CFP: Glasgow International Fantasy Conversations deadline for submission 12 Jan 2020

Glasgow International Fantasy Conversations

Beyond the Anglocentric Fantastic

28th-29th May 2020

In “Surviving Fantasy Through Post-Colonialism”, Deepa Dharmadhikari writes that she grew up “speaking Marathi with my family, and Hindi with schoolmates and neighbours, but the only children’s books I read were in English. Less than a handful were written by Indian authors about Indian characters.  . . . I grew up with half a tongue.” Her essay invites us to question our own habits: What language do we use when we read, watch, write, or think about Fantasy and the fantastic? What cultural traditions tend to be represented in the “Fantasy canon”? What ethnic and racial groups dominate Fantasy texts, in terms of characters and writers alike? What power dynamics shape the production, distribution, and reception of Fantasy texts? Many of the texts that have been used to define Fantasy are written in English and either set in or inspired by white-dominated spaces in the United States and the United Kingdom, from The Lord of the Rings to the works of George MacDonald, William Morris, L. Frank Baum, Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett and J. K. Rowling. Fantasy scholarship has reinforced this tendency, dominated as it is by discussion of English-language texts.

This limited perception of Fantasy is reflective of two key concepts for this year’s symposium: Anglonormativity and Anglocentrism. Anglonormativity refers to the hegemony of the English language, which pressurizes creatives and scholars into using English and writing about English-language texts, and treats scholars and writers in other languages as niche and hence marginalised. Anglocentrism, in turn, refers to the practise of viewing the world through the lens of an English or Anglo-American perspective and with an implied belief, either consciously or unconsciously, in the preeminence of English or Anglo-American culture.

Anglonormativity and Anglocentrism can lead to either ignoring or appropriating the lengthy and rich traditions of Fantasy and the fantastic written in other languages and cultures, many of which predate the Anglophone tradition. Those non-Anglophone traditions have resulted in unique genres separate from Anglocentric Fantasy, others in subgenres like Afrofuturism, and still others in culturally-specific incarnations of Fantasy. Recent years have seen an increase in the publication and profile of works of Fantasy and the fantastic translated from a variety of languages (Chinese, Russian, Greek and Malay, to name but a few) as well as the output of English-speaking authors of colour such as Nalo Hopkinson and Kai Ashante Wilson, who bring their own backgrounds and language into their work. Within Anglophone countries, there has been a slowly growing tendency to centre the perspective of racially, culturally, and ethnically marginalised groups whose perspectives have historically been underrepresented in white Anglocentric fantasy. Indigenous authors are also starting to make their presence known in the fantastic, using the genre to examine the contested space of colonised land, and imagine escape from or alternatives to a history and present of oppression and erasure. Tolkien’s white British English may still be treated as the default for Fantasy, but as Dharmadhikari argues, “Dragons are not universal, and fantasies are not homogenous.”

GIFCon 2020 is a two-day symposium that seeks to examine and honour the heterogeneity of Fantasy and the fantastic beyond Anglonormativity and Anglocentrism. We welcome proposals for papers relating to this theme from researchers and practitioners working in the field of Fantasy and the fantastic across all media, whether within the academy or beyond it. We are particularly interested in submissions from postgraduate and early career researchers. We will also offer creative workshops for those interested in exploring the creative process.

We ask for 300-word abstracts for 20-minute papers, as well as creative presentations that go beyond the traditional academic paper. Regrettably, despite our desire to centre the non-Anglophonic, we are only able to accept papers presented in English.

Suggested topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Non-Anglocentric histories and traditions of Fantasy and the fantastic in all forms of media
  • The postcolonial fantastic, by authors such as Helen Oyeyemi, Salman Rushdie, N. K. Jemisin, Nalo Hopkinson, and Zen Cho
  • The use of real non-Anglophone languages in Fantasy
  • Translation studies and the fantastic
  • Accounts of non-Anglophone scholarship on Fantasy and the fantastic
  • Influence of Anglocentrism and Anglonormativity on the non-Anglocentric and non-Anglonormative
  • The non-Anglocentric European fantastic, e.g. Slavic, Nordic, Mediterranean, Gaelic
  • The (mis)use, exoticism, and appropriation of non-Anglocentric cultural traditions and fantasy lineages into the Fantasy ‘canon’
  • Indigeneity and indigenous self-determination in Indigenous forms of Fantasy
  • Deconstruction, decolonisation, and counterappropriation as topics within and movements surrounding Fantasy texts
  • Postcolonial reception of Anglocentric texts, e.g. the success of Harry Potter in India
  • Implications of “writing back” to Anglophone genres
  • Diasporic Fantasy and the fantastic
  • Relationship between Fantasy and non-Anglocentric genres and forms, e.g. magical realism, masala films, Africanjujuism, shenmo xiaoshuo, fantastique, kaiju, etc.
  • Fantasy and the fantastic in a non-Anglocentric medium, e.g. Bollywood fantasies, manga, anime, jrpgs, Karagöz shadow plays
  • Fan efforts to create space for non-Anglocentric experiences in Anglocentric texts
  • Marginalised traditions within Anglocentric fantasy, i.e. works of the fantastic about and by immigrant communities, religious minorities, and racial and ethnic minorities
  • Relationship between non-Anglocentric Fantasy and the regional cultural industries that produce them
  • The presence or lack thereof of non-Anglocentric Fantasy in Anglocentric spaces
  • Relationship between Fantasy and religious or spiritual beliefs in non-Anglocentric cultures

Please submit a 300-word abstract and a 100-word bionote to gifcon-submissions@glasgow.ac.uk by 12th January 2020 at midnight UTC. For further submission details, visit https://gifcon.org/gifcon-submission-guidelines/

 

 

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CFP: CYMERA – Scotland’s Festival of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Writing. Deadline 22 March 2019

CYMERA: Scotland’s Festival of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Writing

8-9 June 2019, The Pleasance, Edinburgh UK

CYMERA is a new literary festival launching this June in Edinburgh, Scotland’s first such festival devoted to science fiction, fantasy and horror writing. This ambitious event already  has a guest list of more than 60 authors from across all three genres (full programme to be announced in March at https://www.cymerafestival.co.uk/). Now the festival is inviting early career researchers to participate in its innovative academic strand with this call for papers.

The academic strand at CYMERA is free to attend, giving you and your research the chance to engage with the public as well as other academics. Presentations will be strictly limited to five minutes, but you will be presenting to a wider audience – and, potentially, a much bigger audience – than most purely academic conferences. With only five minutes to present, your paper should focus on the core argument or findings of your research in a dynamic manner. The most engaging papers from each Saturday session will be invited back for a second presentation on Sunday. One paper will be chosen to get presented in the festival’s main hall before a major guest event, with a potential public audience of up to 300 people. For further details about how the academic strand will work at the festival, email cymeracfp@gmail.com.

For the academic strand at CYMERA 2019, we are asking for papers that explore Scotland’s contribution to science fiction, fantasy and horror. That can range from writers and creators born in Scotland [from Stevenson and Conan Doyle to Iain Banks and beyond] to those who have made Scotland their home; from Scotland as a location for the genre’s narratives [such as Under the Skin by Michel Faber] to themes of Scottishness present in genre writing. Your paper may focus on one or more of the genres; it could look beyond prose fiction to consider science fiction, fantasy and horror in graphic novels and comics by Scottish creators; or at adaptations of Scottish science fiction, fantasy and horror narratives into other media.

We invite 100-word proposals for five (5) minute papers. Suggested topics include, but are certainly not limited to:

  • Scottish authors of the genres – past and present
  • Themes of Scottishness within the genres
  • Scotland as a location, be it rural, urban or both
  • Scotland’s role in the development of these genres
  • New theoretical perspectives on Scottish science fiction, fantasy and horror
  • Scotland’s influence on one or more of the three genres
  • Intersections, blends and hybrids within Scottish fictions of the genres
  • Scottish graphic novels and comic books within the genres, and their creators
  • Adaptations of Scottish science fiction, fantasy and horror
  • Scotland’s contribution to the genres in other media, such as games
  • Genre blending and bending in Scottish writing
  • Dualities in Scottish genre writing and its cities
  • Scotland as a filming location for science fiction, fantasy and horror film and TV

Please send your 100 word abstract with a biographical note of 50-75 words to cymeracfp@gmail.com no later than midday on Friday 22nd March 2019. Please direct all queries and enquiries to the same address.

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CFP Glasgow International Fantasy Conversations – Submissions Deadline 31 January 2018

Glasgow International Fantasy Conversations 

Escaping Escapism in Fantasy and the Fantastic

26th – 27th April 2018

What is the role of fantasy and the fantastic? Why—and perhaps more crucially, how—does the genre matter? Fantasy theorists frequently define the genre in opposition to what is possible and real: Kathryn Hume, for instance, sums it up in Fantasy and Mimesis as “departures from consensus reality”. Critics often scrutinize this departure as a negative, and disparage representations of the fantastic either due to their failure to depict real world issues or their presumed attempts at “escapism.” This perceived link between fantasy and escapism is so strong that dictionaries like the Oxford English Dictionary define escapism as “engaging in fantasy”.

Despite this association, a growing body of evidence asserts both that escapism can be healthy and that the fantastic can influence how its consumers perceive real world issues even when their representations are deemed problematic. For example, though readers and scholars have criticized the portrayal of minority groups in J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, studies suggest that people who read the series are more accepting of stigmatised groups and more likely to vote for political candidates whose policies support these groups. And while some critics view the creation of fictional Secondary Worlds as a troubling detachment from reality, creativity scholars have drawn links between creating imaginary worlds as a child and high achievement in artistic and scientific fields later in life. Escapism is perhaps not as escapist as it was previously perceived to be, and even when it is, it can have a positive impact. The “escapism accusation” is being flipped on its head, with texts as disparate as Diana Wynne Jones’s Fire and Hemlock and Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s “Normal Again” presenting the rejection of the fantastic in favour of “reality” as the dangerous escapist behaviour. The traditional dynamic between escapism and the fantastic is constantly being changed and renegotiated.

