Saturday, November 5, 2011

CFP PCAACA 2012

The calls for papers from the upcoming joint meeting of the Popular Culture Association and American Culture Association are now online. I've pasted the area list below to preserve links to the individual CFPs. Be aware that it is a very long list.

Boston 2012

April 11 - 14, 2012

Note: This is a week later than we have traditionally held it in the past.

Deadlines

Registration:

Paper Proposals Due December 15, 2011

Proposals Due for Endowment January 7, 2012

Tentative Program on Web January 28, 2012

Early Bird Registration Ends January 31, 2012

Regular Registration Begins February 1, 2012

Regular Registration Ends March 31, 2012

Late Registration Begins April 1, 2012

Last Day for a Refund February 15, 2012

Areas & Chairs

Subject Areas with names underlined and highlighted in blue have submitted Calls for Papers (CFP's). To see an area's CFP, click on the highlighted name. As soon as an area's up-dated (2012) CFP becomes available, it will be linked to the area's name; check back often.

Submit a proposal to only one area at a time. Exceptions and rules.
You should submit your proposals online: PCA 2.0

(back)

|A-B| C-D| E-F| G-H| I-L| M-N| P-R| S-T| U-W|

A Special Topic--Boston Conference
Science and Technology

stgermaina@wit.edu

Academics & Collegiate Culture

acaney@ccp.edu

Adaptation (Film, TV, Lit., & Electronic Gaming)

dennis_cutchins@byu.edu

Lynneaking@hotmail.com

Adolescence in Film & Television

k.hart@tcu.edu

Advertising

sdanna@luc.edu

African-American Culture

katrina.hazzard@gmail.com

African Culture

doug.julien@tamut.edu

Age of Theodore Roosevelt & Popular Culture

murphy@hanover.edu

Aging & Senior Culture

faug@loc.gov

American Indian Literatures & Cultures

conniejb@email.arizona.edu

rsax@unm.edu

American Literature

richardsongr@uncw.edu

Animation

david.silverman@kwu.edu

Appalachian Studies

lworthington@gsc.edu

Armed Conflict

separry@ilstu.edu

rmclaugh@ilstu.edu

Arthurian Legends

Asian Popular Culture

jlent@temple.edu

xuying2@hotmail.com

Australian & New Zealand Popular Culture

t.johnsonwoods@uq.edu.au

Automobile Culture

mcgoun@bucknell.edu

Baby-Boomer Culture

jvonschilling@northampton.edu

Biographies

susie.skarl@unlv.edu

Black Music Culture

Hip Hop Culture

wbanfield@berklee.edu

anelson@bgsu.edu

Hip Hop

crystal.alberts@gmail.com

crystal.alberts@und.nodak.edu

Body and Physical Difference

lkelly@carrollu.edu

Border Studies, Cultural Economy & Migration

aracelimasterson@augustana.edu

Brazilian Popular Culture

ayala@denison.edu

martinem1@ohiodominican.edu

British Popular Culture

mthum@umflint.edu

rigaf@canisius.edu

Buffy, The Vampire Slayer

manyiwo0807@curry.edu

Business/Corporate Culture

dosborne@scc.spokane.edu

Caribbean

Literature & Culture

jorge.febles@unf.edu

Celebrity in Culture

mikebro@erols.com

Cemeteries & Gravemarkers

jedgette1@widener.edu

Chicana/o Culture: Literature, Film, Theory

scott.baugh@ttu.edu

alyssa.ryan@ttu.edu

Children's/YA Series Books and Dime Novels

James@Keeline.com

Children‘s Literature & Culture

harryeiss@comcast.net

Circuses & Circus Culture

robsugar@comcast.net

Civil War & Reconstruction

allredr@byuh.edu

Collecting & Collectibles

kmm104@psu.edu

Comedy and Humor

lsnaith@westga.edu

Comic Art & Comics

nfreim@charter.net

Communication & Digital Culture

mnunes@spsu.edu

Creative Fiction Writing

jerry.bradley@lamar.edu

Dance & Culture

DanceAndCulture@gmail.com

Disasters & Culture

larabee@msu.edu

Documentary

hmm160@gmail.com

Eastern European Studies

phoboes2000@yahoo.com

Ecology and Culture

meo@email.unc.edu

Education, Teaching, History & Popular Culture

ejanak@uwyo.edu

Eros, Pornography & Popular Culture

muirkb@appstate.edu

Fairy Tales

lholland-toll@moc.edu

rnicks@utk.edu

Fan Culture & Theory

klarsen@gwu.edu

Fashion, Style, Appearance, Consumption & Design

Jhh33@drexel.edu

alphonso.d.mcclendon@drexel.edu

Fat Studies

goddess_les@yahoo.com

jmccross@gwu.edu

Festivals & Faires

DrKTKorolEvans@yahoo.com

Film

donaldpalumbo@earthlink.net

Film Adaptation

david.moody@oswego.edu

Film & History

cymiller@tiac.net

Folklore

nixone@franklin.edu

Food in Popular Culture

btaylor@email.unc.edu

Game Studies
Tony Avruch
American Culture Studies Program
Bowling Green State University
digitalgames.pcaaca@gmail.com
avruch.pca@gmail.com
&
Joshua Call
Department of English
Grandview University
digitalgames.pcaaca@gmail.com
&
Gerald Voorhees
Nido Qubein School of Communication
High Point University
digitalgames.pcaaca@gmail.com
&
Katie Whitlock
Theatre Department
California State University, Chico
digitalgames.pcaaca@gmail.com

Gay, Lesbian, and Queer Studies

drushebe@muohio.edu

Gender Studies

cpeirce@apu.edu

Gender & Media Studies

dphillip@muskingum.edu

Generation X

watsone@etsu.edu

German Literature & Culture

claude.desmarais@ubc.ca

Gothic in Literature, Film, & Culture

louis.palmer@castleton.edu

Horror

pcahorror@gmail.com

Indian Culture, Art, & Media

rmenon@berklee.edu

Internet Culture

montanm@bgnet.bgsu.edu

Jack London's Life & Works
Gina M. Rossetti, PhD
Associate Professor and Chair
Saint Xavier University
Chicago, IL 60655
EMAIL

Journalism

& Media Culture

jvonschilling@northampton.edu

muirkb@appstate.edu

Language

Attitudes & Popular Linguistics

donaher@missouriwestern.edu

Latin American Film & Media

aracelimasterson@augustana.edu

Latin Americans & Latinos:

Identity Issues & Cultural Stereotypes

rrosales@drew.edu

Latin American Literature & Culture

patricia.montilla@wmich.edu

Latin American Performance Studies

robertharker@charter.net

Libraries, Archives, Museums,

& Popular Research

ellisa@nku.edu

Literature & Madness

brieger@lander.edu

Literature & Politics

mooreg@colorado.edu

Literature & Science

robertsi@missouriwestern.edu

Literature & Society

salong@olemiss.edu

Material Culture

alexbitterman@gmail.com

Medical Humanities: Health & Disease in Culture

jennifer.tebbe@mcphs.edu

Medieval Popular Culture & Arthurian Legends

kaufmana@mtsu.edu

Memory & Representation

confortir1@southernct.edu

Men/Men's Studies

hxh17@psu.edu

Mental Health & Mental Illness in Popular Culture

lrubin@stu.edu

Motherhood/Fatherhood & Popular Culture

lpodniek@ryerson.ca

Motorcycling Culture & Myth

garberwwr@earthlink.net

gary.kieffner@clovis.edu

Music

Kittst@stjohns.edu

Musicals, Stage & Film

goldsts@DaytonaState.edu

Mystery & Detective Fiction

beth.blakesley@wsu.edu

mfreier@nmu.edu

Mythology in Contemporary Culture

earth2k8@mac.com

Sywilkers@aol.com

New England Studies

pholloran@worcester.edu

New/Special Topics in Popular Culture

Jhh33@drexel.edu

Non-Fiction Writing

Dan_Jones@tamu-commerce.edu

Philosophy & Popular Culture

tmadigan@sjfc.edu

jokapal@missouriwestern.edu

Poetry Studies & Creative Poetry

malleman@lsue.edu

Politics Portrayed in Electronic Print and Media

fhassenc@odu.edu

Popular American Authors

rjones@rangercollege.edu

Popular Art, Architecture, & Design

derhamgroves@hotmail.com

derham@unimelb.edu.au

Popular History in American Culture

jstevens@rwu.edu

Professional Development

Jhh33@drexel.edu

hkent3@uis.edu

Protest Issues & Actions

larsenl@wou.edu

Pulp Studies

j.everet@usp.edu

dpettipiece@wcupa.edu

Punk Culture

acc27@drexel.edu

Radio & Audio Media

frank.chorba@washburn.edu

Religion & Culture

ihs@ionet.net

Rhetoric, Composition, & Popular Culture

richarjj@potsdam.edu

Romance

sarahfrantz@gmail.com

Science Fiction/Fantasy

pcasff@gmail.com

Science Fiction & Fantasy

Sea Literature, History, & Culture

curleys@tamug.edu

Shakespeare on Film and Television

richard.vela@uncp.edu

The Sixties

carmic28@msu.edu

Soap Opera

irwin@canisius.edu

Sociology of Literature

salong@olemiss.edu

Southern Literature & Culture

chris.bloss@gmail.com

Sports

vlasich@suu.edu

Stephen King

stephenkingpca@gmail.com

Subcultural Style & Identity

vicki.karaminas@uts.edu.au

Tarot in Culture

augeremily@gmail.com

Television

pcatelevision@gmail.com

Theatre & Drama

kwiggins@martinmethodist.edu

Transatlantic Cultural Issues

febles@wisc.edu

Travel & Tourism

marcuspg@hotmail.com

Undergraduate Sessions

mrubinfeld@westminstercollege.edu

The Vampire in Literature, Culture, & Film

mfindley@vtc.edu

Virtual Idenities & Self-Promoting

consilje@lewisu.edu

Visual & Verbal Culture

aubreyj@mscd.edu

Visual Culture

royce.smith@wichita.edu

War After 1945: Literature, History, Culture, and the Arts

rprescot@kent.edu

Westerns & the West

lewish@witcc.edu

Women's Studies

hkent3@uis.edu

World's Fairs & Expositions

manningmj@state.gov

Film & History 2012 History Conference

Here is the full CFP for the Film & History Conference. Links are to PDF versions of the CFPs:

F i l m a n d M y t h
CALL for PAPERS and for AREA CHAIRS (organizers of multiple panels)

Area-Chair Proposals: December 15, 2011

Proposals for Panels or Individual Papers: June 1, 2012

Download the Poster: The 2012 F&H Conference Award for Best New Film

The 2012 Film & History Conference (Sept. 26-30, Hyatt Regency, Milwaukee, USA) will examine the power of myth in film, television, and the other moving-image arts.
As a collective pattern, myth transcends the individual, yet it provides structure to our most personal feelings and assumptions. It can be subtle or obvious, shallow or complex. It can move nations to attack each other—or to reconcile. It can induce affection or ridicule or longing. Myth operates somewhere between the waking consciousness of history and the drowsy consciousness of mystery. Often it is both narrative and meta-narrative, trying to tell us what we know and how we might know it. And film is the most vibrant stage of mythmaking today. How do films exploit or succumb to certain myths? Why do audiences embrace one mythic pattern over another—in romance or tragedy or comedy? Who or what controls mythmaking in film and television? How do certain historical characters or events become legendary? How do they become mythic? What historical mutations have myths undergone in film? What myths are on the horizon?
Film & History: An Interdisciplinary Journal invites proposals to chair an area of multiple panels. Please send a brief description of your area (100-200 words) to FilmandHistory@uwosh.edu by December 15, 2011. Describe the area/topic, and pose the fundamental questions it will address. The deadline to be listed on your Call for Papers will be June 1, 2012. There will be no rolling deadlines before that date. The areas listed below are suggestions; you are welcome to modify an area or to propose an area of your own. Here is the template to use for drafting your Call: CFP Template.UPDATED LIST (as of October 17, 2011)

Adventure! Danger! Romance!: Myths of Exploration

Animating History: "Disney Americans" and Other Myths

Archetype and Ego Psychology in Film

Beast or Human: Animal Myths in Film and Television

Chalk It Up to Myth: Education on Film

Chicks with Brains: Representing Women's Intellect in Film

Cowboy Mythology: Frontier Myths

Crime and Punishment: Mythologizing the Law

Doctored Reality: The Myths of Medicine in Film

Dwelling on Myth: The City, The Suburb, and The Farm

Evil, Sin, Death, Doom: Mythologizing the Underworld in Film

Facing Race: Film, Television, and Myth

Future Myths, Mythic Futures

Heroes and Villains: Iconography, Narrative, and Film

Innocence and Experience: Children, the Elderly, and Myth

Legend or Myth: Anthropological Entanglements in Film

Literature, Genre, and Myth: Structures, Texts, Films

Marriage and Family Myths in Film

Medieval Magic, Myths, and Legends in Film and Television

Monster Myths: Terror, Horror, and Film

Music, Motifs, and Mythmaking

Myth, Inc.: The Business World in Film and Television

Myths R Us: Nationality in Film and Television

Mythic Mother Nature: Storytelling and Myth-Building Through Moving Image Representations of Nature and the Environment

Mythical Movie Jews: Anti- and Philo-Semitic Stereotypes on the Silver Screen

Mything God: Religious Desire in Film and Television

Mythmaking and Marketing: The Money Trail On and Off the Screen

Mythos: Screening Classical Mythology on Film and Television

Mythologies of Travel in Film and Television

Myths of War, Myths of Peace

Myths R Us: Nationality in Film

Natives and Primitives: The Myths of Oral Cultures

Naught-I Movies: Untangling Sex and Gender Myths

Science-Fiction Myths: Travels through Time and Space

Sir Dude and Madame Chick: Mythologizing Class in Film

Storytelling101: History as Myth on the Big Screen

The Classic Myths of Classical History on Film

The Myths of Science and Scientists

West/East: Hollywood/Bollywood

Each conference room will be equipped with a 50-inch plasma TV, with direct HDMI and VGA+audio hookups to your laptop computer. We'll have adapters for mini-DVI, DVI-to-VGA, and DisplayPort. Blu-Ray/DVD players will also be available in case you don't have a laptop and wish to bring just your media for presentation.
Your job will be to practice activating the external video port on your laptop computer. Usually, "clone" or "mirror" or "duplicate" will be offered in the "Display" section of your computer's operating system.

CFP Science-Fiction Myths: Travels through Time and Space

Sorry I missed this.

CALL FOR PAPERS (download PDF)

“Science-Fiction Myths: Travels through Time and Space”

An area of multiple panels for the Film & History Conference on “Film and Myth”

September 26-30, 2012

Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA

www.filmandhistory.org

Deadline: June 1, 2012

Films that depict travel through time and space captivate us with tales of the past, the future, the distant, and the alien. These stories are shaped, however, not just by scientific principles, but by complex mythologies that reflect our collective anxieties. How fragile is “our” history? A seemingly trivial change to the past—a dropped book in Back to the Future, an act of kindness in The Butterfly Effect—can sweep away the present and replace it with something far worse (or far better). How do the alien forms of distant worlds beckon us (with a new Earth in Titan A.E.) or disappoint us (with pale imitations of Earth in Firefly) or terrify us (with the upside-down society of Planet of the Apes)? How do space- and time-travel myths give shape to our fears—of loving the wrong person, of leaving home forever, of being forgotten, of entering a foreign
world? How do these myths give shape to our hopes—that the future is ours to shape, that the universe is full of wonders, that human experience might transcend time and space?

This area, comprising multiple panels, will treat all aspects of the mythological underpinnings of space and time travel in science-fiction films and television programs. Papers that explore how such myths are played out in science fiction from outside the US and UK are especially welcome. Possible topics include, but are not limited to, the following:
Nomads: Cold Sleep, Relativity, and the Loneliness of Space Travel
Generation Spaceships and the Ship-as-World (e.g., Alien, Pandorum)
Time Travel and "Fixing History" (e.g., Quantum Leap, 12 Monkeys)
Love, Sex, and the Time Traveler (e.g., Back to the Future, Somewhere in Time)
Who Are You?: Myth and Identity in Space and Time Travel
Paradoxes in Time Travel: Killing Grandpa, and Other Bad Ideas
Just Like California: “Alien” Worlds and Space Travel as Tourism
Galactic Empires: Rome with Spaceships?
The Human(oid) Void: Myths of First Contact (e.g., Star Trek, Babylon 5)
Homeward Bound: Myths of the Lost Earth (e.g., Battlestar Galactica, Firefly, Wall-E)
Wormhole Diplomacy: Bridging Cultural Spaces

Proposals for complete panels (three related presentations) are also welcome, but they must
include an abstract and contact information, including an e-mail address, for each presenter.

Please e-mail your 200-word proposal by June 1, 2012:
A. Bowdoin Van Riper, Area Chair, 2012 Film & History Conference
“Science-Fiction Myths: Travels through Space and Time”
Southern Polytechnic State University
Email: bvanriper@bellsouth.net

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Call for Papers of Interest

From H-Announce. Hyperlinks are to the posted CFP.

Ghost Stories: Hauntings and Echoes in Literature and Culture (McGill English Graduate Conference CFP, Deadline 15 November 2011)
Quebec, Canada
Call for Papers Date 2011-11-15 (in 13 days)

The co-editors of a multi-volume set on EVIL IN AMERICAN POP CULTURE would like to invite contributors for chapters on specific aspects of evil in American pop culture.
Publication Date 2011-10-10 (today!)

CFP Paranormal Literature, Television, and Film Special Topic Panel(s) in Vampire in Literature, Culture and Film Area of The National Popular Culture and American Culture Association Annual Conference 2012 (April 11-14, 2012)
Massachusetts, United States
Call for Papers Date 2011-12-15

PCA/ACA 2012 National Conference, The Vampire in Literature and Film: Buffy & Angel
Massachusetts, United States
Conference Date 2012-04-14

CFP: True Blood SW/TX PCA/ACA (12/1/11; 2/8-11/12)
New Mexico, United States
Call for Papers Date 2011-12-01 (in 29 days)

CFP: Paranormal Mysteries (theme issue of _Clues: A Journal of Detection_)
Call for Papers Date 2011-12-29

A Brand of Fictional Magic: Imaginative Empathy in Harry Potter
United Kingdom
Call for Papers Date 2011-11-15 (in 13 days)

CFP: Catastrophic Translation, Translating Catastrophes @ ACLA 2012
Rhode Island, United States
Call for Papers Date 2011-11-15 (in 13 days)

Art in Translation: International Conference on Language and the Arts

Iceland
Call for Papers Date 2011-11-30 (in 28 days)

POW! IN THE EYE OF THE MOON! Conference on French Science Fiction
Saskatchewan, Canada
Call for Papers Date 2012-01-01

Mythology in Contemporary Culture, Popular Culture Association Annual Conference, Boston, April 11 - 14, 2012
Massachusetts, United States
Call for Papers Date 2011-12-15

CFP: Fairy Tales, Popular Culture Association, Boston, April 11-14
Massachusetts, United States
Call for Papers Date 2011-12-15

Weird Council: An International Conference on the Writing of China Miéville
United Kingdom
Conference Date 2012-09-15

Call for Papers: SW/TX PCA/ACA Children’s/Young Adult Literature and Culture Area
New Mexico, United States
Call for Papers Date 2011-12-01 (in 29 days)

Call for papers: Capturing Witches: Histories, Stories, Images
United Kingdom
Call for Papers Date 2011-12-01 (in 29 days)

James Bond and Popular Culture
New Mexico, United States
Conference Date 2011-12-01 (in 29 days)

Call for Submissions for Edited Collection: Post-9/11 British and American Literature: Ten Years Later
Publication Date 2011-12-01 (in 29 days)

CFP: Fan Production and the Fantastic (10/31/11; ICFA, 3/21/12 – 3/25/12)
Florida, United States
Call for Papers Date 2011-10-31 (today!)

SFRA 2012 Conference

The Science Fiction Research Association has posted its call for papers for next year's annual meeting. Details as follows:

SFRA 2012 Conference - Urban Apocalypse, Urban Renaissance: Science Fiction and Fantasy Landscapes

Dates: 06/28/2012 - 07/01/2012

SFRA 2012 Conference: Urban Apocalypse, Urban Renaissance: Science Fiction and Fantasy Landscapes

June 28-July 1, 2012

Detroit, Michigan

The 2012 SFRA Conference will meet in Detroit, Michigan on June 28-July 1.

With the theme of “Urban Apocalypse, Urban Renaissance: Science Fiction and Fantasy Landscapes,” the conference will explore urban destruction and construction through science fiction and fantasy media including novels, short stories, music, movies, television shows, and video games. The Guest of Honor is Eric Rabkin, Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of English Language and Literature at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, and the guest speakers include Professor Steven Shaviro of Wayne State University and writers Saladin Ahmed, Sarah Zettel (aka C.L. Anderson), and Minister Faust.

Call for papers:

Urban Apocalypse, Urban Renaissance: Science Fiction and Fantasy Landscapes

Detroit is at once an apocalyptic city and a Renaissance city. Over the past ten years, Detroit has suffered immensely, especially during the economic downturn and the virtual demise of the auto industry. Its apocalyptic landscape of abandoned buildings, its negative image due to high crime rates, a recently impeached corrupt Mayor, Kwame Kilpartick, and the loss of close to 300,000 people in the last census have made it the symbol of a city with a hopeless future. However, there is hope as the so called Renaissance city of the 1970s may now be experiencing a true Renaissance. New venues for the Detroit Tigers and Detroit Lions, funding obtained by Mayor Bing to raze many of the abandoned buildings, the resurgence of the auto industry along with an invitation to the film industry, and a call for repopulation of Detroit with legal immigrants by New York Mayor Bloomberg may re-establish Detroit as the major city that it could be.

It is an urban landscape of change, revealing the end of one era and the beginning of another–an urban landscape that is ripe for science fiction and fantasy literature. The wide-ranging landscape of Detroit, Michigan is reminiscent of the various landscapes evident in science fiction and fantasy. Thus, Detroit can serve as an inspiration for paper topics considered at this conference. Papers can cover any topic concerning landscapes. Here are some suggested topics.

