September 05, 2004
Another 2004 Conference Report
by Don Riggs:
This was possibly my favorite ICFA yet. I was involved in two back-to-back panel discussions of Tolkien; the first, on Teaching Tolkien (which I chaired), exposed me to some very good and very different approaches to teaching Tolkien on the university level, with specific course materials in handouts from Chuck Nelson and Faye Ringel. The second, much better attended (and admittedly with much broader interest) was the panel discussion on Tolkien's novels vs. Jackson's films I MEAN novels AND films. The discussion was intense, dedicated, varied in p.o.v. and featured the best sound bite (for me) from the whole conference. It was from Edward James, and was the opening comment for the whole panel discussion: "I have five words to say: the Scouring of the Shire."
As a result of the last panel, I got to see and discuss Tolkien issues frequently with Liz Whittingham, Lori Lipoma, and Edward James in particular, and others at times as well, throughout the conference. However, I also had some very valuable input on Frankenstein films from that session (I am writing the Frankenstein Monsters article for the Westfahl Encyclopedia), and was overcome with the riches (no embarrassment!) of TWO sessions on Anime, both of which dealt wholly or in part with Hayao Miyazaki!
Hats off to Stefan Hall for organizing the Grad Student Mentoring program. He paired me up with Australian Magical Realism writer Glenda Guest, with whom I had many interesting and fruitful -- to me, and hopefully equally so to her -- encounters.
The one disappointment I had was my inability to go to more of the writers' readings -- the conference was so fully scheduled, that I found my academic needs, as in the need to attend the Frankenstein movies session and the anime sessions (I am the faculty sponsor of Drexel's anime club), not to mention the four sessions I was involved in, whether giving a paper, chairing a panel, being a member of a panel, or reading my own poems (surrounded by the truly impressive Marilyn Jurich, Joe Haldeman, and Dave Lunde), that I had little flexibility to go to other sessions I might have wanted to.
Posted by ChrissieMains at 11:49 PM | Comments (0)
A Second 2004 Conference Report
By Regina Cross:
In case none of my co-conspirators writes, I feel a certain responsibility to put our story in the newsletter. Hopefully, someone got a pic of the See-No-Evil, etc. bit onstage.
Wednesday night at the opening reception, Don Morse announced a quiz, written by Brian Aldiss, which would help fund a special award to Bob Collins at the Saturday banquet for his history of service. We distinctly remembered hearing Don say something about probably needing to ask around for some of the answers, so Kathy Davis, Stefan Ekman (he of the Malfoy-clone looks), Sharon Emmerichs and I decided to help each other out.
Between my free internet access (thanks to Wyndham ByRequest), Sharon's willingness to schmooze with and be goosed by Brian, Kathy's quick thinking and Stefan's long-distance call to Sweden to look up our last answer, we managed to find all the correct answers, only spending about 4 1/2-5 hours working on the darn thing. We figured any ties would be drawn from randomly, so we'd have 4 chances out of however many, and quite probably end up splitting the $100.
We were wrong. Late Saturday afternoon, as Sharon and I were desperately trying to get anyone in the hotel to let us order some food, Brian comes up to us in the bar with a conundrum he found himself in. It seemed that four people had exactly the same score on the quiz, what do you know? We confessed, figuring that the easy answer for him would be to just let us split the prize as we had intended....but NO! There was going to be a "shoot out" at the banquet, where the four of us would have to think on our feet.
But there was one problem beyond the intimidation of public performance--none of us were planning on attending the banquet. Three of the four of us are graduate students looking forward to spending considerably less than $35 on a meal (no, it was not free, as Brian intimated at the "award" ceremony). The fourth had an incredibly early flight to catch Sunday morning. After some serious guilt-work by Brian, we agreed that we would do our best to make it back to the hotel by 10 to accept our fates.
We had a sinking feeling there would be more to it than just some easy question...that Brian would perhaps try to embarrass us for having the gall to do actual research. So we began to plot and plan, eventually coming up with at least 3 or 4 possibilities, including, at one point, having an uninvolved graduate student create a diversion (Thanks again for the offer, Charlie). We settled at last upon the See-No-Evil, Hear-No-Evil, Speak-No-Evil routine, modified with Stefan's "not at liberty to divulge" answer. And it was a darn good thing, too, since Brian gave us a non-existent work for our first try.
