*CFP* "FANTASY ACROSS MEDIA", GIFCON 2022

The Centre for Fantasy and the Fantastic is pleased to announce a call for papers for Glasgow International Fantasy Conversations (GIFCon) 2022 with the theme of 'Fantasy Across Media'.

Much of fantasy studies has focused on the genre’s presence in literature, with histories and theoretical frameworks often either implicitly or explicitly centring the written word. In some cases, academic, critic, and fan responses to the genre outside of literature even go so far as to erase or question the possibility of the genre’s existence in other media, perhaps most famously embodied in J.R.R. Tolkien’s insistence in ‘On Fairy-stories' that some media, such as drama, are fundamentally incompatible with fantasy. These types of responses fail to account for the medium-specific benefits and challenges that different media pose for depictions of the impossible, serving to establish hierarchies between media, exclude non-literary media from analyses of the genre, and potentially limit a full understanding of the genre’s history.

Fantasy and the fantastic have had long, rich histories outside of literature, playing a central role in the development of theatre, film, and comic books, and celebrating a more recent boom on the small screen. Furthermore, from the innumerable reimaginings of the Arthurian tradition, to The Wizard of Oz, to manga and anime, to contemporary multimedia franchises and cinematic universes, fantasy texts have been integral to the history of transmedia storytelling, allowing their rich storyworlds to expand across multiple media. 

*CFP* "EPIC AND ICONIC: ESSAYS ON THE WORK, INFLUENCE, AND LEGACY OF ALEX ROSS", BOOK CHAPTER

Nelson Alexander Ross, better known as Alex, has exerted nearly thirty years of profound influence upon sequential art storytelling. Ross emerged into the comics world in the early 1990s with his work on Terminator: Burning Earth, Marvels, and Kingdom Come, immediately establishing his photorealistic style of painting, influenced by Norman Rockwell, Salvador Dali, and Andrew Loomis, among others.

In the years since, Ross has drawn and painted nearly every recognizable character in the Marvel and DC universes, expanded the storytelling capacity of the graphic novel form, and taken home numerous Eisner and Harvey awards. His prolific output can be found across media platforms, from traditional comics to art galleries, from film and television to magazines, toys, and video games.

Given Ross’s substantial and acclaimed level of production, it is no exaggeration to consider him among the most important commercial artists of his generation – and yet, his work has garnered little academic interest. In this collection, we hope to curate the first definitive set of scholarly perspectives on Ross’s creative approach, his interventions into sequential art narrative and aesthetics, and his lasting influences upon popular culture and the creative community.

*CFP* "SOCIOSEMIOTIC CRITIQUE. A LOTMANIAN PERSPECTIVE", ISSUE 5 (2022), SOCIAL SEMIOTIC JOURNAL

In 2022 – the centenary of the birth of Juri Lotman – we invite you to focus on the potentiality of his semiotic theory (including ideas of as personality, translation, creolization, autocommunication, self-description, semiosphere) to critique power structures and ideological processes in semiosic phenomena.

We invite contributors to prepare an analytical essay focusing on a specific case study of a semiotic artefact or type of artefact, demonstrating how Lotmanian theory can fuel a critique of the limitations on, and variations in, the ways in which the semiotic resources/practices in question may perpetuate biases, imbalance or legitimize and maintain kinds of power interests.

At this stage, we solicit not papers but a proposal of between 1000 and 1500 words length, with bibliographic references included. On this basis, we will select 8 proposals, to be developed in an essay of 7/8000 words (bibliography included).

Proposals should be sent to: (annamaria.lorusso@unibo.it) and (franciscu.sedda@gmail.com).

Deadline CfP: 30 October 2021

*CFP* "THE VITALITY OF ANCIENT RECEPTION STUDIES, NOW", INTERNATIONAL VIRTUAL CONFERENCE

The Vitality of Ancient Reception Studies, Now

An international virtual conference presented by Antiquity in Media Studies (AIMS)

15-18 December 2021

 

The officers of Antiquity in Media Studies invite proposals for presentations that illuminate the ongoing vitality of antiquity in recent discourses. Despite decades of institutional disinvestment in the study of antiquity, a venerated deep past figured as a powerful shared imaginary remains a perennial, emotionally evocative, even highly lucrative concept in myriad contemporary media, around the world and across all manner of identity lines. Among antiquities, of particularly widespread interest has been the millennia of history centered on the Mediterranean and dubbed “classical” among successor societies, both self-appointed and colonized. From Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed Odyssey to Luis Alfaro’s Mojada, from Hideki Takeuchi’s Thermae Romae to Pat Barker’s Silence of the Girls, to politicians' and pundits' invocations of the Persian Wars and the fall of Rome, each year produces more receptions of this antiquity. Beyond the Greco-Roman-centered past, all antiquities mobilized for such cultural work today are welcome at this ancient reception studies conference.

*CFP* "PIKACHU'S TRANSMEDIA ADVENTURES: THE CONTINUING ADAPTABILITY OF THE POKEMON FRANCHISE", EDITED COLLECTION

In 2021, the Pokemon franchise celebrates the 25th anniversary of its debut in Japan and the fifth anniversary of its popular worldwide AR cellphone game Pokemon Go. In fact, Pokemon is arguably experiencing something of a resurgence and renaissance within the current cultural moment. When a pop-up Pokemon Centre store was opened in London in 2018 to mark the release of Sword and Shield, queues for entering the retail space frequently had to be closed due to demand whilst product lines regularly sold out on a daily basis. In 2019, when the long-running cartoon’s main character Ash Ketchum finally won a Pokemon tournament, major news sites humorously deemed this victory a newsworthy event (Bissett 2019). 

More recently, a revival in Pokemon card collecting has left retail shelves bare and scalpers running rampant whilst mint-condition ‘graded’ cards have sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars at auction (Koebler 2021). Meanwhile, the games themselves continue to be adapted to Nintendo’s console platforms, with the Nintendo Switch releasing both remakes of previously popular titles (Pokemon Let’s Go! Pikachu and Let’s Go! Eevee, Pokemon Snap) as well as new titles exploring hitherto unknown regions (Pokemon Sword and Shield). Much more than a franchise intended to commercially target and exploit children, the Pokemon franchise represents an enduringly popular intellectual property that continues to attract interest across generations.

*CFP* "AMIGO-ENEMIGO. LAS FRANJAS INVISIBLES DEL ESPACIO POLÍTICO", II COLOQUIO INTERNACIONAL PALIMPSESTOS PERSPECTIVAS CRÍTICAS DEL NORTE DE MÉXICO

II Coloquio Internacional Palimpsestos Perspectivas Críticas del Norte de México

Amigo - Enemigo. Las franjas invisibles del espacio político

Del 28 al 30 de octubre (coloquio en formato híbrido)

 

La Universidad Autónoma de Chihuahua, la Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo (MÉXICO), la Universidad de Playa Ancha, Valparaíso (CHILE) y el Centro de Investigación Iberoamericano de Maguncia-Germersheim /Leipzig (CIIA, Alemania) celebran este coloquio del 28 al 30 de octubre de 2021 en Chihuahua (México).

Ejes temáticos:

• Significaciones desde lo local y lo global: Visitaciones/Revisitaciones al norte mexicano: exotismos y postexotismos

*CFP* "SAGAS, REMAKES E INTERMEDIALIDAD", I CONGRESO INTERNACIONAL DE NARRACIÓN Y MUNDOS DE FICCIÓN EN CINE, TELEVISIÓN Y VIDEOJUEGOS

 I Congreso Internacional de Narración y Mundos de Ficción en Cine, Televisión y Videojuegos

Sagas, remakes e intermedialidad

 

14, 15 y 16 de octubre de 2020

 

Universidad Rey Juan Carlos

La evolución el sector del entretenimiento audiovisual y digital ha causado una considerable transformación en la oferta de obras de ficción (filmes, series de televisión y videojuegos). No sólo se ha aumentado el número de producciones ofrecidas a través de las nuevas plataformas de streaming para los tres sectores, sino que se han cambiado la orientación de los contenidos, de productos singulares a sagas, remakes y franquicias ligadas a imaginarios ya consolidados en la memoria del espectador y avalados por éxitos precedentes.  En el sector cinematográfico la proliferación del fenómeno del blockbuster como estrategia para llenar las salas, ha ocasionado que se recurra a valores seguros, lo que lleva a constantes remakes de producciones pasadas (el caso de Disney volviendo a producir sus grandes éxitos de animación en imagen real, filmes de éxito de décadas pasadas como Blade Runner o IT) o a la explotación hasta la extenuación de sagas como Star Wars o las adaptaciones del comic de super héroes de Marvel. 

*CFP* "CRISIS / REPRESENTING, ENDURING, PROVOKING", 1ST ISSUE, IN VIVO JOURNAL

In Vivo is a bilingual online platform (French and English) specialized in multidisciplinary research on contemporary artistic creation, with an (almost) exclusive preoccupation with Performing Arts (theatre, choreography and dance, circus, performance art, opera) and Cinema.

Given the hybridity of contemporary artistic forms, In Vivo intends to host reflections on the written arts (literature, comics, biographies, etc.) and non-cinematic visual arts (painting, sculpture, architecture, photography, installations, etc.) notably in their imbrication with the performing scenes and screens.

In Vivo contains 5 clusters, differentiated according to the methodology and the field of expertise to which they are respectively attached: Aesthetic(s), Philo-Performance(s), Humanities, Queerness, Pluralities.

In addition, a special section called Dialogue(s) is exclusively dedicated to interviews with scholars, artists, and practitioners of the Performing Arts and Cinema.

*CFP* CALL FOR PARTICIPATION, FEAR 2000: HORROR UNBOUND ONLINE CONFERENCE

Fear 2000: Horror Unbound

(Online) – 10–12 September 2021

 

We invite proposals for 20-minute papers and 80-minute panels to be presented at the fifth Fear 2000 conference, Fear 2000: Horror Unbound. Hosted by staff in the Department of Media Arts and Communication at Sheffield Hallam University, this online conference will investigate the increasingly transmedial nature of horror in the twenty-first century.

Established in 2016, Fear 2000 is dedicated to championing work on contemporary horror. Previous events have showcased research from established scholars, early-career researchers and postgraduates focused on cinema, television, animation, video games, music and digital literature. But this has provided only a limited sense of horror's increasing presence in all aspects of popular culture; for our fifth conference, we aim to broaden our scope further and encourage papers that discuss and theorise horror across a wide range of media, including (but not limited to) film, television, theatre, performance, animation, art, photography, music, radio, podcasts, video games, digital media, comic books and literature.

*CFP* "TRANSLATION, REMEDIATION, SPREAD: THE GLOBAL CIRCULATION OF COMICS IN DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION", SPECIAL COLLECTION, THE COMICS GRID: JOURNAL OF COMICS SCHOLARSHIP

Submissions called for the journal’s Research section (3000-7000 words). Full submissions information.  Please note we do not consider submissions on the basis of abstracts only; we only receive and consider full versions of submissions via our journal management system.

This Special Collection of The Comics Grid: Journal of Comics Scholarship will focus on the global circulation of comics in digital forms, from webcomics to subscription services from traditional comics publishers. The Collection’s emphasis will be on the international, multi-lingual, multi-format, diverse nature of “comics”.

Comics have circulated in their original language and in translation since the inception of print: as a physical object, comics (including strips in newspapers) can travel across international borders with their readers, or they can be translated for publication in new locales. Recent technologies have made digital distribution possible, theoretically allowing for global access to comics published online anywhere in the world as well as the possibility of distributing translated versions within a proprietary system.

*CFP* "THE SOCIAL, POLITICAL AND IDEOLOGICAL SEMIOTICS OF COMICS AND CARTOONS", VOLUME 7, ISSUE 2, PUNCTUM-INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SEMIOTICS

We are pleased to announce the publication of the Volume 6, Issue 2 (2020) of Punctum-International Journal of Semiotics, the online, open-access journal of the Hellenic Semiotic Society. This issue is devoted to "Semiotics of Political Communication", edited by Gregory Paschalidis. The articles, as well as the whole of the issue, can be accessed/downloaded at the journal’s website. We also bring you the new the new call for papers for the Volume 7, Issue 2 of Punctum-International Journal of Semiotics, devoted to ''The Social, Political and Ideological Semiotics of Comics and Cartoons'', edited by Stephan Packard and Lukas R.A. Wilde.