Apocalyptic Landscapes in science fiction and fantasy, as in the novels Slaughterhouse Five by Vonnegut, Dreamsnake by Vonda McIntyre, or The Road by McCarthy
Renaissance landscapes evident in utopic literature such as More’s Utopia
Psychogeography presented in recent novels like Valente’s Palimpsest or Mieville’s The  City and the City
Alien Landscapes: from the landscape in Weinbaum’s “A Martian Odyssey” to Pohl’s Venus in The Space Merchants to Le Guin’s Gethen in The Left Hand of Darkness to Robinson’s Mars trilogy to Vinge’s Fire upon the Deep
Landscapes created by terraforming
Set design in SF films, like Syd Mead’s set design in Blade Runner, based in part on the Detroit skyline of the early 80s
Virtual landscapes as in the fiction of Greg Egan, William Gibson, Charles Stross, etc. or  in films, such as The Matrix
Foreign landscapes as evident in recent novels like Bacigalupi’s Thailand in The Wind- Up Girl, McDonald’s Istanbul in The Dervish House, VanderMeer’s Ambergris in Finch, etc.
Alternate history landscapes
U.S. landscapes as in Gaiman’s Minnesota in American Gods or Doctorow’s San Francisco in Little Brother
Ecological landscapes: The effects of pollution or eco-terrorism on landscapes
Future landscapes as in Banks’ Algebraist, Stephenson’s Anathem, or Wilson’s Julian   Comstock or past landscapes as in Butler’s Kindred, Willis’ Doomsday Book, or Clarke’s Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell
Space or the spaceship as a landscape?
Gender Landscapes

Non-conference themed papers and panels related to or focusing on science fiction and fantasy are also welcomed!

Please forward abstracts to sdberman1121@gmail.com by April 23rd, 2012

Presenters must be members of the SFRA. To join, go to sfra.org.

Full conference details are available here: http://sfradetroit2012.com/

NEPCA Reminder

A reminder that the 2011 conference of the Northeast Popular Culture/American Culture Association convenes next week, 11-12 November, at Western Connecticut State University. The complete program and registration information can be found on their website at http://users.wpi.edu/~jphanlan/NEPConf.html.

Hope to see you there.

Science Fiction Studies 38.3

The latest issue (38.3) of Science Fiction Studies arrived today. Here are the contents from their website. Hyperlinks are to abstracts of each paper.

Science Fiction Studies

#115 = Volume 38, Part 3 = November 2011

ESSAY

Mike Davis. Ward Moore’s Freedom Ride

ARTICLES

Andrew Milner. Science Fiction and the Literary Field

Charles Thorpe. Death of a Salesman: Petit-Bourgeois Dread in Philip K. Dick’s Mainstream Fiction

Theo Finigan. “Into the Memory Hole”: Totalitarianism and Mal d’Archive in Nineteen Eighty-Four and The Handmaid’s Tale

Elissa Gurman. “The holy and the powerful light that shines through history”: Tradition and Technology in Marge Piercy’s He, She and It

Charles Paulk. Post-National Cool: William Gibson’s Japan

REVIEW-ESSAYS

Istvan Csicsery-Ronay, Jr. Sound is the New Light: Whittington’s Sound Design and Science Fiction

Carl Abbott. The Imagination of Disaster, Revisited: Page’s The City’s End and Yablon’s Untimely Ruins.

Jess Nevins. Defining Steampunk: Ashley’s Steampunk Prime, Bowser/Croxall’s “Steampunk, Science, and (Neo)Victorian Technologies,” and VanderMeers’ Steampunk II

Jerome Winter. Lab Coats, Not Straitjackets: Allen’s Master Mechanics and Wicked Wizards and Kirby’s Science, Scientists, and Film

BOOKS IN REVIEW

Bolton/Csicsery-Ronay, Jr./Tatsumi’s Robot Ghosts and Wired Dreams (Hajime Nakatani)

Meehan’s The Fusion of Science Fiction and Film Noir and Botting’s Limits of Horror (Carl Freedman)

Bould/Butler/Roberts/Vint’s Fifty Key Figures in SF (Eric S. Rabkin)

Cherry’s Horror (Kimberly Hall)

Chu’s Do Metaphors Dream of Literal Sheep? (John Rieder)

Fowler/Notkin’s 80! Memories & Reflections on Ursula K. Le Guin (Elizabeth Lundberg)

Gomel’s Postmodern Science Fiction and Temporal Imagination (Joshua Raulerson)

Hampton’s Changing Bodies in the Fiction of Octavia Butler (Arianna Gremigni)

Mendlesohn/James’s A Short History of Fantasy (Kristin Noone)

Rich’s C.M Kornbluth (Joe Sanders)

Thaler’s Black Atlantic Speculative Fictions (Mark Young)

Urbanski’s Essays on New Media Rhetoric (Lisa Yaszek)

Books Received

NOTES AND CORRESPONDENCE

Campbell, “Doc” Smith, and the CIC (Edward Wysocki)
William Wilson (Richard Bleiler)
Mullen Research Fellows for 2011-12 (Rob Latham)
“Must-Read” SF (Carol McGuirk)
New Associations, Conference Reports, Translation Awards, CFPs
Volume Index
Notes on Contributors
“For-a-While”: Remembering Joanna Russ (1937-2011)

New Mythlore

The latest issue (30.1-2) of Mythlore has been published. Contents will be posted as soon as they are available.

RIP Realms of Fantasy

The literary magazine Realms of Fantasy has died again after a valiant attempt to revive the serial. Details can be found at the magazine's blog at http://www.rofmag.com/.

Friday, October 28, 2011

Programming Nightmares

Well they've done it again. In their infinite wisdom, the programs at FOX, CW, and NBC have all scheduled genre programming against each other on Friday nights at 9 PM EST. FOX airs the fourth season of Fringe (preempted tonight because of baseball), CW the seventh season of Supernatural, and NBC freshman series Grimm (following a lead-in from the fifth and final season of Chuck). Hopefully, NBC won't cancel Grimm too soon.

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Retro TV on DVD--The Mighty Hercules and Drak Pack

For animation junkies and fans of retro TV, two recent releases might be of interest. A single-disc version of the classic 1960s series The Mighty Hercules has been released by Classic Media, while Visual Entertaining Inc. has issued a three-disc set of Drak Pack, a 1980s mash-up of the Universal monsters and The Super Friends. Trailers to both shows are appended below. The DVDs are available for purchase online and at your local retailers.

Monday, October 10, 2011

Remember Jem and the Holograms?

I came across an interesting post on io9.com interviewing Samantha Newark, the actress who voiced series protagonist Jerrica Benton and her alter ego Jem, on the 1980s's animated series Jem (1985-88), which included significant sf elements and is now available on DVD.

For those unfamiliar with the series, here is the opening sequence:

I, Vampire Reborn

DC Comics is re-envisioning vampire Andrew Bennett in the new series I, Vampire as part of the New 52 re-launching of the DC Universe into Andrew Stanton, a radically younger version of the established character. There is an insightful interview with the writer, Joshua Fialkov, at Newsarama.

Monday, September 26, 2011

BBC America This Saturday

Coming this Saturday (1 October). BBC America premieres the season finale of Doctor Who and the series opener of Bedlam. Trailers follow.

New TV: Terra Nova

FOX premieres new series Terra Nova tonight, in which future humans retreat to the prehistoric past when conditions on present-day Earth become to dangerous. There is an interview with executive producers Brannon Braga and Rene Echevarria at the Geek Chic Daily website, and the series opener is reviewed in today's Los Angeles Times.

The following is the initial trailer for the series:

Sunday, September 25, 2011

Iron Giant Returns

Knopf Books for Young Readers has recently released a new US edition of Ted Hughes's The Iron Man (1968) under its more familiar title, The Iron Giant, with illustrations by British artist Laura Carlin. The art is somewhat strange making this an atypical children's book, but the story, which inspired a 1999 animated feature film, is sure to captive readers young and old, who may be drawn further in through the inventiveness of Carlin's designs. Previews of the art can be found at Walker Books, publishers of the British version.

Making Avatar

Publisher Abrams Books has recently released Jody Duncan and Lisa Fitzpatrick's The Making of Avatar (2010). With nearly 300 pages, the book is a detailed--often too detailed, at times--look at the technological innovations behind the feature film. I don't believe it will appeal to casual fans of the film, and die-hard fans might be more interested in the world-building (serviced in part by Fitzpatrick's The Art of Avatar:James Cameron’s Epic Adventure [also from Abrams Books, 2009]) than the technology that was involved in its creation.