To be entirely honest, after two titles that I had no clue on (partly because I'm horrible at remembering names), I was ready to start guessing "Brian Aldiss" on every title. Luckily, Sharon, who was preparing to take her comprehensive exams the second week after the conference, remembered whichever Jonson it was and got us our prize money, which we promptly divided. The whole ordeal led, in turn, to a free round of drinks courtesy of Tom Shippey, a great chat with Tom, Brian and others pre-reception, and a great story to tell.
Posted by ChrissieMains at 11:35 PM | Comments (0)
Submissions to JFA
JFA Editor Bill Senior passes along the following reminder:
The Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts does not publish a conference issue, and IAFA no longer has an agreement for proceedings volumes with Greenwood Press. However, the JFA editors and staff would like to encourage submissions of completed essays, whether based on conference presentations or not. Please send submissions as attached files to Bill Senior at wsenior at broward.edu. Format is flexible, although JFA does use MSWord 6.0 for setup.
Posted by ChrissieMains at 11:31 PM | Comments (0)
Congratulations, Joe
Joe Sutliff Sanders, recently a daddy, won the Provost's Award for Outstanding Teaching, the university's highest teaching award. Joe reports that he was "in competition with graduate student teachers from all the disciplines, so it's a heady experience. I'm contemplating popping unannounced into randomly selected courses taught by other graduate students and smirking at them."
Posted by ChrissieMains at 11:26 PM | Comments (0)
2004 Conference Report
By Gideon Haberkorn
Well, first of all, I thank the IAFA for accepting my paper and giving me an excuse to attend the ICFA for the second time.
Excuse? Well, of course I also enjoyed the opportunity to present a paper and have it spark interesting discussions. And I loved listening to all those interesting papers by other people. (Note: If you could do something to reduce the number of interesting papers... Otherwise I have to feel bad most of the time because I'm usually missing at least one other session I should attend simultaneously!)
But mostly I love coming to this conference for three reasons: Sunshine and warm days at the pool (even more of a reason to reduce the number of interesting, must see papers); strawberries for breakfast; and of course the people! This conference feels a lot like a family gathering, and both times I attended everyone made me feel part of that family. This is a wonderful thing, especially if you've come to the US from 'Old Europe', way across the ocean.
After the ICFA, I visited a friend in Atlanta, saw CNN, Stone Mountain, various parts of the city, two universities, two movies, and generally far too much for two days... and nearly bought a two foot long plastic toad. The only thing that prevented me from doing so was the fact that all those books were already taking up all the space in my carry on luggage. And this brings me, in a roundabout way, to my strongest criticism of this year’s conference: Could someone please stop David Hartwell from putting so many great books at reasonable prices into the bookroom? I always leave the conference dragging a suitcase that appears to contain at least one medium sized library. That man has to be stopped. I really needed that plastic toad.
The award for the most memorable moment goes, as fellow grad student Nikoline Thomson so rightly pointed out, to the last evening, when a group of us students were sitting by the pool. Brian Aldiss was wandering the circumference of the pool with a bottle, a happily inebriated satellite, and stopped by us and initiated a group chorus of "That's Amore."
To sum up:
What, then, was good about this conference? The atmosphere. The people. The papers - at least the ones I heard. I think there’s a wonderful balance between papers dealing with the main subject of the conference and other papers. But of course it was especially nice to have a more truly international conference this year.
It was interesting to find that Andy Seeger and I had brought very similar papers, dealing with similar subjects, but using different authors and arguing different points. Perhaps there might be a panel on contemporary German fantasy in this...
What was bad? The weather! No warm days by the pool. And even, on some days, no strawberries for breakfast. I'm very disappointed!
Anyhow, I think Andrea Bell can be very proud of 'her' conference. It was a very fitting 25th for the International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts - a truly international conference.
Posted by ChrissieMains at 10:24 PM | Comments (0)
The Postmodern Fantastic
Martin Horstkotte, who recently completed his PhD, announces that his dissertation was published in August 2004 by Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, which is located in Trier, Germany. The title is The Postmodern Fantastic in Contemporary British Fiction, it is about 224pp., the ISBN is 3-88476-679-1 and the price is a moderate Euro 24,50 which amounts to approximately $29.60.
Posted by ChrissieMains at 10:20 PM | Comments (0)
Classic & Iconoclastic Alternate History
Edgar L. Chapman announces the publication of CLASSIC AND ICONOCLASTIC ALTERNATE HISTORY SCIENCE FICTION edited by Edgar L.Chapman and Carl B. Yoke, published by Edwin Mellen Press, Lewiston, NY; the book came out late in 2003, and contains 14 essays, including two by Edgar, one by Carl Yoke, and essays by Tom Shippey, Martha Bartter, Joe Sanders, William Hardesty, Robert Geary, Karen Hellekson, Steven Kagle, Darren Harris-Fain, Howard Canaan, Olena Saciuk, and Claire-Antoinette Lindenlaub. Treated in the essays are alternate history novels and tales from the time of Chesterton and Murray Leinster to the late 20th century, and including discussions of Ward Moore, Philip K. Dick, Kingsley Amis, Joanna Russ, Robert Heinlein, Robert Silverberg and others. The ISBN # is 0-7734-6799-8.
Posted by ChrissieMains at 10:16 PM | Comments (0)
Fantastic Literature
David Sandner wants to announce to all IAFA members the publication of a collection that he edited that may be of interest to the IAFA membership. Fantastic Literature: A Critical Reader (Praeger, 2004) is now available from Greenwood Press (ISBN: 0-275-98053-7). Writers and critics from the early history of critical scholarship on the fantastic to some of our fellow members of the IAFA are included. Check it out!
Posted by ChrissieMains at 10:12 PM | Comments (0)
ICFA26 Call for Papers
26th Annual International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts
Blurring the Boundaries: Transrealism and Other Movements
March 16-20, 2005
Wyndham Fort Lauderdale Airport Hotel
The focus of ICFA-26 is on the Transreal and other movements that encourage and embody the breaking and blurring of the boundaries between genders and genres, between reality and illusion, between the 'real' world and the possible worlds of the imagination. Such movements include the New Wave, Cyberpunk, Steampunk, the Interstitial Arts, Slipstream, the New Weird, and many more. In addition, we look forward to papers focusing on the work of Guest of Honor Rudy Rucker, Guest Scholar Damien Broderick, Special Guest Writer John Kessel, and Special Guest Poet Albert Goldbarth. As always, we also welcome proposals for individual papers and for academic sessions and panels on any aspect of the fantastic in any media.
The deadline for submission of individual proposals is 15 October 2004.
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
In order to be considered for the 2005 program, your proposal to (1) read a paper, (2) recruit and chair a paper session, or (3) organize and chair a panel discussion must be date-stamped no later than October 15, 2004; electronic correspondence is welcome.
Proposals must be sent to the appropriate Division Head (addresses at the IAFA Website).
Be sure to indicate all audio-visual equipment needs in this initial proposal. NOTE: Proposals must include a 500-word abstract and appropriate bibliography indicating the project's scholarly or theoretical context.
Keep checking the association's website for contact information, guest updates, hotel details, membership renewal, and conference registration.
Also available on the website is the Call for Papers in a number of formats; feel free to download it for posting in your departments.
Posted by ChrissieMains at 10:03 PM | Comments (0)
Theorizing Fan Fiction-Call for Papers
Theorizing Fan Fiction and Fan Communities
Overview
Fan fiction has recently gained increasing visibility in both mass media and academic writing. Although numerous insightful essays have appeared in various venues, no comprehensive essay collection has traced the changes and shifts in fan culture and fan fiction since the groundbreaking works of Henry Jenkins, Camille Bacon-Smith, and Constance Penley of the early 1990s.
This essay collection looks to complement these crucial early explorations into fan fiction by expanding their scope and focus to include such recent phenomena as the Internet (with fan culture revolving around Usenet groups, mailing lists, and blogs); the rapid growth of stories featuring previously taboo subjects such as underage sex, incest, and real person fiction (RPF); and the changing demographics of the fan base. Recent work has also queried the frequently debated and constantly shifting attitudes toward writing and community, as well as more sophisticated self-analysis, in part the result of the increasing presence of academic fans.
We are looking for academic essays geared toward a general readership and particularly welcome personal reflections of readers, writers, and fans. This collection strives to be interdisciplinary, and we especially welcome historical, sociological, and anthropological approaches, as well as English and media studies. Essays may focus on particular fandoms and source texts but should ultimately move beyond the specifics to address larger concerns and experiences relevant to fandom and fan fiction at large. Papers will fit into one of four broad sections: history and terminology; text, writer, reader; forms and genres; and community.
1. History and terminology
Factual accounts of history and terminology should be tempered with analysis, perhaps indicating shifts as time passes and as fan fiction moves from hard copy to cyberspace. Traditional zines, fan fiction CDs and
downloads, Usenet, mailing lists, and blogs could be analyzed, perhaps in terms of fandom's response to technological change. Analysis of specific fandoms as well as more general overviews are welcome.
2. Text, writer, reader
The relationship among any of the three elements of the rhetorical situation needs analysis. Academic/fan, reader/writer, process and writing, engagement with source text (such as episode fixes or traumatic events in the canon source), questions of canon, fanon and characterization, and issues of author insertion and identification--these are just a few uneasy relationships that need contextualization. Studies of the process of writing, as opposed to the product, as central are also needed.
3. Forms and genres
Content (romance, hurt/comfort, Mary Sue, slash, het/ship, genfic, episode fixes, alternate universes and realities, mpreg, BDSM, kinkfic, elves, wingfic) and form (real person fiction or slash, role-playing games, songfic, drabbles) should be assessed with a view to reaching a novel conclusion. Possible topics might include partnership versus enemy romance; the notion of slash as an idealized relationship; and challenge fics.
4. Community
New analyses of the fan fiction community generating and consuming the texts that take into account new use of technology are needed. LiveJournal and other online communities, the interaction among writer/beta/audience, fan fiction as gift, strategies to meld the fan fiction community (cons, fic archives), and inculcation of new fans into the fan fiction community all need to be theorized in light of technological change and a concomitant lack of policing. Other possible topics include the identity politics of fandom and the emotional investment of fans into fandom, the texts, and each other.
Details
All fandoms are welcome, as are essays about mediafic, bookfic, comicfic, and RPF. The volume will be geared to academics and students interested in jargon-free, theory-based analyses of media and audience, including, among others, students in English, media studies, and sociology. Personal scholarly essays as well as more traditional academic essays are encouraged.
Preparation
Submit complete essays not more than 7500 words in length (excluding abstract, notes, and works cited). Include an abstract not more than 500 words long that summarizes the argument. Submit files via e-mail in Microsoft Word or .rtf format. Use in-text author-page number citations whenever possible. Use endnotes sparingly for substantive notes. Style according to Chicago 15. If artwork, photographs, or screen shots are included, contact the editors for instructions and copyright release requirements. No simultaneous submissions. We also cannot accept previously published essays. If you have put your essay up on the Internet, we cannot consider it for inclusion.
Contact
Karen Hellekson and Kristina Busse
E-mail: theorize@karenhellekson.com
URL: http://www.karenhellekson.com/theorize/
Deadline
April 1, 2005.
Please inform us in advance of your interest in the project and get in contact with us about any questions you might have about possible submission topics. We also encourage early submission to facilitate revision.
Posted by ChrissieMains at 07:08 PM | Comments (0)
WorldCon 2005-Call for Papers
The Academic Track for the Glasgow Worldcon in 2005 (Interaction) has been given 20 sessions--that's the equivalent of 60 papers or a full conference in itself.
The main theme is Matters of Britain, and as well as the Arthurian narratives, we are interested in all material on legend and folk lore, multiculturalism, balkanisation or anything else that occurs.
As well as the main theme, we welcome papers on all topics, and suggestions for panel discussions.
For more information:
http://www.interaction.worldcon.org.uk/matter.htm
Suggestions to: Farah at fjm3.demon.co.uk.
Posted by ChrissieMains at 07:04 PM | Comments (0)
IAFA Newsletter Takes a New Form
At the Executive Board meeting held this summer, the Information Co-ordinator (yours truly) once more shared her tale of woe regarding the IAFA Newsletter.
Aside from all the usual problems with putting together a print newsletter (costs, distribution) there's the problem of getting together enough content within a reasonable time frame. Long story short: there just wasn't enough response to my continued pleas for content to justify printing a hardcopy Newsletter. We needed a way to share news in a timely manner without being bound by the need to make up a certain number of pages by a specific deadline.
So the board talked about how we could still communicate important news to IAFA members while furthering the sense of community that marks the annual conference. David Hartwell recommended that we turn to blogging, and ta da! here we are.
Y'all will need to bear with me over the coming weeks as I get a handle on this cool new (to me) technology. The plan is to post updates for the upcoming conference and announcements, both personal and professional, that IAFA members wish to share. After the annual conference, we'll continue to post conference reports and anecdotes (with pics, once I figure out how to do that) and we'll also post information about other sites, conferences, books, whatever of interest.
Ideas, suggestions, comments as always to cemains at shaw dot ca.
Posted by ChrissieMains at 06:51 PM | Comments (0)