What more can semiotics do for comics? As early as the 1960s and through to the first decades of the 21st century, comics studies have attracted a large and perhaps disproportionate amount of attention from analytical semiotic approaches that foreground description and theory building: Their combination of pictures and text offering a challenge to any attempt towards a systematic theory of signs, and their experimental treatment of their semiotic inventory as well as the genres, imageries, and conventions of other media and art forms inviting descriptive scrutiny as well as playful engagement. Scott McCloud’s famous Understanding Comics (1993), both praised and criticized for its essentially semiotic approach, provided the foundation for the rise of sequential comics studies. Even the relatively more practice-based earlier work of Will Eisner (Comics & Sequential Art, 1985), on which McCloud built his own, focuses on a description of formal semiotic and semantic relationships. 

*CFP* "RE-WRITING / RE-IMAGINING THE PAST", THE 22ND ANNUAL INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE OF THE ENGLISH DEPARTMENT

The 22nd Annual International Conference of the English Department

Re-writing / Re-imagining the Past

University of Bucharest

To be held online, 3–5 June 2021

 

The English Department of the University of Bucharest invites proposals for the Literature and Cultural Studies section of its 22nd Annual International Conference:

“I am all for putting new wine in old bottles, especially if the pressure of the new one makes the old bottles explode.”

Angela Carter in “Notes from the Front Line”

*CFP* CALL FOR ARTICLES, ISSUE 39, LA VALLE DELL'EDEN / EAST OF EDEN: JOURNAL OF CINEMA, PHOTOGRAPHY, MEDIA

For a long time, screenwriting has been largely ignored by film scholars, in Italy as well as in other countries. Film Studies have been – and partially still are – dominated by an auteur-centered approach, where the only relevant figure of the cast & credits is the director. But in the seventies, thanks to seminal books such as Pauline Kael’s The Citizen Kane Book (1974) – recently “rediscovered” because of David Fincher’s Mank (2020) – and Richard Corliss’ Talking Pictures: Screenwriters in the American Cinema (1974), things started to change. In Italy, the widespread influence of the politiques des auteurs had joined forces with the Rossellinian-Fellinian distrust – not to say contempt – toward the screenplay and the professional figure of the screenwriter. It is not a chance that, in Italy, when research in this area finally started, it avoided directly addressing the Italian screenwriters. The first important Italian scholarly books and essays were devoted to screenwriting in general (Giuliana Muscio’s anthology Scrivere il film, 1981), or to classical Hollywood screenwriters (Guido Fink’s essay on Samson Raphaelson, 1994). In the last twenty years, a new generation of film scholars has produced a series of stimulating, well researched books and essays on Italian screenwriting and screenwriters, from the silent years to the present (among others, see: Federica Villa, 2002 and 2010; Silvio Alovisio, 2005; Maria Pia Comand, 2006; David Bruni, 2011). Today, Italy has a significant production of studies on screenwriting in the Italian cinema. But of course there are still many unaddressed questions. For example, there is no systematic study, based on archival research, devoted to the scripts of the “commedia all’italiana”, a genre where writing plays a very relevant role. There are no studies on the big Italian directors conducted through the perspective of their collaboration with a screenwriter (i.e. Luchino Visconti and Suso Cecchi D’Amico).