Advance Call for Papers NEPCA 2012

ADVANCE CALL FOR PAPERS

SCIENCE FICTION, FANTASY, AND LEGEND AREA

http://sf-fantasy-legend.blogspot.com/

2012 Conference of The Northeast Popular Culture/American Culture Association (NEPCA)

St. John Fisher College in Rochester, New York

Fall 2012 (Exact Dates TBA)

Proposals by 1 June 2012

Proposals are invited from scholars of all levels for papers to be presented in the Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Legend Area. Presentations will be limited to 15-20 minutes in length (depending on final panel size) and may address any aspect of the intermedia genres of science fiction, fantasy, and/or legends as represented in popular culture produced in any country, any time period, and for any audience. Please see our website (http://sf-fantasy-legend.blogspot.com/) for further details and ideas.

If you are interested in proposing a paper or panel of papers, please send a proposal of approximately 300 to 500 words and a one to two page CV to both the Program Chair AND to the Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Legend Area Chair at the following addresses (please note "SF/Fantasy/Legend Proposal" in your subject line):

Tim Madigan

Program Chair

tmadigan@rochester.rr.com

Michael A. Torregrossa

Science Fiction, Fantasy and Legend Area Chair

Popular.Culture.and.the.Middle.Ages@gmail.com

The Northeast Popular Culture/American Culture Association (NEPCA) is a regional affiliate of the American Culture Association and the Popular Culture Association. NEPCA is an association of scholars in New England and New York, organized in 1974 at the University of Rhode Island. We reorganized and incorporated in Boston in 1992. The purpose of this professional association is to encourage and assist research, publication, and teaching on popular culture and culture studies topics by scholars in the northeast region of the United States. By bringing together scholars from various disciplines, both academic and non-academic people, we foster interdisciplinary research and learning. We publish a newsletter twice per year and we hold an annual conference at which we present both the Peter C. Rollins Book Award and an annual prize.

Membership in NEPCA is required for participation. Annual dues are currently $30 for full-time faculty and $15 to all other individuals. Further details are available at http://users.wpi.edu/~jphanlan/NEPCA.html.

NEPCA 2011 Sessions

The program for the 2011 Annual Meeting of the Northeast Popular Culture/American Culture Association is now avaliable online. The conference will be held at Western Connecitcut State University in Danbury, Connecticut, from 11-12 November 2011.

Details on our sessions are as follows:

Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Legend I: Science Fiction (Session I, Friday, 4-5:30 PM, Warner 320)

Presider: Michael A. Torregrossa, The Virtual Society for the Study of Popular Culture and the Middle Ages

Paper 1: “Surviving The Night of the Comet: Zombies, Space, and the 2012 Hysteria”

Kristine Larsen, Physics and Earth Sciences Department, Central Connecticut State University

Paper 2: “Abandonment and Salvation in Connie Willis’s Doomsday Book”

Marlene San Miguel Groner, Farmingdale State College/SUNY

Paper 3: “Ain’t I a Xenomorph?: Representations of Post-Feminist Identity in the Alien Films”

Randy Laist, Goodwin College

Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Legend II: Legends Old and New (Session II, Saturday, 8:30-10 AM, Warner 320)

Presider: Brian Clements, Western Connecticut State University

Paper 1: “The Werewolf: Out of Bounds”

Barry Hall, University of Nizwa

Paper 2: “Robin Hood in Ballad and Film”

Kerry R. Kaleba, George Mason University

Paper 3: “What Do Vampires Have to Do with the Holy Grail?: The Transformation of the Grail Legend in Undead Arthuriana”

Michael A. Torregrossa, The Virtual Society for the Study of Popular Culture and the Middle Ages

Paper 4: “Vampires in Sookie Stackhouse Southern Vampire novels and the Twilight Saga”

Andrea Siegel, Graduate Center/CUNY

Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Legend III: Fantasy (Session III, Saturday, 10:30 AM – 12 PM, White 023)
Presider: Faye Ringel, United States Coast Guard Academy, retired

Paper 1: “ ‘Epic’ in Epic-Fantasy Literature”

Robert Luce, Independent Scholar

Paper 2: “Who Is Afraid Of Merlin? The Darkening of Merlin in Modern Arthurian Fiction”

Anne Berthelot, University of Connecticut

Paper 3: “ ‘Close This Book Right Now’: The Writer-Character in Children’s Fantasy”

Amie A. Doughty, SUNY Oneonta

Paper 4: “Fandom 2.0: Fantasy, Social Media, and Fan Creativity”

James Kennedy, Columbia College

Saturday, November 5, 2011

Boston 2012

April 11 - 14, 2012 Note: This is a week later than we have traditionally held it in the past.

Deadlines

Areas & Chairs

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Friday, October 28, 2011

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Monday, October 10, 2011

Monday, September 26, 2011

Sunday, September 25, 2011

April 11 - 14, 2012

Note: This is a week later than we have traditionally held it in the past.