Author: Tobias Steiner

Call for Chapters: Science Fiction Beyond the Western Tradition (working title)

May 24, 2017 | , ,

Call for chapters: Proposals submission deadline: 1st September 2017 Notification of acceptance: 30th September 2017 Full chapters due: 15th January 2018 Planned submission of manuscript: 1st March 2018 Overview: “Science fiction is the major non-realistic mode of imaginative creation of our epoch. Why? Because science and technology are continually changing the conditions of our existence. And because science […] is the principal way modern culture locates us imaginatively in time and space.” (H. Bruce Franklin, 2007) Over the past fifty years, science fiction has established itself as a serious genre, one which invites formal academic inquiry, while creatively underpinning our personal and social trajectories in an ever-increasingly technoscientific world. Science fiction narratives, whether in literary or cinematic registers, help us to understand ourselves, our societies, our politics and our world, by experimenting with alternatives, possibilities, and communing with the ever-present (and variously embodied) Other. Furthermore, as the critical history of science fiction in the Western tradition has clearly demonstrated, science fiction texts are culturally revealing in that they often key into and illuminate social concerns, anxieties, and the anticipated shapes of futures yet to come. While science fiction in the Western, English-speaking tradition continues to dominate scholarship within the field, we are interested in applying the same critical principles to science fiction outside of the West. It is our intention to produce a high-quality introductory reader to serve as...

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CfP: Serialised Storytelling – 2nd international conference “(Cross-)cultures, memories and values”, 30-31 Oct 2017, Hanze University of Applied Sciences of Groningen, the Netherlands

May 22, 2017 | , ,

Serialised Storytelling organises the second international conference “Cultures, memories, values” hosted by the Hanze University of Applied Sciences of Groningen, the Netherlands. Conference date: 30th and 31st of October 2017. Storytelling in a serialised form has become a popular vehicle to convey certain values, key events and many specific traits of a given culture. Despite globalisation and homogenisation of production techniques, themes, interests, subjects and styles within the media industry, the production of serialised stories in different audio-visual media forms is still capable of showing local, regional or national identities. What defines a culture is the role played by its history (memories, representations of the past) and its values, including socially shared and socially accepted set of rules, beliefs, customs, attitudes and priorities for the future. Topics This conference invites papers from within and across the humanities, social sciences and media/communication disciplines. A strong Media Studies perspective and the relevance of studying media / AV in this context is preferred. Papers about serialised stories broadcast by the media should focus on at least one of the following topics: • (cross-)cultural media events / mediated events • (cross-)cultural media representations of the past • (cross-)cultural histories and memories in AV media • (cross-)cultural identities in AV media • national and international representations of values and beliefs • (cross-)cultural conflicts and cultural expectations • (cross-)cultural mediation and integration • (cross-)cultural media...

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CfP: Breaking out of the Box: Critical Essays on the Cult TV Show Supernatural

CfP: Breaking out of the Box: Critical Essays on the Cult TV Show Supernatural

May 22, 2017 | , ,

“What’s in the box?” Dean Winchester asks in “The Magnificent Seven,” episode one of the third season of Supernatural, to the befuddlement of his brother Sam and their avuncular mentor Bobby Singer, but to the delight of fans who revel in the show’s wry meta elements. Dean is of course quoting Detective Mills, Brad Pitt’s character in the thriller Se7en (1995), directed by David Fincher. Throughout its twelve-year run (to date), Supernatural has revelled in breaking out of the limitations usually implied by a television show, breaking out of the box in numerous ways. Acknowledging the popularity of the...

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Call for Essays: Apocalyptic Television (Edited Collection)

Call for Essays: Apocalyptic Television (Edited Collection)

May 22, 2017 | , ,

Science fiction has always indicated that it is a matter of when—not if—some kind of Apocalypse will occur. When it does, what will happen to the organisms that inhabit Planet Earth? Will humans revert to some type of proto-human? Will they “rise” to the occasion and create something better? Will the strong survive, only to subjugate the weak? Will we come together as human beings to build new civilizations, or devolve as a species competing for scant resources in an environment inhospitable to our very existence? Science fiction has long explored the means and outcomes of apocalyptic cataclysms, and...

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Call for edited book chapters: Gender & Horror

May 13, 2017 | , , , , ,

We are inviting chapter submissions for a new edited collection focusing on gender and horror. This edited collection aims to re-examine horror in an era of remakes, reboots and re-imaginings. There have been many developments in the horror genre and whilst much of it has been reliant on previous material, there are also many shifts and changes such as cross-over of genres (for example, teen romance paired with vampires and werewolves, or horror in space); new formats such as Netflix, and cinema no longer being the only place we see horror; a resurgence of stories of hauntings and ghosts; and the popularity of ‘found footage’. We wish to focus specifically on horror from 1995 to the present, as after a brief hiatus in the mainstream, the 1990s saw the return of horror to our screens – including our TV screens with, for example, Buffy The Vampire Slayer – and with horror and its characters more knowing than before. We are happy for you to compare older material with newer versions, such as the recent Netflix version of The Exorcist (2016) with the original film The Exorcist (1973). The main requirement is that you interrogate whether the portrayal of gender has changed in horror – it may look like something different (more positive?) is happening, but is it? We hope to encourage diverse perspectives and we welcome early career researchers...

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