Wednesday, June 28, 2017

CFP 100 Years of Winnie the Pooh (8/31/2017)

This sounds like a great idea:

Call for Chapters: Posthuman Pooh: Edward Bear after 100 Years
https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2017/06/20/call-for-chapters-posthuman-pooh-edward-bear-after-100-years

deadline for submissions: August 31, 2017
full name / name of organization: Jennifer Harrison, East Stroudsburg University, USA
contact email: jharriso11@esu.edu

I am currently seeking chapter submissions for an edited volume celebrating the centenary in 2026 of A. A. Milne’s The World of Pooh.  As classics from the “golden age” of children’s literature, Milne’s Pooh stories have received considerable attention from critics and fans over the years; however, less critical attention has been devoted to the continuing relevance of the Pooh phenomenon in contemporary children’s culture.  As recent critics have discussed, the Pooh stories are complex and multifaceted, written in many different modes and employing a vast array of different narrative styles and techniques; they have also undergone transformation and adaptation into a plethora of related cultural artefacts.

In celebration of the 100th anniversary of The World of Pooh, therefore, this volume will explore Pooh in light of cutting-edge children’s literature and culture theory, with a particular focus on the stories as addressing the fundamentally modern posthuman concern with interrogations of the boundaries between the human and the non-human, the material and the immaterial.

Submissions of an interdisciplinary nature are particularly welcome, as are submissions which examine the relationship between the texts and modern adaptations and artefacts.  Some potential areas of exploration might include:
  • The blurring of human-animal-toy boundaries
  • Explorations of space and place within the stories
  • Adaptations for film and TV
  • The marketing of the Pooh franchise
  • Explorations of time within the stories
  • Material culture and artefacts within the stories
  • Bodies and identity within the stories
  • Postcolonial and ecocritical readings
However, this list is nowhere near exhaustive and I am happy to consider any submission which focuses on the Pooh stories and their role in modern children’s culture.

I hope to include chapters by authors from a variety of disciplines and viewpoints, reflecting the interdisciplinary nature of current studies in children’s literature and culture, as well as the diverse relevance of the Pooh stories in modern children’s culture.  Please submit a 500-word chapter abstract and a biography of no more than 250 words by August 31, 2017,  to:

jharriso11@esu.edu

You can also see a digital version of the CFP at: http://quantum.esu.edu/faculty/jharrison/2017/06/20/call-chapters-posthuman-pooh-edward-bear-100-years/.

All proposed abstracts will be given full consideration, and submission implies a commitment to publish in this volume if your work is selected for inclusion.  If selected, completed chapters will be due by December 30, 2017.

All questions regarding this volume should be directed to:

jharriso11@esu.edu

I look forward to what I hope will be a stimulating and exciting array of submissions on this fascinating topic!

Last updated June 22, 2017

CFP Session on Portal Fantasy (9/30/17; NeMLA 2018)

Portal Fantasy at NeMLA 2018
https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2017/06/05/portal-fantasy-at-nemla-2018

deadline for submissions: September 30, 2017
full name / name of organization: Political Implications of Portal Fantasy at NeMLA 2018
contact email: lauere@sunysuffolk.edu

Portal Fantasies offer a unique way to comment on the current political situation, in their capacity as invented worlds with a permeable link to our own. The portal can act as a funhouse mirror, reflecting our own world back to us in grotesque and illuminating ways, or it can offer stark contrasts to our own world which often take the form of escapist, superior alternatives. This session, a direct thematic response to the NeMLA 2018 conference theme of "Global Spaces, Local Landscapes and Imagined Worlds," invites papers that explore how authors have used the portal fantasy to comment on the politics of our world in various ways. Examinations of portal fantasies in novels, graphic works and on screens are all welcome. NeMLA 2018 will be in Pittsburgh, April 12-15. Learn more about NeMLA here: http://www.buffalo.edu/nemla/convention.html

Submit abstract of 300 words by September 30 here: http://www.cfplist.com//nemla/Home/S/16664

--
Emily Lauer, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of English
Suffolk County Community College
Islip Arts 2K, Ammerman Campus
533 College Road
Selden, NY 11784

lauere@sunysuffolk.edu

Last updated June 6, 2017


CFP Spaces of Hope and Desperation in Science Fiction (9/30/17; NeMLA 2018)

From H-Film:

Spaces of Hope and Desperation in Science Fiction- NEMLA 2018
April 12-15, 2018 Pittsburgh, PA

If we reflect on Vivian Sobchak’s premise of science fiction’s role of reconciling humans with the unknown along with cyborg spaces of Haraway, we can easily perceive that today one of speculative/science fiction’s roles is imagining what is happening and what may happen to help us come to terms with a dreaded present and unstable future. Amidst the very real and imminent threats of environmental disasters, rise of nationalism and racism and an expanding precarity, it should not be a surprise to see the fast increase in the sales of Orwell’s 1984, re-makes of Blade Runner and Ghost in the Shell or appearance of SF works where strangers, aliens, and others are rethought and replaced in our topological frameworks.

Amidst all the wars, deaths, fears, and tremblings, it may be useful to remember Susan Sontag’s now classic essay “Imagination of the Disaster” where speculative or science fiction and especially dystopian fiction operates in a space between “unremitting banality and inconceivable terror." In this liminal space, SF intervenes in two ways: By giving us a language, a discourse, a perspective to think the unthinkable including our own end and our possible resistance. With the same gesture, it also provides us with the means of expressing some of the effects of such terror and precarity to those who may not be open to the same affects, creating a space of communication.

In short, science fiction both imagines a dystopian, lost, dark space signaling what may happen while, with the very same gesture, pinpointing ways to create possibility of other perceptions, other spaces of hope. This double imagination is exactly what Octavia Butler does when she thinks of a merge with Oankali and rebuilding of Earth, Jeff VanderMeer imagines with Area X trilogy and other ways to relate to the nature or what Kabaneri of Iron Fortress presents with a terrain filled with viral humans.

This panel aims to consider speculative/science fiction’s spatial imagination vis-à-vis hope and despair. Topics may include the kinds of dystopian spaces SF proposes, space and its spatial representation, gendered spaces within the SF genre, environment and its future imagined by SF, and the representation of the instability or hope. All forms of SF literature, including short stories, novels, films, anime, manga, and TV shows are welcome.

Please submit an abstract of 300- 500 words along with your brief bio to NEMLA submission website  by September 30, 2017  : https://www.cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/16944