UPDATE: Deadline extended to April 30, 2020!

We are currently accepting proposals for the Science Fiction and Fantasy panel at the South Central MLA conference in Houston, Texas, October 8-10, 2020. We are closely monitoring COVID-19 developments, and will notify attendees and applicants of any changes as soon as we are made aware.

This year's conference theme is "Politics of Protest." We invite applicants to submit proposals based on the body as a site of protest. Bodies abound in science fiction and fantasy: humans abandon them for virtual lives, switch between them as if they are clothing, and AIs long for bodies of their own. We are also very interested in the intersection of gender and posthumanism. Purely by accident, the current COVID-19 pandemic has provided further avenues of analysis of the virtual body at work and play as we negotiate new realities of sheltering in place and social distancing. In many ways, our present moment feels more like science fiction than reality. As such, we also welcome abstracts related to the COVID-19 pandemic that relate to science fiction and fantasy.

Abstracts should be between 250 and 500 words. You don't have to be a member of SCMLA to submit an abstract, but membership is required upon acceptance. The current deadline is April 30, 2020, and conference information may be found at https://www.southcentralmla.org/conference/. Please submit your abstract to Sharla Rosenbaum at scfinley@uark.edu. We look forward to reading all of your submissions!