*CFP* "IMÁGENES, IMAGINARIOS Y NUEVAS NARRATIVAS EN CONTEXTOS DE CRISIS", PRÓXIMO NÚMERO, IC: REVISTA CIENTÍFICA DE INFORMACIÓN Y COMUNICACIÓN

Las imágenes, los imaginarios y las nuevas narrativas articulan, en la actualidad, modos de explicación de las diversas crisis (sociales, sanitarias, políticas, económicas y culturales) (Angulo, 2018; 2017b; 2017a; Arribas y Gómez Villar, 2014; Belzunegui Erazo, 2012; Castells, 2016; Cabrera, 2019; Butler, 2006; Lazaratto, 2013). Crisis y crítica tienen un ethos común (Browne, Del Valle, Silva Echeto, 2018; Del Valle y Silva Echeto, 2018; Richard, 2010; Silva Echeto, 2014). La etimología de la palabra “crítica” se asocia a la palabra “crisis”. El contenido de ambos términos designa “el momento decisivo en un asunto de importancia” y que, por lo tanto, reúne las acepciones de cortar, dividir, medir y también elegir, decidir y juzgar. Mientras la crisis es una potencia de mutación, la crítica es una fuerza de intervención. Los flujos segmentados y ramificados del capitalismo des-diferenció límites y fronteras, aunque trazó otras fronteras (por ejemplo en el caso de los flujos humanos-migratorios) y des-fronterizó otros (los flujos de capitales), nivelando “eclécticamente valores, gustos y opiniones en nombre del pluralismo de lo diverso” tendiendo “a anular el principio de la distancia (separación, distinción) que reclamaba la crítica modernista antes de ver tambalear su lugar de autoridad, invadida por la promiscuidad y la contigüidad de los signos que des-jerarquizan cualquier escala de valoración en un mundo de interpenetración de las redes que activan tráficos ambiguos entre lo uno y lo otro, lo igual y lo diferente, lo próximo y lo distante, lo integrado y lo disperso” (Richard, 2010: 24).

*CFP* "A CELEBRATION OF SUPERHEROES", DEPAUL POP CULTURE 2021 VIRTUAL CONFERENCE

DePaul Pop Culture Conference

A Celebration of Superheroes

1st of May, 2021

Virtual

 

After postponing for a year, we are now re-accepting submissions for the eighth Pop Culture Conference, hosted by DePaul University! This year’s “Celebration of Superheroes” will take place synchronously for Keynotes, Workshops, and Roundtables on May 01, 2021 and asynchronously for panels throughout the following week. More details can be found at the website.

This event will feature roundtable discussions from scholars and fans of Superheroes and comics. Our keynote speaker is Sarah Kuhn, author of the popular Heroine Complex novels—a series starring Asian American superheroines, as well as I Love You So Mochi and a graphic novel about Batgirl Cassandra Cain for DC Comics.

*CFP* "ANIMATE ENERGIES", SOCIETY FOR ANIMATION STUDIES 32ND ANNUAL CONFERENCE

Society for Animation Studies 32nd Annual Conference

June 14th-18th, 2021

Online Conference

After postponing its 2020 conference, the Society for Animation Studies is pleased to invite panel and paper proposals for its 32nd annual conference. The conference organizing team has been closely monitoring the COVID-19 pandemic and is now planning a completely virtual online conference. All animation-related proposals will be considered, but applicants are encouraged to consider addressing the theme “Animate Energies” in their proposal.

 

The theme “Animate Energies” has many aspects. It can refer to the energy contained or represented in animation and the energy required to animate. The theme evokes animation’s dialectical definitions and practices—animating the inanimate, endowing with life, making objects move, and, in many cases, the tedious work or mechanical labor concealed behind expressions of freedom and possibility. It also evokes forces, powers, and resources that can be exploitative and exploited, oppressive and oppressed, that can generate resistance or activism, and that can produce or endure unforeseen events. Energy is typically measured by describing action and transformation within a system. Applying such an approach to animation can generate decentered or distributive views of the agency involved in the experience of animating or being animated. 

*CFP* "APROXIMACIONES A LO MONSTRUOSO Y LO FEMENINO: DE LO “HUMANO” A LO POSTHUMANO", Nº 43, ESTUDIOS HUMANÍSTICOS. FILOLOGÍA JOURNAL

El número 43 (2021) de la revista Estudios Humanísticos. Filología tendrá como título "Aproximaciones a lo monstruoso y lo femenino: de lo “humano” a lo posthumano” y tiene como objeto recoger estudios originales sobre lo monstruoso y lo femenino y sus diferentes manifestaciones. 