This two-day symposium seeks to examine and honour the relationship between escapism and the fantastic. We welcome proposals for papers on this theme from researchers and practitioners working in the field of fantasy and the fantastic across all media, whether within the academy or beyond it. We are particularly interested in submissions from postgraduate and early career researchers.

We will offer workshops in creative writing for those interested in exploring the creative process.

We ask for 300-word abstracts for 20-minute papers, as well as creative presentations that go beyond the traditional academic paper.

Suggested topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

– Intersections and interplays between fantasy and reality.

– Metatextual responses to escapism in fantastic texts and media.

– Theoretical and/or critical discussions of escapism in relation to fantasy and the fantastic, broadly defined.

– Relationships between Secondary Worlds and the Primary World; relationships between world and characters.

– Reading, writing, and engaging with fantasy as a political act; the depiction of real world issues, or lack thereof, in fantastical settings and contexts.

– Representations of the fantastic in media associated with escapism, such as live-action role-playing, board games, tabletop role-playing games, television, etc.

Please submit a 300-word abstract and a 100-word biography in separate editable documents (not PDF) to submissions.gifconference@gmail.com by Wednesday, the 31st of January 2018.

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CFP: Deeper than Swords: Fear and Loathing in Fantasy and Folklore – Deadline 11 November 2016

University of Edinburgh Fantasy and Folklore Postgraduate Conference and Creative Writing Seminar

Deeper than Swords: Fear and Loathing in Fantasy and Folklore

18th-19th January 2017

School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures

University of Edinburgh

CALL FOR PAPERS

“Fear cuts deeper than swords.” A Game of Thrones, George R.R. Martin

Shakespeare acknowledged that “in time we come to hate that which we often fear” (Antony and Cleopatra). Fantasy and folklore literature have long explored these themes and their interdependent relationship. From the threat of the wicked witch in traditional fairy tales to new and terrifying monsters such as A Song of Ice and Fire’s White Walkers, it is from these stories that our worst nightmares are drawn and our deepest hatreds formed. Yet what is it about these genres that make them so well suited to depicting fear and hate? How do fear and hate symbiotically engage with each other within these genres, and how do these genres use this relationship to comment on wider socio-political issues?

The University of Edinburgh’s Fantasy and Folklore Reading Group is hosting its first, interdisciplinary postgraduate student conference on the 18th and 19th January 2017. We welcome submissions for 20 minute individual papers as well as panel proposals exploring manifestations of fear and hatred throughout fantasy and folklore literature. Potential topics can include, but are not limited to:

  • Fear of the Other. Is fantasy literature particularly well placed to respond to the Other, and does it agree with or challenge normative perceptions?
  • The uncanny. How do fantasy and folklore work to make the familiar frightening?
  • Critical fear of fantasy literature. Why are fantasy and folklore still maligned within the academic community?
  • How do cultural norms dictate what is understood as frightening? How is this typified or interrogated in fantasy narratives?
  • How is death, as a concept or a real threat, handled in fantasy and folklore?
  • How do fantasy narratives engage with themes of contemporary terror and psychological warfare?
  • Fear, fantasy and psychoanalysis. Freud used fairy tales to extrapolate his theories – how can we, in turn, trace these theories through contemporary folklore?
  • Are fear and loathing gendered? How can fantasy and folklore’s engagement with these themes be refracted through feminist perspectives?
  • How do space, place and landscape influence our experiences of horror and hated?
  • Trauma and survival: how do these narratives represent the impact of that which “cuts deeper than swords”?

We are also interested in papers which explore the intersections between fantasy, folklore and

  • Cinema
  • Television
  • Theatre
  • Creative Arts

Creative Writing Seminar

On Friday 19th January, we will also be holding parallel creative writing sessions. Writers working in any genre, from both the academic and local communities, are invited to join us for a stimulating day of workshop and discussion, led by postgraduate students and professional practitioners. The discussions will be influenced by papers presented on the first day of the conference and will allow writers to incorporate elements of fantasy and folklore into their work, even if they are not writing purely within those genres. The sessions will culminate in a reading, where delegates will be invited to present short pieces of work.

What to send

Conference abstracts:

250 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 11th November 2016. Please include a short bio of up to 250 words.

Creative writing attendees:

If you are interested in presenting and taking part in the creative writing sessions, please indicate this in your email.

If you are only interested in the creative writing seminar, please email us to register your interest.

Organising chairs: Harriet MacMillan and Anahit Behrooz

fantasyandfolklore2017@gmail.com

 

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