fan studies and fandom

CFP. Themed issue of The Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television

Radio beyond Boundaries

LOVE, ETC.

A conference sponsored by the “Uses of Literature” Research Project at the University of Southern Denmark, October 3-4, 2019

What is there left to say about love? Endlessly invoked, celebrated, assailed, abused, and parodied, love has been hailed as the meaning of life and disdained as the ultimate cliché. This conference is inspired by the conviction that love is poised to become a focus of renewed interest in the humanities. We anticipate two main focal points for the conference, without excluding other options.

DEADLINE EXTENDED FOR ABSTRACT SUBMISSIONS

Please submit absrtacts by Saturday, March 31st.

Theorising the Popular Conference 2018

Liverpool Hope University, July 11th-12th 2018

Call for papers

Conference: The Fates of Frankenstein

23-24 November 2018, Edinburgh Napier University, Edinburgh

2018 sees a flourishing crop of events commemorating, one way or another, the bicentenary of Frankenstein’s publication. The Fates of Frankenstein is a two-day conference about adaptations and appropriations of Shelley’s novel.

Since the emergence of Capitalism in Western society, humanity’s role as consumers of culture has become internalized as an inalienable component of modernity. From Marx’s metaphor of vampire labor in Capital to George Romero’s metaphorical representation of zombies as consumers in Dawn of the Dead to the ravenous hunger of online fandoms eagerly seeking for new content, the relationship between popular culture and its human consumers draws upon a rich, expansive history that recontextualizes interpolated human relationships by emphasizing (and sometimes questioning) the cultural narratives that dominate modern societies.

Transgender identities: Fighting for the Margins

“Bad Boys” and Girls in Sports

Science Fiction and Fantasy International Conference

Messengers from the Stars:  Episode V – “Fragments of Humanity”

School of Arts and Humanities, University of Lisbon

University Lisbon Centre for English Studies

November 29-30, 2018

http://messengersfromthestars.letras.ulisboa.pt/conference-2018/

CALL FOR PAPERS

At their most basic level, sporting events are about numbers: wins and losses, percentages and points, shots and saves, clocks and countdowns. However, when it comes to sports narratives—the expert commentary before, during and after, the athlete interviews and press conferences, the fan debates around a television or in online forums, etc.—the stories quickly leave the realm of analytics and enter into mythos. The narratives we tell make sports so compelling. We shape athletes into heroes or scapegoats, Davids or Goliaths. We mold the sporting event into a comeback tale or a fall from grace. In other words, we make sports dramatic.

DEADLINE EXTENDED (New Deadline: May 1, 2018)

I welcome chapter proposals for an interdisciplinary collection on the life, oeuvre, and legacy of the famous nineteenth-century French Jewish actress Eliza Rachel Félix (1821-1858). Scholars in the fields of literary and cultural studies, theater, Jewish studies, history of art, journalism, etc. are encouraged to contribute the proposals. Possible topics include (but are not limited to):

--Rachel as a Jewish actress

--Rachel as a tragedienne

--Rachel’s roles

--Rachel’s impact on the French theater

--Rachel’s influence on nineteenth-century actresses

--Rachel as a symbol of resistance and revolution

--Rachel as a national and international celebrity

The 21st century has become inculcated with a sense of perpetual crisis, reflecting a world seemingly on the verge of catastrophe. This new age of anxiety is evident not only in the breakdown of traditional hegemonies, but also in an increasingly personal sense of fear, futility, and frustration for marginalized communities. Within this context, we invite essays for a collection that explores the topic/themes/ideas of resistance in works of myriad types of contemporary (~2005-2018) popular culture.

The Museum of Science Fiction is accepting 250 word proposals for 15-20 minute papers to be presented at this year’s Escape Velocity Conference in National Harbor Maryland, May 25th – 27th, 2018.

As is often the case in the examination of the mainstream literary cannon, works incorporating “traditional” magic, Afro-diasporic voodoo and Santeria, and other mystical cosmologies are frequently dismissed as non-literature in an increasingly secular and data-driven world. But by violating the laws of empirical reality, magical narratives challenge the preferred Western emphasis on science to make room for cultural, religious, and social practices inexplicable in scientific terms.

Reading YA Fiction Symposium, Thursday 24th May, Westmere House, University of Birmingham

YA Fiction has boomed in popularity in the twenty first century, from blockbuster franchises Twilight and The Hunger Games to critically acclaimed works by authors including Phillip Pullman, Patrick Ness and Malorie Blackman. Once valued primarily as a pedagogic tool, YA is beginning to emerge from the shadow of Children’s Literature to become an exciting field of study in its own right.  Critics including Roberta Trites, Robyn McCallum, Allison Waller and Crag Hill have produced complex theoretical readings of YA, establishing the groundwork for specialist scholarship in this area.

Textual Transactions IN NETHERLANDIC LITERATURE, LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

3–6 January 2019, Chicago

Session organized by the MLA Dutch Forum

The Modern Language Association is the oldest and largest professional organization dedicated to the study of language and literature in America. For the 2019 convention of the Modern Language Association, the MLA Dutch Forum is organizing a session on the 2019 Presidential theme ‘Textual Transactions’. The convention will be held from 3–6 January, in Chicago.

Anne Gere, the 2018–19 president of the MLA, has chosen Textual Transactions as the presidential theme for the 2019 MLA Annual Convention in Chicago. This is described as follows: