Call for Papers - International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts

The Film and Media division of the International Association of the Fantastic in the Arts seeks paper and panel proposals for the 31st International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts which will be held March 17th – 21st, 2010 in Orlando, Florida at the Marriott Orlando Airport Hotel.

The topic of this year’s conference is “Race and the Fantastic.” Papers related to this topic, as well as to the work of our guests of honor and attending authors (below), are especially welcome; as always, proposals for individual papers and for academic sessions and panels on any aspect of the fantastic in any media are also welcome.

Of particular interest to the Film and Television division are papers exploring:

• The alien in SF and fantasy
• Vampires and the racial imaginary in television and film
• TV detective programs featuring psychics and the supernatural
• Fantastic spaces, such as on Lost or Twin Peaks
• Mediations of race in the alternative realities of videogames

The guests of honor and guest scholar for 2010 are as follows:

Guest of Honor: Nalo Hopkinson, award-winning author of Blackheart Man, Brown Girl in the Ring, Midnight Robber, The Salt Roads, Skin Folk, The New Moon’s Arms; editor/co-editor of Whispers from the Cotton Tree Root: Caribbean Fabulist Fiction, Mojo: Conjure Stories, Tesseracts 9, and So Long Been Dreaming: Postcolonial Science Fiction & Fantasy

Guest of Honor: Laurence Yep, award-wining author of Sweetwater, Hiroshima, Dragonwings, Child of the Owl, Sea Glass, Dragon Steel, The Rainbow People, Dragon’s Gate, Dream Soul, The Junior Thunder Lord; co-editor of American Dragons: Twenty-Five Asian American Voices

Guest Scholar: Takayuki Tatsumi, author of Full Metal Apache: Transactions Between Cyberpunk Japan and Avant-Pop America, Cyberpunk America, Japanese SF Controversies: 1957-1997; co-editor of Robot Ghosts and Wired Dreams: Japanese Science Fiction from Origins to Anime

Attending authors and scholars at the 2010 conference will include: Joe Haldeman, Stephen R. Donaldson, Andy Duncan, Candas Jane Dorsey, Kathleen Ann Goonan, Patricia McKillip, Patrick O'Leary, James Morrow, Peter Straub, and Chelsea Quinn Yarbro.


SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

In order to be considered for the 2010 program, your proposal to (1) read a paper, (2) recruit and chair a paper session, or (3) organize and chair a panel discussion should be date-stamped no later than October 31, 2009; electronic correspondence is welcome. Proposals must be sent to the appropriate Division Head (addresses below). Advise the Division Head if you would like to volunteer to chair a paper session. Proposals must include a 500-word abstract and appropriate bibliography indicating the project's scholarly or theoretical context. Presenters must be members of IAFA at the time of the conference. Be sure to indicate all audio-visual equipment needs in this initial proposal; later A/V requests cannot be guaranteed.


Submissions and inquiries may be directed to Film and Media division head Jeffrey Weinstock, Central Michigan University (JEFFREY.WEINSTOCK@CMICH.EDU). Department of English, Central Michigan University, Mt. Pleasant, MI 48859 USA.

More information and updates are available at the IAFA Web site: http://www.iafa.org.