We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art, the art of words.

 – Ursula LeGuin, 2014

Science fiction includes a myriad of thematics from futurism, technology, transhumanism, apocalypse, other-worldliness, interspeciality, alterity and to history. As a result, its’ texts and images bear more of a ‘family resemblance’ than a generic codification. However, at the core of science fiction is an imagining of the world as other than it is­—whether that be by space travel, super-powers, or magic. This special issue of Panic at the Discourse, “Science Fiction From the Margins,” seeks to think and imagine the world otherwise with care and focus to marginalized understandings, ontologies, and epistemologies.

The guest editors invite submissions on topics including, but not limited to:

  • Science fiction as minority pedagogy and methodology
  • Troubling the history of science fiction as a genre/mode of film, literature, politics, etc.
  • Instrumentalization of science fiction as theory and politics
  • Engaging science fiction as ‘cult’ or ‘low’ art in film, television, literature, comics, art, and other mediums, thinking about how they challenge the boundaries of their respective media
  • Imagining alternative histories and/or futures of racial formations
  • Exploring real life science fictional phenomena (cloning, speculations about alien life, advanced forms of AI) and the anxieties produced by these phenomena
  • Examining how dystopian fiction has engaged/failed to engage with forms of political domination
  • Connections between form and minority politics including but not limited to dispossession, exile, displacement, and racialization

We welcome submissions from a range of disciplines including, but not limited to: Philosophy, Literary Studies, Film and Media Studies, Women and Gender Studies, Critical Disability Studies, Black Studies, Cultural Studies, and Indigenous Studies. All submissions should be written for an interdisciplinary audience.

Additionally, we accept a wide range of submissions from poetry, visual art, creative writing, reviews, and traditional scholarship. Traditional articles must be between 4000-6000 words and reviews a maximum of 750 words.

All submissions will undergo a review process by the publication editorial team. Works selected for publication will receive editorial queries for revision. Publication will be contingent on satisfactorily resolving all queries. Included images must be high resolution and have accessible descriptions. It is the author’s responsibility to obtain image permissions. Use Chicago style endnotes for any citations. Please include a brief author bio of no more than 50 words. Authors retain all rights to their work. Email the publication if you have a work you are unsure about.

Send all submissions to panicatthediscourse@gmail.com with the subject line “Submission: Article Title” by June 1st, 2022.

Panic at the Discourse: cstonline.netwww.panicdiscourse.com/