something else, including
conference papers, your paper might belong in both.

The conference language will be English.

TRANSFORMERS: all that is solid changes into something else

*Summer School on “Transnational Graphic Narratives” at the University of Siegen (Germany)*

Heads Up Comics Scholars

Call for Applications

Extended application deadline (March 31st) for an upcoming summer school on Transnational Graphic Narratives at the University of Siegen in Germany! We have an excellent selection of speakers from the US, UK, and Germany. If you are a comics scholar, you do not want to miss this!

Find updated info on application and funding details here: https://www.uni-siegen.de/phil/transnationalgraphicnarratives/