*CFP* "THE ROMANTIC FANTASTIC" GFF 2019 CONFERENCE, FREE UNIVERSITY OF BERLIN

Annual Conference of the Gesellschaft für Fantastikforschung:  

Das Romantisch-Fantastische 

The Romantic Fantastic 

September 18th–23rd, 2019 at the Free University of Berlin, Cinepoetics 

Center for Advanced Film Studies and Department of Film Studies

Romanticism again and again! In autumn 1979, Michael Ende’s novel The Neverending Story was published in the Federal Republic of Germany. Even to Ende’s contemporaries, Bastian’s journey to Fantastica and back seemed to be the beginning of a revitalization of romantic longings and ideas within popular culture. Almost at the same time, US-American cinema discovers the genre of fantasy film. The motif of Campbell’s hero’s journey, a world that needs healing and the interconnectedness of all things becomes a constitutive trait of these films’ poetics. 

On the one hand, the corresponding novels and films emerged in answer to the uncertainty of a bipolar world – fear of the atomic bomb and nuclear fallout as ultima ratio of the Cold War – and the nascent awareness of environmental vulnerability. On the other hand, they, like their famous predecessors, have been accused of a penchant for escapism and ill-conceived inwardness.  A similar area of tension can be observed in the fantasic today. Once again, the potential of recent speculative fiction as well as its critique seem to be indicating a core collection of romantic notions. Like at the end of the 18th century, romanticism and the fantastic provide a corrective to the frigid, mercantile rationality of a world that no longer knows any secrets. In light of contemporary political, economic and ecological distortions, speculative fiction is looking for ways of rethinking the world – and man’s place in it. And once again, the fantastic is accused of turning its back on hard facts and necessities to take refuge in sentimentalized other-worlds.   

Based on these findings, the conference will pursue two goals: First, it intends to take a critical look into the relationship of romantic ideas, poetics, and images to possible genealogies of the fantastic. What is to be gained by locating fantastic works in a romantic tradition? Does this dialogue facilitate a deeper understanding of the continued effect of romanticism or poetics of the fantastic? Second, the resilience of speculative fiction’s inherent capability for critique is to be scrutinized in reference to its romantic origins. Can the relation between fantastic worlds and everyday reality be conceptualized in a way that forgoes the dichotomy of critical realism and ahistorical escapism? Would it be possible to illustrate, using its stories, images, and audiovisual presentations, the untenability of accusations which label the fantastic as being politically reactionary and aesthetically conservative – or do the subversive moments in its poetics remain marginal? 

All contributions are welcome which examine the complex relationship between romanticism and specific implementations/ of the fantastic, its types and genres, protagonists, and media, on a theoretical, historical, and analytical level. 

Possible Topics:

• Universal poetry and worldmaking (atmosphere, synesthesia, science and art as modes of knowing and experiencing) 
• Media of the supernatural: romantic concepts of media and their influence on the mediality of the fantastic
•  Romantic conceptions of history and the faculty of historic imagination as driving forces of the fantastic (recourse to the Middle Ages) 
• Fairy tales, myths, and legends as genres and modalities of fantastic narratives 
• Traditions of gothic fiction in modern fantasy 
• Updating gothic topoi in contemporary horror cinema (for instance ghosts, living dolls and possessed clerics in the Conjuring-franchise, or witches and religious mania in folk forror) 
• The beautiful and the sublime, the gruesome and the grotesque as models for poetics of affect in horror and fantasy 
• Romantic imagery and its influence on visual forms of the fantastic (art, comic, film, series, computer game etc.) 
• Forms, practices and theories of the fantastic in the era of romanticism (ghost and witch lore, demonology, phantasmagoria etc.) 
• Soundscapes which establish a quasi-natural stance beyond the human (as in Dark Ambient or Drone Metal) 
• Poetics of fantasy as modes of magical thinking 
• Romantic poetics and the becoming-fantastic of the ordinary 
• Forms of romantic love in fantasy 
• Fantasy as a form of political romanticism

As usual at GFF conferences, there will be an open track for all lectures which are not directly related to the topic of the conference. Hence, we are open to further proposals. 

The GFF offers two scholarships of 250 euros each to students to help cover their travel expenses to the conference. Please indicate if you would like to be considered when submitting your abstract. 

Deadline for abstracts and short biographies (max. 2000 characters): February 28th, 2018. 

Submission of constituted panels (3-4 speakers) is encouraged. 

Submission form and further information. For additional inquiries, mail to: gff2019@fu-berlin.de.