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CfP: DONALD GRAY PRIZE ###DEADLINE TODAY###

DEADLINE TODAY

DONALD GRAY PRIZE

NAVSA’s annual Donald Gray Prize for best essay published in the field of Victorian Studies is named after Donald J. Gray, Culbertson Professor Emeritus in the English Department of Indiana University. Professor Gray received his PhD at Ohio State University, where he completed his dissertation under the direction of Richard Altick, and began teaching at Indiana University in 1956. At Indiana, Professor Gray received the university’s Distinguished Teaching Award, its Distinguished Service Award, and the President’s Medal of Excellence; in 1997, he received the MLA award for professional service. He was a dissertation director of legendary responsiveness, acuity and stamina, having directed over 75 dissertations. Professor Gray is the editor of the Norton Pride and Prejudice and Alice in Wonderland; with George Tennyson he edited Victorian Poetry and Prose for Macmillan. He also served as editor of the journal College English and, beginning in 1957, as the Book Review Editor of Victorian Studies, helping the founding editors steer the journal through its early years. From 1990-2000 he served as principal editor of the journal. He retired in 1998. The Gray Prize honors his remarkable achievements as editor and graduate-student teacher.

NAVSA is now seeking nominations for the Donald Gray Prize for best essay published in the field of Victorian Studies.   The prize carries with it an award of $500 and will be awarded to essays that appeared in print or online in journals from the previous calendar year. Essays may be on any topic related to the study of Victorian Britain.   Note that the actual date of appearance trumps the date given on the issue itself since it’s common for journals to lag behind official issue dates. (The prize is limited to journal essays; those published in essay collections are not eligible.) The winner will also receive complementary registration at the NAVSA conference at which his or her award will be announced. Anyone, regardless of NAVSA membership status, is free to nominate an essay that appeared in print between 1 January 2013 and 31 December 2013.   Nominations will also be solicited from the Advisory Board of NAVSA and the prize committee judges; self-nominated essays are equally welcome.   Authors may be from any country and of any institutional standing.

To nominate an essay, please submit by Tuesday, 20 May 2014: (1) a brief cover sheet with complete address and email information for both the essay’s nominator and its author, and (2) a digital copy of the essay (in .pdf, .doc or .docx) to the Executive Secretary of NAVSA, Deborah Denenholz Morse, at the following e-mail address: ddmors@wm.edu

The winning essay will be selected according to three criteria: 1) Potential significance for Victorian studies; 2) Quality and depth of scholarly research and interpretation; 3) Clarity and effectiveness of presentation. The judges will choose one essay for the award, with one honorary runner-up also selected, when appropriate, and will provide a short paragraph for use in announcing the award. If the judges are deadlocked, the decision is thrown to the NAVSA Executive Council.

Cheers,

Deborah

Ft. Lauderdale Airport Hilton Demolished

So, that’s gone.

Airport Hilton

 

Radu Florescu, Dracula Scholar and Historian has Died at 88

Past ICFA attendee, Dracula scholar, and Romanian historian Radu Florescu has died. More information is available here.

Volume 55.1 (2014) of Extrapolation Now Available

Dear colleague:

Volume 55.1 (2014) of Extrapolation is now available on the liverpool.metapress.com website at http://liverpool.metapress.com/content/g6114146054k/.

Extrapolation is a leading international journal publishing academic work on the specialized popular culture genres of science fiction and fantasy. You can keep up to date with the journal by clicking here to sign up to new issue alerts, and can learn more about the title at its website page here.

This issue contains:

Contributors

p. i

DOI: 10.3828/extr.2014.1

“Two Sought Adventure”

p. 1

Mark Barr

DOI: 10.3828/extr.2014.2

On the Look-Out for a New Urban Uncanny

p. 25

Lars Schmeink

DOI: 10.3828/extr.2014.3

Critiques of Colonialism in Robin Hobb’s Soldier Son Trilogy

p. 33

Helen Young

DOI: 10.3828/extr.2014.4

Fear of a Stupid Planet

p. 51

James Campbell

DOI: 10.3828/extr.2014.5

Alien as a Comic Book

p. 75

Nicolas Labarre

DOI: 10.3828/extr.2014.6

Reviews of Books

p. 95

Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock, Wan Tang, William Dynes, et al.

DOI: 10.3828/extr.2014.7

Kindest regards

Jonathan

Call for Submissions: Approaches to Teaching the Works of Octavia E. Butler

I write to ask for your help with an important project in development in the MLA publications program. We are beginning preparation of the volume Approaches to Teaching the Works of Octavia E. Butler , edited by Tarshia L. Stanley, and would very much like your input.

Please see the survey and call for essay proposals available on the MLA Web site at http://www.mla.org/publications/publication_program/approaches . As with other books in the MLA series Approaches to Teaching World Literature, this one will contain a discussion of the most important and useful materials available to teachers—in this case, of those on the works of Octavia E. Butler—but will be composed largely of essays by instructors. The deadline for completing the survey and submitting an essay proposal is 1 July 2014, and the survey results and proposals will be sent directly to the volume’s editor.

You are receiving this message because you belong to an MLA division or discussion group whose members we believe might be interested in contributing to this volume, and we encourage you to pass it along to other colleagues who may be interested. We would appreciate your assistance with this project and look forward to hearing from you.

Cordially,

Kathleen Fitzpatrick

Director of Scholarly Communication

Modern Language Association of America

Grant Opportunity: Digital Culture Research Lab (DCRL) of Leuphana, University of Lueneburg

“Dear Friends and Colleagues,

I send the call for an interesting 3 years-doctoral grant on “Techno and Media Ecology of Digital Culture” – this grant is situated at the Digital Culture Research Lab (DCRL) of Leuphana, University of Lueneburg (focus „Re-Thinking the Technological Condition“, whose director I am) as well as at my new Chair of Media Culture at Leuphana’s Institute of Culture and Aesthetics of Digital Media (ICAM). Especially participating at the DCRL is a great opportunity for a doctoral candidate, I guess.

http://www.leuphana.de/bewerben/jobs-und-karriere/stipendien/ansicht-stipendien/datum/2014/05/09/doctoral-scholarship.html

And let me please add: this call is completely open! Maybe you know somebody who could be interested in, and please let it circulate.

(And this might be interesting only for some of you: there is an additional german call for another doctoral grant in “Media Studies” at my chair at Leuphana:

http://www.leuphana.de/bewerben/jobs-und-karriere/stipendien/ansicht-stipendien/datum/2014/05/09/1-promotionsstipendium-im-fach-medienwissenschaft.html

Be aware: This is a different call for a different grant!)

Extrapolation: Call for Reviewers

Call for Reviewers

The following books are available for review in Extrapolation. As always, if we haven’t worked together before, please send me an email explaining who you are and why you are qualified to review a particular book. Thanks!

Charles L. Adler. Wizards, Aliens & Starships: Physics & Math in Fantasy & SF.
Karen Burnham. Greg Egan.
Gerry Canavan and Kim Stanley Robinson, eds. Green Planets: Ecology & SF.
Thomas Clareson & Joe Sanders. The Heritage of Heinlein.
Robert Horton. Frankenstein. (Cultographies Series.)
Lauren J. Lacey. Women Writing Fantastic Fiction.
Peter Lang. Ukranian Science Fiction.
Frenchy Lunning, ed. Mechademia 8: Tezuka’s Manga Life.
Joshua Raulerson. Singularities: Technoculture, Transhumanism & SF in the 21st Century.
John R. Stilgoe. Old Fields: Photography, Glamour and Fantasy Landscape.
J.P. Telotte. Science Fiction TV. (Routledge Television Guidebooks).
Jeffrey Weinstock, ed. The Ashgate Encyclopedia of Literary and Cinematic Monsters.

CfP: THE SOCIETY FOR UTOPIAN STUDIES

REMINDER: 1 June deadline is *fast approaching*!

39th Annual Meeting

Global Work and Play

23-26 October 2014

Delta Montréal

475, Avenue Président Kennedy

Montréal, Canada

http://utopian-studies.org/conference2014

Utopias have nowhere left to hide in an era of global capital and information flows.  Imagining the perfect society means envisioning global as much as, or more than, national or local change.  Labor is transformed as heavy industry relentlessly relocates. Post-industrial refugees chase immaterial wealth flowing across borders that are porous for information and capital, but not for bodies.  Even leisure becomes work when corporations mine Twitter and Facebook for content to monetize, while gamifying daily life.  Under such conditions, visualizing a utopian balance of work and play grows both more difficult and more urgent.

Papers are welcome on all aspects of the utopian tradition, from the earliest utopian visions to the utopian speculations and yearnings of the 21st century, including art, architecture, urban and rural planning, literary utopias, dystopian writings and films, utopian political activism, theories of utopian spaces and ontologies, music, new media, and intentional communities. We especially welcome papers and panels on games, gamers and gamification; utopian and dystopian aspects of globalization; and non-Western utopian traditions.

Additionally, we are introducing a new poster and demonstration track. We invite abstracts for presentations featuring interactive games, apps, digital artifacts, tools, projects, websites, or works in progress with a utopian or dystopian dimension. Those invited to participate will be given a backdrop and table for a poster and/or computer in our exhibition hall. Indie developers and digital humanists are especially welcome.

Abstracts of up to 250 words are due 1 June 2014, and may be for:

  •    a 15-20 minute paper
  •    a panel: include a title, designated Chair, an abstract for the panel and for each of 3-4 papers
  •    an informal roundtable of 3-6 presenters, or a combination of presenters and respondents
  •    a presentation or performance of a utopian creative work or artifact
  •    a poster and/or demo

Please use our online form for submissions here.

*All submissions must include 3-5 keywords to assist in forming cohesive panels. The official language of the conference is English.

For information about registration, travel or accommodations, please contact Brian Greenspan, brian.greenspan@carleton.ca

For information about panel topics, assistance finding co-panelists, and other questions about the conference, please contact Peter Sands, sands@uwm.edu

CfP: 2014 Pacific, Ancient, and Modern Language Association Conference

Call for Papers: Science Fiction Area 

2014 Pacific, Ancient, and Modern Language Association Conference

Riverside, California, October 31-November 2

Conference Theme: “Familiar Spirits”

The 2014 PAMLA Conference will be held Friday, October 31, through Sunday, November 2, at the Riverside Convention Center in Riverside, California. We are planning some very special events for Halloween and the entire conference, including our special conference theme, “Familiar Spirits.” See http://www.pamla.org/2014 for more information.

The Science Fiction (SF) area will mount up to three 90-minute sessions featuring 3-4 papers each. You are welcome to submit proposals on any aspect of the genre, in any medium. We particularly welcome papers that focus on intersections between SF and the “fantastic,” broadly construed: horror, magical realism, weird/new weird, pseudoscience, and other uncanny genres that defamiliarize consensus reality.

The deadline to propose a paper is Thursday, May 15, at midnight. To propose a paper, please go to the CFP/list of session topics posted online at http://www.pamla.org/2014/topic-areas. You’ll have to log in to submit a paper proposal, or, if you’ve never logged in at the pamla.org website, you’ll have to create an account, and then you’ll be able to submit a proposal (just follow the online directions). If you’ve forgotten your user name and password, you can request a new password. The online form to submit proposals is available at http://www.pamla.org/2014/proposals.

If you have any questions about how to submit a proposal, you may contact PAMLA’s Executive Director, Craig Svonkin, at svonkin@netzero.com, or PAMLA’s webmaster, Heather Wozniak, at webmaster@pamla.org. If you have questions about the suitability of your proposal for the SF area, you can reach me at rob.latham@ucr.edu.

The deadline to pay your 2014 PAMLA dues is June 15, 2014. If you wish to attend the conference, you will also have to pay a conference fee (due September 10th, more expensive if paid after that date). We are working on a brand new online payment system, so please be patient while we work out the kinks on this system with our online provider. You will receive an email when the new payment system is up and ready.

Science Fiction and Technoculture Studies Book Prize Announced

The Science Fiction and Technoculture Studies program at the University of California, Riverside announces that the second annual SFTS book award has been won by David Wittenberg, Associate Professor of Cinematic Arts at The University of Iowa, for Time Travel: The Popular Philosophy of Narrative (Fordham UP, 2013). Repositioning our understanding of the relationship between time travel narratives and shifting conceptions of time in physics, the book argues that time travel fiction is a laboratory in which the most fundamental theoretical questions of narratology, history, and subjectivity are rehearsed. Discerning in its critical insights, disciplined in its case studies, and broadly inclusive across media in its examples, Time Travel shows Wittenberg to be one of the most astute among contemporary sf critics.

This SFTS prize honors an outstanding scholarly monograph that explores the intersections between popular culture, particularly science fiction, and the discourses and cultures of technoscience. The award is designed to recognize groundbreaking and exceptional contributions to the field. Books published in English between 1 January and 31 December 2013 were eligible for the award. The jury for the prize was Anindita Bannerjee (Cornell University), Pawel Frelik (Maria Curie-Skłodowska University, Poland), and Sherryl Vint (University of California, Riverside), who served as jury chair.

Honorable mentions were received by Joshua Raulerson, for Singularities: Technoculture, Transhumanism, and Science Fiction in the Twenty-First Century (Liverpool University Press), and by Kevin LaGrandeur, for Androids and Intelligent Networks in Early Modern Literature and Culture (Routledge).

The award, which consists of a cash prize, will be presented at the 2014 SFRA/WisCon Conference, which will be held May 22-25 in Madison, Wisconsin. Professor Wittenberg will be in attendance to accept his award.