CFP: SFRA 2020
https://www.fantastic-arts.org/2020/cfp-sfra-2020/
February 19, 2020
DEADLINE EXTENDED TO 3/31/20 (details at
http://www.sfra.org/Coronavirus-News)
SFRA 2020
Wednesday, July 8th – Saturday July 11th
Indiana University, Bloomington IN
Conference Theme: Forms of Fabulation
Keynote Speakers:
Tavia Nyong’o
Kate Marshall
Special Guest: John Crowley (author of
Little, Big)
The Science Fiction Research Association invites proposals for its
2020 annual conference, to be held on the campus of Indiana University
in Bloomington, Indiana.
The SFRA is the oldest scholarly association for the study of science
fiction and related genres. It brings together important writers of
speculative fiction with premiere scholars of speculative fiction to
discuss and debate timely and relevant themes. The annual conference
also recognizes important contributions to the field through the Pioneer
and Pilgrim Awards for excellence in scholarship.
This year we take FABULATION as our key term. Fabulation is a potent
political force as well as an emerging genre convention. Ranging from
fantasy fiction and the New Weird to fictional sciences and
prefigurative politics, fabulation centers the importance of imagining
otherwise in the construction of reality as a scholarly as well as a
fictional action.
Fabulation is a future-oriented practice that draws from the energies
of the past and the perspectives of the oppressed. Keynote speaker
Tavia Nyong’o writes that Afro-fabulation resurfaces from the historical
archive those untimely ideas that were “never meant to appear” (3) in
majoratian culture and so could only be articulated by way of minor
genres and obscure gestures—in performance art, speculative fiction,
gossip and legend. Building on the critique of imperial sciences by
Indigenous scholars and imaginative writers that were the focus of the
2019 conference, this year’s conference asks what subjugated knowledges
can be found in the speculative fiction archives and how they might be
surfaced in the present toward multispecies thriving and antiracist
worlding. At the same time, reality-production as a form of fictionality
has become the principle characteristic of politics in the
21st-century. In addition to asking how we can make fabulations, the
conference theme also asks participants to consider the ethics of
fiction in the post-truth era.
Topics related to the conference theme include:
● prefigurative politics, visionary fiction, & speculative futurisms
● the weird and the New Weird
● fantasy fiction, fairy stories, magic
● Afro-futurism, indigenous futurisms, and related genres
● post-truth politics and fabulation
● fabulation and Afro-fabulation
● insurgent research, fictional sciences, and related methods
● decolonial speculative fiction
● fabulation and the occult
● aesthetic warfare, feminist witchcraft, meme magic
● aesthetics as a technology of resistance
● European mythology and the problem of white supremacism
● fabulation, environmental ethics, and eco-eroticism
● fabulation and the nonhuman
● fabulation in games, videos, and other non-print media
● fabulation, cosplay, cons, and fan cultures
● science fiction, fantasy and the Midwest
● African, Afro-caribbean, and Indigenous cosmologies
● technology and magic
● children’s literature and magic
● Posthumanism, speculative realism, and fabulation
We also welcome papers on topics relevant to science fiction research
broadly conceived that are not specifically related to the conference
theme, including proposals for preconstituted panels & roundtables.
300-500 word abstracts should be sent to SFRA2020IU@gmail.com by March 15 2020. Acceptance notices will be returned by April 1.
Questions concerning this call for papers, preconstituted panels,
& roundtables can be directed to SFRA2020IU@gmail.com with the
subject line “CFP QUESTION,” or to the conference’s local organizers,
Rebekah Sheldon (rsheldon@indiana.edu) and De Witt Douglas Kilgore
(dkilgore@indiana.edu).
Graduate students are encouraged to submit abstracts & to attend, regardless of whether they plan to present.
Some conference travel grants will be made available. Applications will be posted soon and due on 15 April 2020.
You will also need to join SFRA (or renew your membership) in order
to register for the conference. Conference Registration information will
be posted soon.
http://www.sfra.org/
