International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts

Paradoxa

Volume 32 Comics and/or Graphic Novels

Call for Papers (anticipated publication date: December, 2020)

Editor: Vittorio Frigerio (Dalhousie University)/

This issue of Paradoxa will explore comics and/or graphic novels.

American histories of comics have traditionally highlighted what they deem the indisputable U.S. birthplace of this mass-culture phenomenon, pointing to Richard F. Outcault’s Yellow Kid (1895) as the first comic ever produced. Alternately, the European view tends to favor the creation of this ever-popular medium by Swiss author Rodolphe Töppfer, with his Les Amours de monsieur Vieux Bois (1827 – first published in 1837) and highlights the importance of early works such as German author Wilhelm Bush’s Max und Moritz (1865).

A similar, apparently irreducible dichotomy has appeared concerning the origin of the “graphic novel.” American critics consider Will Eisner’s A Contract with God(1978) as the first graphic novel ever produced, while European historians point to Hugo Pratt’s La Ballata del mare salato (1967 – although its influence is said to be felt primarily after its translation into French in 1975). And it is not unusual to see credit for the origin of the graphic novel given to the Argentinian El Eternauta, by Héctor Germán Oesterheld and Francisco Solano López (1957).

Apart from matters of national pride and predominance, these divergent views are also due to unresolved questions regarding the meaning of the terms involved. Töppfer’s books would not qualify as a comic if one were to consider the genre as primarily defined by the use of the speech balloon. But then neither would such seminal works as Alex Raymond’s Flash Gordon or Hal Foster’s Prince Valiant. In the Franco-Belgian domain, debates have also excluded such historically significant works as Joseph Pinchon’s Bécassine or Louis Forton’s Les Pieds nickelés. In the Italian tradition, practically all pre-Second World War productions, such as Sergio Tofano’s Signor Bonaventura or Antonio Rubino’s Quadratino would automatically be excluded.

The final definition of “graphic novel” remains open to debate, as any customer of a major North American booksellers’ chain knows full well. Major commercial publishers recycle “classic” comic book fare under the new label and present it beside recent, more “literary” productions issued by niche or alternative publishers. Indeed, we can easily go from all-encompassing definitions such as offered by Stephen Weiner…

“Graphic novels, as we shall define them for this project, are book-length comic books that are meant to be read as one story. This broad term includes collections of stories in genres such as mystery, superhero, or supernatural, that are meant to be apart from their corresponding ongoing comic book storyline; heart-rending works such as Art Spiegelman’s Maus; and non-fiction pieces such as Joe Sacco’s journalistic work, Palestine.” (Stephen Weiner, Faster Than a Speeding Bullet: The Rise of the Graphic Novel. Introduction by Will Eisner. NBM Publishing, 2012.)

… to much more restrictive and specific ones, like that proposed by Thierry Groensteen…

“[T]he comics medium has matured, […]. Its standing has greatly improved, to the extent that it is now regarded as a form of literature in its own right. It has diversified by moving into new areas (history, personal life, science, philosophy, sometimes poetry) and by taking on new forms (diary, reportage, essay).” (Thierry Groensteen. The Expanding Art of Comics. Ten Modern Masterpieces. Translated by Ann Miller. University Press of Mississippi, Jackson, 2017, p. 3.)

Such appraisals also seem to vary according to the national origin of the critic, with North American criticism generally more willing to include mass cultural products within the field of the graphic novel, while European critics highlight notions of “maturity” and generic evolution that reserve the label for productions outside of, or in the margins of the commercial mainstream. Comics, bandes dessinées, fumetti, tebeos, manga—as they are known with important variations in different cultural contexts—and their critical reception, thus appear to differ significantly depending on their national histories and cultural preferences, and are only superficially identical.

On the other hand, comic book characters, their authors, and their publications have crossed national and linguistic boundaries to an extent rarely seen in the world of literary fiction. Any account of the Franco-Belgian “bande dessinée” would be incomplete without acknowledging the impact of Golden Age American comics, either as aesthetic models (George McManus’s influence on Hergé, Caniff’s influence on Jijé and other artists of the realistic school of drawing), or as competitors whose symbolic dominance led to the development of an autochthonous industry. American underground comics and authors of Mad magazine inspired the creators of the French Pilote and encouraged the transformation of the medium so that it appealed to the tastes of an older audience. In return, Franco-Belgian “ligne claire” informed some notable contemporary North American creators (Jeff Smith, Chris Ware…) and even influenced the international art world (Dutch illustrator Joost Swarte).

A constant whirlwind of reciprocal influences has marked the evolution of the comic genre across North America and the major European markets, as well as important markets in Latin America, most notably Argentina. Hugo Pratt, Alberto Ongaro, and Mauro Faustinelli contributed importantly to the development of the genre in that country, while European translations of Argentinian authors such as Alberto Breccia, have helped generate cultural recognition for the new genre of the graphic novel. Not all experiments were equally successful. Moebius (pseudonym of French author Jean Giraud), invited by Stan Lee to draw the famous Silver Surfer, did not meet with unconditional approval in the U.S. Periodic attempts at translating celebrated series such as Tintin and Astérix for an English-speaking public have not been able to duplicate the success of the characters in their respective native countries. The iconic Italian western Tex Willer is a major hit in Brazil, but only one story has appeared in North America, and then only because it was drawn by well-known American artist Joe Kubert.

In recent decades, the increasing critical recognition of comics as a legitimate artistic and literary genre has spawned the creation of several significant international events, such as the Angoulême International Comics Festival (France) and the Lucca Comics and Games convention (Italy), helping to further break down barriers and to bring national traditions into ever closer contact, while at the same time favoring the representation of comics as specific national products deserving of state sponsorship and protection granted through agencies such as the “Centre belge de la bande dessinée” in Belgium or the “Cité international de la bande dessinée et de l’image” in France.

What can a transnational analysis of the development of comics and graphic novels teach us about the nature of the genre? Do the exchanges and circulations (of authors, characters, styles, subjects, publishing formats…) between national traditions allow for a rewriting of the evolution of graphic narratives, outside of nation-based or linguistic models? What do these migrations tell us about any immutable or invariable properties potentially common to graphic narratives, independently of their chronological and geographical positioning, their intended audiences or their degree of cultural recognition? How and to what extent can the historiography of comics and graphic novels benefit from adopting a global approach to the subject?

This issue of Paradoxa will explore comics and/or graphic novels. Among the possible approaches are:

• comics in their relation to their national identity whether in specific works or in series, as related to the publishing industry and its functioning, or to the career of individual authors, from the beginning of the genre to the present time;
• the importance of foreign influences on the evolution of national comics traditions; the success, or lack thereof, of comics characters in different countries;
• differences and similarities between national markets and readerships;
• governmental support and promotion of comic art;
• the transnational evolution of comics magazines;
• comics in a globalized world;
• the graphic novel as a global phenomenon; comics and graphic novels–natural evolution from one into the other, or competing genres?

We are interested in proposals from all disciplines and theoretical perspectives. Comparative studies which take into consideration more than one national tradition are preferred.

500-word abstracts of article proposals or questions regarding this project should be sent to frigerio@dal.ca by September 1, 2019.

The Senses of Science Fiction: Visions, Sounds, Spaces

An international conference organized by the Speculative Texts and Media Research Group, American Studies Center, University of Warsaw

December 5-7, 2019
University of Warsaw, Poland

For most of its history, or at least since the late 19th century, the core conversations of science fiction (SF) have not been kind to the senses. For different reasons in different decades, the creative communities and the critical circles have focused on the genre’s status as the supreme expression of western technomodernity, its imbrications with the discourses of science and technology, and its subversive political potential. While always already present in SF’s structural, material, and creative dimensions, the formal, the aesthetic, and the sensible have been largely neglected at the expense of the functional, the political, and the cognitive. The questions of language and literary style have been discussed only with regard to selected writers, such as J.G. Ballard or William Gibson, while spectacle in film and television has been treated with a degree of suspicion and distrust—as something that dilutes the core values of rigorous speculation. Other less narrative media—forms in which the aesthetic plays the central role—have received very little or virtually no critical attention. And yet, for all its scientific bent and political urgency, science fiction has always strived to appeal to the senses and to instill in its audiences a sense of the beautiful, the harmonious, and the sublime.

The notion of aisthesis, that is sense perception, has recently regained prominence in humanities, playing a significant part in the philosophy of speculative realism, the turn towards the posthuman, and the shift away from anthropocentrism brought about by the increasingly widely embraced paradigm of the Anthropocene. In recognition of this newfound appreciation of the aesthetic, this conference seeks to recuperate the invisible and forgotten history of the sensible in the cultures of science fiction. It also seeks to find new ways of talking about these dimensions of SF texts across all media that in one way or another appeal to and engage all things sensible: sight, hearing, touch, movement, composition, but also smell, taste, auras, and speculative senses. Such attentiveness to the sensory in science fiction does not entail abandoning narrative, political, or scientific perspectives. Indeed, historically, many cultural forms have successfully intertwined formal elegance with political agency and emotional appeal with philosophical reflection. We believe science fiction is—and has always been—among these forms.

While the conference specifically namechecks science fiction, we follow in the footsteps of Sherryl Vint, Mark Bould, and John Rieder, treating the genre as a practice and a discourse, rather than an object of finite parameters. In fact, from a more traditional perspective, many SF texts that appeal to the senses as much as to the mind have been generically “impure,” borderline, slipstream, or otherwise hybrid.

Possible topics and areas of inquiry include, but are not limited to, the following:

styles and schools in science fiction literature and media
aesthetics and politics
aesthetics and fantastic identities (race, gender, sexuality)
science fiction sublime(s)
science fiction art, illustration, graphics
science fiction music, radio, and podcasts
fantastic architectures: real, visionary, speculative
design and typography
science fiction and stage arts: theater, opera, dance
SF art in/of the Anthropocene
outsider art
non-western SF aesthetics
speculative avant-gardes
new materialist perspectives on science fiction
affects, senses, and sensations in science fiction
hapticity and tactility in science fiction texts
immersive worlds of science fiction
the virtual and the actual
fantastic synaesthesias
senses and sensations of SF universes and franchises
SF soundscapes in movies, television, music, and games
science fiction fashion: upcycling, recycling, DIY, slow fashion, haute couture
sounds and spaces of Ethnofuturisms: Afrofuturism, Sinofuturism, Gulf Futurism, and others
material-discursive entanglements of science fiction
spatial dis/orientation
science fiction aesthetics around the world
social inequalities and aesthetic differences

For individual papers, please send proposals of up to 300 words. For multiple participant formats (e.g. discussion panels, roundtables, etc.), proposals may be up to 500 words long. We also welcome and encourage non-traditional forms of participation and presentation: performances, lightning presentations (1 slide & 5 minutes), speed panels, poster discussions, and others. Pre-formed multiple participant panels that are all-male will not be considered for inclusion in the conference. All submissions should be sent to SFSenses2019@gmail.com by May 1, 2019. Applicants will receive a response by May 15, 2019.

Keynote speakers will be announced in early April 2019, when the conference website opens.

Any questions and inquiries can be addressed to SFSenses2019@gmail.com .

The Organizing Committee:

Filip Boratyn
Jędrzej Burszta
Paweł Frelik (chair)
Agnieszka Kotwasińska
Stanisław Krawczyk
Anna Kurowicka

Please see the linked CFP for Embodying Fantastika, an Interdisciplinary Conference, 8-10 August 2019, Lancaster University, UK

Keynote Speakers Sherryl Vint (UC Riverside, USA) and Sara Wasson (Lancaster, UK)

Embodying Fantastika CFP

The call for papers for the GFF conference has been extended. We will accept papers until Mar 15, 2019 … please do think about coming over to Berlin in September.

The ROMANTIC FANTASTIC
Romanticism again and again! In autumn 1979, Michael Ende’s novel The Neverending Story was published in the Federal Republic of Germany. Even to Ende’s contemporaries, Bastian’s journey to Fantastica and back seemed to be the beginning of a revitalization of romantic longings and ideas within popular culture. Almost at the same time, US-American cinema discovers the genre of fantasy film. The motif of Campbell’s hero’s journey, a world that needs healing and the interconnectedness of all things becomes a constitutive trait of these films’ poetics.

On the one hand, the corresponding novels and films emerged in answer to the uncertainty of a bipolar world – fear of the atomic bomb and nuclear fallout as ultima ratio of the Cold War – and the nascent awareness of environmental vulnerability. On the other hand, they, like their famous predecessors, have been accused of a penchant for escapism and ill-conceived inwardness.

A similar area of tension can be observed in the fantasic today. Once again, the potential of recent speculative fiction as well as its critique seem to be indicating a core collection of romantic notions. Like at the end of the 18th century, romanticism and the fantastic provide a corrective to the frigid, mercantile rationality of a world that no longer knows any secrets. In light of contemporary political, economic and ecological distortions, speculative fiction is looking for ways of rethinking the world – and man’s place in it. And once again, the fantastic is accused of turning its back on hard facts and necessities to take refuge in sentimentalized other-worlds.

Based on these findings, the conference will pursue two goals: First, it intends to take a critical look into the relationship of romantic ideas, poetics, and images to possible genealogies of the fantastic. What is to be gained by locating fantastic works in a romantic tradition? Does this dialogue facilitate a deeper understanding of the continued effect of romanticism or poetics of the fantastic? Second, the resilience of speculative fiction’s inherent capability for critique is to be scrutinized in reference to its romantic origins. Can the relation between fantastic worlds and everyday reality be conceptualized in a way that forgoes the dichotomy of critical realism and ahistorical escapism? Would it be possible to illustrate, using its stories, images, and audiovisual presentations, the untenability of accusations which label the fantastic as being politically reactionary and aesthetically conservative – or do the subversive moments in its poetics remain marginal?

All contributions are welcome which examine the complex relationship between romanticism and specific implementations/ of the fantastic, its types and genres, protagonists, and media, on a theoretical, historical, and analytical level.

Possible Topics:

• Universal poetry and worldmaking (atmosphere, synesthesia, science and art as modes of knowing and experiencing)
• Media of the supernatural: romantic concepts of media and their influence on the mediality of the fantastic
• Romantic conceptions of history and the faculty of historic imagination as driving forces of the fantastic (recourse to the Middle Ages)
• Fairy tales, myths, and legends as genres and modalities of fantastic narratives
• Traditions of gothic fiction in modern fantasy
• Updating gothic topoi in contemporary horror cinema (for instance ghosts, living dolls and possessed clerics in the Conjuring-franchise, or witches and religious mania in folk forror)
• The beautiful and the sublime, the gruesome and the grotesque as models for poetics of affect in horror and fantasy
• Romantic imagery and its influence on visual forms of the fantastic (art, comic, film, series, computer game etc.)
• Forms, practices and theories of the fantastic in the era of romanticism (ghost and witch lore, demonology, phantasmagoria etc.)
• Soundscapes which establish a quasi-natural stance beyond the human (as in Dark Ambient or Drone Metal)
• Poetics of fantasy as modes of magical thinking
• Romantic poetics and the becoming-fantastic of the ordinary
• Forms of romantic love in fantasy
• Fantasy as a form of political romanticism

As usual at GFF conferences, there will be an open track for all lectures which are not directly related to the topic of the conference. Hence, we are open to further proposals.

The GFF offers two scholarships of 250 euros each to students to help cover their travel expenses to the conference. Please indicate if you would like to be considered when submitting your abstract.

Deadline for abstracts and short biographies (max. 2000 characters): January 1st-March 15th, 2018.

Submission of constituted panels (3-4 speakers) is encouraged.

Submission form: https://www.conftool.org/gff2019/

For additional inquiries, mail to: gff2019@fu-berlin.de.

Conference Board: Jun.-Prof. Dr. Jan-Hendrik Bakels, Regina Brückner, Jun.-Prof. Dr. Matthias Grotkopp, Dr. Tobias Haupts, Dr. Daniel Illger, Cilli Pogodda, Prof. Dr. Michael Wedel

Contemporary American Science Fiction Film: The Bush, Obama and Trump Years

deadline for submissions:
May 31, 2019

full name / name of organization:
Dr Stuart Joy, Solent University & Dr Terence McSweeney, Solent University

contact email:
stuart.joy@solent.ac.uk

Since the turn of the millennium the United States of America has undergone what many have considered to be a series of political, financial, and institutional crises. At the same time, the increasing popularity of the science fiction genre has, in many ways, frequently both dramatized and provided a commentary on the fears and anxieties this period has evoked. The philosopher and cultural critic Walter Benjamin argued that allegory emerges most frequently in periods of crisis and uncertainty, correspondingly it is no coincidence that some of the most powerful films to emerge from American cinema in the last two decades are allegorical texts and many of which have come from the science fiction genre. What are they able to tell us about the turbulent times in which they were made? How might they be uniquely positioned to function as cultural artefacts intrinsically connected to their historical moments? How do the fears and anxieties they portray resonate beyond the frames of the screens?

With this in mind we are seeking scholarly, research informed and dynamic chapter-length contributions to an edited volume on the topic of the contemporary science-fiction genre in American film. This collection of essays will examine and explore how recent films have reflected, portrayed and interrogated the social, political and cultural climate of this fractious period during the presidencies of George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump.

Topics for consideration may include, but are not limited to:

Allegories of 9/11 and the War on Terror
The threat of invasion: Aliens, immigration and border crossings
Disaster narratives: Mass extinctions, climate change and environmental damage
The post-human body and the rise of artificial intelligence
Young Adult dystopias
Representations of political and social resistance
Gendered nostalgia (with reference to movements such as #MeToo)
Nostalgia and contemporary political phenomena
Memory (e.g. false memories, artificial memories, memory transfer/erasure)
Alien Others: Race in the science fiction film
Global financial collapse
Cultures of science fiction fandom
The im/possibility of making America great again
Films for consideration may include, but are not limited to:

A Scanner Darkly (Linklater, 2006), A.I. Artificial Intelligence (Spielberg, 2001), Avatar (Cameron, 2009), Children of Men (Cuarón, 2006), Cloverfield (Reeves, 2008), Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (Reeves, 2014), Donnie Darko (Kelly, 2001), Dredd (Travis, 2012), Edge of Tomorrow (Liman, 2014), Elysium (Blomkamp, 2013), Equilibrium (Wimmer, 2002), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Gondry, 2005), Ex Machina (Garland, 2014), Gravity (Cuarón, 2013), Her (Jonze, 2013), The Hunger Games (Ross, 2012), Jurassic World (Trevorrow, 2015), I am Legend (Proyas, 2007), Inception (Nolan, 2010), Interstellar (Nolan, 2014), I Robot (Proyas, 2004), Looper (Johnson, 2012), Mad Max: Fury Road (Miller, 2015), Monsters (Edwards, 2010), Minority Report (Spielberg, 2002), Moon (Jones, 2009), Oblivion (Kosinski, 2013), Primer (Caruth, 2004), Rise of the Planet of the Apes (Wyatt, 2011), Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (Edwards, 2016), Safety Not Guaranteed (Trevorrow, 2012), Serenity (Whedon, 2005), Signs (Shyamalan, 2002), Snowpiercer (Joon-ho, 2013), Source Code (Jones, 2011), Star Trek (Abrams, 2009), Star Wars: The Force Awakens (Abrams, 2015), Super 8 (Abrams, 2011), The Day After Tomorrow (Emmerich, 2004), The Road (Hillcoat, 2009), The Martian (Scott, 2015), V for Vendetta (McTeigue, 2005), War of the Worlds (Spielberg, 2005), War for the Planet of the Apes (Reeves, 2017), Wall-E (Stanton, 2008).

About Us

The volume is edited by Stuart Joy co-editor of The Cinema of Christopher Nolan: Imagining the Impossible (Wallflower, 2015) and Through the Black Mirror: Reflections on ‘the Side Effects’ of the Digital Age (Palgrave Macmillan, forthcoming 2019) and Terence McSweeney author of The ‘War on Terror’ and American Film: 9/11 Frames Per Second (EUP, 2014), Avengers Assemble! Critical Perspectives on the Marvel Cinematic Universe (Wallflower, 2018) and editor of “In the Shadow of 9/11”: American Cinema in the ‘War on Terror’ Era (EUP, 2016). Stuart and Terence’s previous collections have included some of the foremost scholars in the fields of film and television studies (including Henry Jenkins, Geoff King, John Shelton Lawrence, Alison Landsberg, Warren Buckland, Will Brooker, Ian Scott, Todd McGowan and many others), it is intended that this book should be the definitive volume on contemporary American science fiction film. A number of publishers have already indicated an interest in the volume, but a final decision will be made by the editors when the structure of the collection is finalised.

Deadlines

The deadline for proposals will be 31st May 2019

Draft chapters of 7,000-8,000 words are due on or before 31st December 2019

Final versions no later than 31st March 2020.

Anticipated publication December 2020-January 2021, i.e. at the start of the new REF cycle.

Please send 500-word proposals (including a provisional title), along with a CV, to Stuart Joy (stuart.joy@solent.ac.uk) by April 30, 2019. Queries are welcome should there be questions about appropriate submission topics, perspectives and dates. Please note that invitation to submit a full essay does not guarantee inclusion in the volume.

Open Topic Comics Panel at American Literature Association 2019

deadline for submissions:
January 28, 2019

full name / name of organization:
Comics and Graphic Narratives Circle at the American Literature Association

contact email:
aberinger@montevallo.edu

Comics & Graphic Narrative Circle

American Literature Association
30th Annual Conference

May 23-26, 2019

Westin Copley Place
10 Huntington Avenue Boston, MA 02116

Call for Papers:

The Comics & Graphic Narrative Circle welcomes abstracts for an open topic panelat the 2019 ALA conference in Boston. We especially encourage proposals that highlight new directions and trends in the study of American comics, graphic novels, webcomics and other forms of graphic narrative. Established and emerging scholars are invited to apply.

Please email an abstract (of no more than 350 words) and a brief biographical note to Alex Beringer (aberinger@montevallo.edu)no later than Jan 28th.

Conference on Narrative Games

deadline for submissions:
February 22, 2019

full name / name of organization:
Stefan Hall / High Point University

contact email:
shall@highpoint.edu

Conference on Narrative Games

Keynote Speaker: Rachel Noel Williams (Narrative Designer at Obsidian Entertainment, Lead Narrative Designer at Telltale Games, and Narrative Writer at Riot Games)

Over the history of game design, a fundamental consideration for creators is the inclusion of narrative. Some might consider the introduction of narrative in game design as radical as the introduction of sound into film. Not all games require, or even benefit from, a narrative. For those games that involve narrative – from merely situating a player to deeply involving the player in the creation of a narrative experience – this inclusion can influence the games in a multitude of ways. Through the interrelation of interactivity principles, game mechanics, and narrative elements, games can tell stories in a way no other medium can. The success of recent games such as Telltale Games’ The Walking Dead, Guerrilla Games’ Horizon Zero Dawn, and Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us delivered narratively immersive experiences for their players. Long-running franchises from Zork to King’s Quest to The Legend of Zelda have narratives that not only span multiple games but also other media such as novels, comic books, and televisual productions.

To celebrate all the ways that games incorporate, create, and advance narrative, the Game & Interactive Media Design Program at High Point University (High Point, NC) is hosting a conference on narrative games. Soliciting a wide variety of perspectives on all types of narrative games – not just video games but tabletop games, board games, card games, wargaming, and more – this conference aims to both interrogate and celebrate the interplay of games and narrative.

Topics may include, but are not limited to:

Balancing player agency within a narrative-driven game
Franchise reboots and the impact on narrative history (such as Gears of War IV (2016) or God of War (2018))
Player Reception
Players’ interpretation co-construction of interactive narratives
Physical and cognitive aspects of narrative interactivity
Game worlds and cultures
Game narratives in larger society
Casual games, interactive text-based narratives, exploration and walking simulators, and other narrative-driven games outside of mainstream deployment/reception
Story-telling through environment and asset design
Transmedia storytelling, particularly engagement with game narrative across multiple media platforms (e.g. The Walking Dead as part of a large franchise)
Intersectional discussions of representation of characters and cultures
Encouraging values through narrative design
Abstracts should range from 250-500 words and include a sample bibliography.

Abstracts should be directed to any of the four members of the conference committee:

Dr. Stefan Hall – shall@highpoint.edu

Dr. Kris Bell – kbell@highpoint.edu

Dr. Kelly Tran – ktran@highpoint.edu

Mr. Brian Heagney – bheagney@highpoint.edu

Please indicate “Narrative Game Conference 2019” in the email header.

Conference presentations should be 20 minutes in length. Please note any AV needs in your abstract submission.

Deadline for submissions: Friday, February 22nd

Acceptance notifications: Friday, March 1st

Conference: Friday-Sunday, April 12-14th

Registration fee: $40 for faculty, $20 for students (payable on site)

The Game & Interactive Media Design program is housed within the Nido R. Qubein School of Communication at High Point University (HPU). The program was named a Top 50 Game Design program in 2017 by the Princeton Review. HPU is located in High Point, NC, which is part of the Piedmont Triad including Greensboro and Winston-Salem. High Point is a short ride from the Piedmont Triad International airport (GSO) in Greensboro, the city is directly serviced by Amtrak, and is easily accessible from I-40 by car. The program also benefits from its close proximity to the Research Triangle which houses major development studios including Epic Games, Red Storm Entertainment, and Insomniac East.

Gothic Feminism 3: Technology, Women and Gothic-Horror On-Screen

deadline for submissions: February 15, 2019

full name / name of organization: Dr Tamar Jeffers McDonald, University of Kent

contact email: t.jeffers-mcdonald@kent.ac.uk

Gothic Feminism presents:

Technology, Women, and Gothic-Horror On-Screen 

2 – 3 May 2019

University of Kent

Keynote speaker: Dr Lisa Purse (University of Reading)

CALL FOR PAPERS

Gothic and technology appear, on the surface, to evoke contradictory connotations. As David Punter and Glennis Byron highlight, the Gothic came to be a term associated with the “ornate and convoluted”, “excess and exaggeration, the product of the wild and the uncivilized, a world that constantly tended to overflow cultural boundaries” (Punter and Byron, 2004, 7). Technology, on the other hand, is a term often linked to science, innovation and progressive invention. If the Industrial Revolution is emblematic of what one imagines a technological revolution to be, then technology becomes synonymous with the associations defining 18th Century culture, described by Terry Castle as “the period as an age of reason and enlightenment – the aggressively rationalist imperatives of the epoch” (Castle, 1995, 8).

Yet technology and the Gothic have been linked and have interacted since the latter’s beginnings in fiction. From the earliest reception of the original novels that give our Gothic films their name, fans and critics alike referred to the “machinery” of the narratives, implying that that the mechanisms that made them go were audible. Clara Reeve, who wrote The Old English Baron – itself is a tad creaky – commented on The Castle of Otranto that “the machinery is so violent, that it destroys the effect it is intended to excite” (Reeve, 2008, 3). And Horace Walpole, himself, made reference to the story’s “engine” (Walpole, 2014, 6).  The Gothic can thus be conceptualised as metaphorically mechanical, a link explored within a different context by Jack Halberstam who writes that “Gothic fiction is a technology of subjectivity … designed to produce fear and desire within the reader” (Halberstam, 1995, 2).

Technology and the Gothic have also intersected in more literal terms, as with the horror created by the intersection of the two in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818). On the one hand, the novel stands as a canonical Gothic text, and Ellen Moers argues that the story can be defined as the Female Gothic, a term commonly associated with the women-in-peril narratives which later saw the influence of Gothic literature translated onto the cinema screen in Hollywood during the 1940s. On the other hand, the tale of an unnatural and scientific birth is credited with establishing the generic tropes of science fiction, a mode of storytelling which is indebted to technology and acknowledges “contemporary scientific knowledge and the scientific method”, as Barry Keith Grant suggests. He also continues: “Science fiction, quite unlike fantasy and horror, works to entertain alternative possibilities” (Grant, 2004, 17). However, Fred Botting notes that the combining of science fiction and Gothic – two “generic monsters” – reveals a “a long and interwoven association” whereby both genres “give form to a sense of otherness, a strangeness that is difficult to locate” (Botting, 2008, 131).

Our conference aims to explore this relationship between technology and the Gothic by focussing upon its intersection as depicted on screen within visual media, with a specific focus on how such concerns impact on gender representations and, in particular, women. This connection may be explored figuratively: the “machinery” identified in Gothic fiction can also be extended to the filmic Gothics which centre upon the Gothic heroine. The Hollywood 1940s Gothics possess noticeably excessive convolutions of plot, as with Sleep, My Love (1948), and one could argue this trend has continued in contemporary returns to the Old Dark House and horror with films like Crimson Peak(2015). Technology may also be physically present within these Gothic-horror films. If the “machinery is so violent” in Crimson Peak’s narrative, then this is additionally foregrounded within the diegesis: Thomas Sharpe’s engine for extracting the red clay from the ground stands as both a metaphor for the genre’s mechanical plot – drawing on familiar tropes which unearth deadly secrets – as well as functioning as a visual spectacle around which the climax of the film shall take place.

Actual mechanical or technological inventions which impact upon the story may be wide-ranging: the railway, cars, telephones, recording devices, electric light and gaslight are just some examples of technologies integrated into the narratives of Gothic films, often with the intention of contributing to the imperilment and oppression of the central heroine. Technology can also do this by evoking the uncanny, itself a phenomenon which forms “the background and indeed the modus operandi of much Gothic fiction” (Punter and Byron, 2004, 286). Tom Gunning demonstrates this when he recounts several versions in early cinema of a woman-in-jeopardy story, Heard Over the Phone, which could almost be Gothic in that the woman is in her own home and menaced there by a male assailant. Drawing on Freud’s musings upon the ambivalent nature of technology, Gunning highlights the ambiguous – and uncanny – position of the telephone: it is a device which brings the absent near through sound, but actually this serves only to underline the actual distances involved. Gothic-type narratives, gender, and technology merge in these early films to reveal “the darker aspects of the dream world of instant communication and the annihilation of space and time” (Gunning, 1991, 188). 

More recent Gothic and Gothic-horror films may update these technologies to include computers, the Internet and mobile phones. Technology also includes film and the moving image itself: this conference will explore how filmic technologies mediate and emphasise the connection between technology, the Gothic, and gender, including through the use of visual effects. Film is a particularly apt medium through which to contemplate these ideas as cinema’s ontology embodies both technology’s scientific roots and the Gothic’s appeal to excess and the supernatural. As Murray Leeder notes: “With its ability to record and replay reality and its presentation of images that resemble the world but as intangible half-presences, cinema has been described as a haunted or ghostly medium from early on” (Leeder, 2015, 3).

These ideas may also be explored by expanding upon the original notion of Moer’s Female Gothic: if the literary Female Gothic is defined by female writers working in this mode, then this conference would also like to explore how female filmmakers have made use of Gothic-horror conventions. It is significant to note that the most iconic examples of Gothic films focusing on stories about the victimisation of women, particularly in the 1940s, were directed by men. By thinking about the technology behind the screen, this event will also consider what influence women filmmakers have had upon this tradition, including within present day, and what further reflections may be offered between this relationship of the Gothic to gender and technology.