Por ello proponemos recoger artículos escritos en español y en inglés que avancen en el estudio de esta temática. Se sugieren, sin excluir otras, las siguientes áreas de investigación: 

• Lo monstruoso femenino en literatura, cine, television, teatro, arte, etc.
• Lo monstruoso femenino y mitologías
• Lo monstruoso y la mujer creadora
• Lo monstruoso y la maternidad
• Lo monstruoso femenino y los cómics/webcomics
• Lo monstruoso femenino y los videojuegos
• Monstruos reales: de asesinas a femme fatales

*CFP* "MEDIA AWARDS: BEYOND THE EGOT", 89 ISSUE, THE VELVET LIGHT TRAP

The “big four” American entertainment awards—the Emmy for television, the Grammy for music, the Oscar for film, and the Tony for theater, often referred to by the “EGOT” acronym—have long served as a barometer of mainstream taste cultures in their respective fields. While literature on media awards is not completely absent, its scope has been narrow. Popular press works on the somewhat standardized journalistic narratives surrounding the EGOT, particularly the Oscars. Scholarly literature has largely focused on awards as they pertain to the international art cinema circuit and its attached film festivals, such as the Cannes Film Festival.    

This call, while respecting the literature that addresses these familiar narratives, intends to reimagine and reinvigorate discussion of entertainment awards and their meaning within the media industries.

Awards are a near-ubiquitous feature of media cultures across mediums, narrative forms, industrial roles, and both geopolitical and virtual spaces: The Nolly Awards, for the span of a few years, recognized achievement in Nollywood films, i.e. the cinema of Nigeria; TikTok user Ashley Hufford (@ashleyhufford) recently sought to establish the “Tik Tok Tony Awards”; The Ursa Major Awards is awarded for “the furry arts.” 

*CFP* "REALIZING RESISTANCE EPISODE II: UNCHARTED GALAXIES", VIRTUAL CONFERENCE

With the end of the Skywalker era of the Star Wars saga, and the emergence of spin-offs like The Mandalorian, Resistance, and Rebels, aca-fans from all disciplines have an opportunity to engage with nearly half a century of Star Wars media. As with our previous event, this conference aims to bring together scholars from across disciplines to examine Star Wars media as cultural texts. We invite scholarly and creative interventions with an explicit focus on themes of resistance and justice. How do these films and other media objects contribute to, reflect on, or depart from broader contemporary cultural practices and social discourses?

Since 2019, both the political and media worlds have experienced dramatic shifts and disruptions, including the COVID-19 pandemic, the Black Lives Matter movement, a contentious U.S. presidential election, and an increasing sense of the vulnerability of democratic institutions and processes. Star Wars, as a cultural phenomenon, has also been embroiled in controversies and transitions, from reactions to The Rise of Skywalker and The Mandalorian to the emergence of Disney+ as a principle platform for the continuation of the Star Wars legacy. Star Wars has penetrated into the culture in surprising ways including martial arts classes offering lightsaber training, political protests that feature Star Wars iconography, the co-opting of the Empire and First Order by the alt-right, among many others. We encourage presentations that reflect on these contexts to offer new perspectives and innovative methodological and disciplinary approaches to Star Wars scholarship.

*CFP* "PLAYFULNESS ACROSS MEDIA", 2021 ISSUE, ELUDAMOS: JOURNAL FOR COMPUTER GAME CULTURE

“Playfulness” is a bona fide example of a travelling concept (Bal 2002), with a complex conceptual history that ranges from anthropology and psychology (e.g., Lieberman 1977; Sutton-Smith 1997) via literary theory (e.g., Stewart 1979; Hutchinson 1983) to the interdisciplinary field of game studies (e.g., Ensslin 2014; Sicart 2014). 

 

While there are thus evidently many different ways to approach the question what it means for humans or other animals to think, perceive, and/or behave “playfully,” even a brief look at our current media culture—with its increasing erosion of the border between work and play, its subversion of the notion of distinct media and established genre conventions, as well as its promises of new forms of creative and political participation—clearly demonstrates that this question is indeed still worth asking.

For the forthcoming 2021 issue of Eludamos: Journal for Computer Game Culture, we thus invite proposals for articles exploring aspects of playfulness across media. Possible topics would include: