[ecrea] CFP: "Science Fiction / Fantasy Now" and "Irradiating the Object: M. John Harrison" Conferences

Please find below details on these two conferences. The organisers would be grateful if you could circulate these details to anyone interested. Apologies for cross-posting:

SF/F Now and Irradiating the Object: M. John Harrison conferences

Warwick University (UK)

21-23 August 2014



SF/F Now (22-23 August) is a 2-day international, interdisciplinary conference exploring the current research into the fantastic (in any medium) and the ways in which sf, fantasy, and the weird grapple with and illuminate the crucial political and social issues of the moment.

It will consist of conventional panels and a series of innovative workshops led by pairs of international specialists exploring the relation of fantastic fiction to contemporary issues: Animal Studies; Crisis&  Protest; Energy&  Petrofiction; Environmental Studies; Humanity 2.0; Utopia&  the City; Science Studies; World Systems&  World Sf. The workshops are designed to allow all participants the opportunity to benefit directly from discussion with all our attending experts.

Workshop leaders include Gerry Canavan (Marquette), Caroline Edwards (Birkbeck), Carl Freedman (Louisiana State) Steve Fuller (Warwick), Joan Haran (Cardiff), Veronica Hollinger (Trent), Roger Luckhurst (Birkbeck), Graeme MacDonald (Warwick), David McNally (York), Charles Sheppard (Warwick), Stephen Shapiro (Warwick), Imre Szeman (Alberta), and Sherryl Vint (UC Riverside).

We invite proposals (300-500 words) for 20-minute papers or pre-constituted panels (3x20 minute papers on a related theme) on topics relating to the current state of the fantastic, contemporary research into the fantastic, or the relation of the fantastic to social and political issues, including but not restricted to those covered by the workshop titles. Please include detail of institutional affiliation and any AV requirements.

Deadline for proposals 31 March 2014. For further information, join our FB event page SF/F Now (http://on.fb.me/1ce1dfn)

SF/F Now will be preceded by a one-day conference, Irradiating the Object: M. John Harrison (21 August 2014), in collaboration with Gylphi, on one of Britain’s leading sf and fantasy writers and critics.

M. John Harrison persistently upsets distinctions between genres and between literary and popular fiction, and challenges our desire for the fantastic. His fiction – whether space opera (The Centauri Device, the Kefahuchi Tract trilogy), near-future thriller (Signs of Life), ironic post-apocalypticism (The Committed Men), weird horror (The Course of the Heart), magic realism (Climbers) or sword’n’sorcery and baroque fantasy (the Viriconium stories) – unerringly charts transformations of British social, political and physical landscapes. The agenda-setting literary editor of Michael Moorcock’s New Worlds who thirty years later unearthed the New Weird, he is the most demanding of genre critics.

Keynote speakers: Sara Wasson (Edinburgh-Napier University), other TBC

M. John Harrison will give a reading and participate in a Q&A session.

We invite proposals (300-500 words) for 20-minute papers or pre-constituted panels (3x20 minute papers on a related theme) on any aspect of Harrison’s fiction and career. Please include detail of institutional affiliation and any AV requirements. Selected papers will appear in a collection co-edited by Mark Bould and Rhys Williams.

Deadline for proposals 31 March 2014. For further information, join our FB event page Irradiating the Object (http://on.fb.me/1dSlKmV).

A small number of travel and accommodation bursaries will be available for students attending all three days of the conference(s). For those wishing to apply, please include a CV with you proposal.

Please address any queries and submit proposals to Rhys Williams ((A.Rhys.Williams /at/ warwick.ac.uk)) and/or Mark Bould ((mark.bould /at/ gmail.com)).



---------------
ECREA-Mailing list
---------------
This mailing list is a free service from ECREA and Nico Carpentier.
--
To subscribe, post or unsubscribe, please visit
http://www.ecrea.eu/mailinglist
--
ECREA - European Communication Research and Education Association
--
Postal address:
ECREA
Chaussée de Waterloo 1151
1180 Uccle
Belgium
--
Email: (info /at/ ecrea.eu)
URL: http://www.ecrea.eu
---------------