With this third annual Gothic Feminism conference, we invite scholars to respond to the theme of technology in the woman-in-jeopardy strand of the Gothic and Gothic-horror film or television.

Topics can include but are not limited to:

– the tension between Gothic and technology as the supernatural, fantastic and paranoia versus the rational, reason and logic. How do these elements intersect with the representation of gender in film and television?

– the traditions of the Gothic heroine on-screen and her interaction with technology. Does technology help the female character or is it another agent of terror used against her?

– the technology behind the screen. How have female filmmakers used the genres of Gothic-horror to express themselves?

– the technology of the screen. How has the technology of cinema, including visual effects, been used, and how do these aspects interact with the representation of the central female protagonist/s?

Please submit proposals of 500 words, along with a short biographical note (250 words) to gothicfeminism2016@gmail.com by Friday 15th February 2019.

We welcome 20-minute conference papers as well as submissions for creative work or practice-as-research including, but not limited to, short films and video essays.  

Conference organisers: Frances A. Kamm and Tamar Jeffers McDonald

https://gothicfeminism.com/

Tweets by GothicFeminism

This conference is the third annual event from the Gothic Feminism project, working with the Melodrama Research Group in the Centre of Film and Media Research at the University of Kent. Gothic Feminism explores the representation of the Gothic heroine on-screen in her various incarnations. 

Glitches and Ghosts – An Interdisciplinary Conference – 17th April

deadline for submissions: February 17, 2019full name / name of organization: Lancaster Universitycontact email: k.dodd@lancaster.ac.uk

Glitches are moments of disruption; they represent the exposure of technical process, moving away from the binaries of input and output to consider what comes in-between. The growing ubiquity of interconnected systems prompts a desire to understand such intangible networks around the user, an attempt to try and engage with these digital phenomena as alternate forms of ‘presence’ that cannot help but recourse to anthropocentric terms – virus, cloud, render ghost. The frequent ethereality of such language attempts to visualise, embody, and comprehend the profusion of technical systems that we share the atmosphere with, their very terming gesturing to their spectral protrusion into, ostensibly, ‘our’ reality. The eruption of pixels, voxels, and glitches haunts our peripheral vision, a deceptive representation of a far more intangible sphere.

‘Glitches and Ghosts’ seeks to diagnose and analyse contemporary cultural fascinations with the emergence of these digital artefacts, and how their spectral presence has come to define our current technological moment. This symposium aims to bring together researchers who are enticed by the prospect of re-conceptualising definitions of digital-based ontologies as a paradigm to engage with an era of technophobic anxieties and technophilic domination.

We are delighted to announce Dr. Will Slocombe as our keynote. Will’s research ranges between various aspects of twentieth and twenty-first century literature, focusing primarily on Science Fiction (particularly representations of Artificial Intelligence), Postmodernism, and metafictions of experimental literature. His upcoming book Emergent Patterns: Artificial Intelligence and the Structural Imagination is due out in 2019.

We welcome abstracts for 20 minute papers which engage with the confluence of glitches and ghosts within any medium or form. Suggested topics include:

• Digital art – glitch aesthetics, pixels, voxels, drone shadows, distortion etc. 
• Détournement and system subversion – e.g. hacker ‘heroes’ and neoliberal dissent.
• Technophobia – network alienation and technological anxieties. 
• Glitch and/or ghosts in music – synthwave, sampling, remixes, etc.
• Cloud spectrality, unseen network presences and how we visualise them. 
• Ghosts in the machine, electronic voice phenomenon, white noise etc. 
• Render ghosts, digital advertising and the disruption of imagined ontologies. 
• Doppelgangers, sample image databases and the ‘ownership’ of personal data. 
• Unshackled virtual consciousness, e.g. A.I. and the breaking of constraints.
• Disruption of the virtual – glitches, bugs, cheats and other subversions. 
• Digital spectres – eternal or lingering existence within the network. 
• Viral anxieties and data transmission; conceptualisations of network ‘presence’. 
• Secular digitalities, virtual ‘gods’ or spirits and ontological transcendence.
• Permanence and/or ephemerality of data, system collapse and user anxiety.
• Creative practice and the deployment of glitches and/or ghosts within media. 
• Remixed ontologies, disruption of identity boundaries and bricolage forms. 
• Omnipresent networks, ‘invasive’ devices (i.e. Alexa) and disconnection.
• Machine learning and emergent behaviour from algorithmic structures.

Please submit a 300 word abstract to glitchconference@gmail.com with a 50 word bio-note by 17th February 
#glitchesandghosts #glitchconference @GlitchGhosts

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.

Please click here for more information.