*CFP* "LAS SERIES DE TELEVISIÓN COMO OBJETO DE ESTUDIO MULTIDISCIPLINAR", VOL. 14 Nº 1, REVISTA MEDITERRÁNEA DE COMUNICACIÓN

Con fecha 28 de diciembre de 2020, Teseo, la base de datos del Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte, que recoge las tesis doctorales defendidas en España desde el año 1976, identifica un total de 600 trabajos de alumnado de Doctorado que incluyen el término de búsqueda series de televisión; en su título y/o resumen. Esa misma búsqueda documental, llevada a cabo en la base de datos Dialnet (tipología Tesis), recoge 363 registros que aluden al concepto series de televisión, de los cuales, el 78% fueron defendidos entre los años 2010 y 2019. Estamos, pues, ante un objeto de estudio relevante y latente que sigue suscitando a día de hoy el interés no solo de la audiencia televisiva y social, sino también el de la comunidad investigadora, científica, académica y profesional a nivel internacional.

Las series de televisión han sido, son y serán estudiadas desde diferentes perspectivas: audiovisual, educativa, social, profesional, artística, lingüística, técnica, transmedial y comercial-publicitaria, entre otras.

Se trata de un objeto de estudio altamente consumido por los principales destinatarios de los contenidos formativos que se enseñan en las aulas, independientemente del nivel educativo -primaria, secundaria, grado y postgrado- y que por tanto reúne gran variedad de aspectos sobre los que se forma al alumnado. Por ello, el profesorado debe conocer, al menos de forma general, los contenidos de ficción audiovisual más consumidos por la juventud, para tratar de convertir su dedicación docente en contenidos relevantes que capaciten al alumnado a través de contenidos, herramientas, estrategias y técnicas que susciten su interés, motivación e implicación.

*CFP* "HUMANISM AND THE FICTIONAL REPRESENTARIONS OF MONARCHS IN LITERATURE, ARTS AND MEDIA", BOOK CHAPTER

When Gilgamesh rejected the advances of Ishtar and refused to do what his father did, he renounced the status of the chosen lover and champion of the Goddess and (unwittingly) decided to be human. The death of Enkido made him realize that he is no longer favored by the Gods. His failed attempt to reach immortality can be read as an attempt to regain the former status he renounced. The epic of Gilgamesh, like other epics, anounces the severing of the connection between the divine and the human in the political realm. After Gilgamesh, the biographies of Mesopotamian rulers started to seem more human despite the formulaic presence of the divine. In ancient Egypt and ancient Greece, Monarchs were either gods or descendents of gods. In the Medieval age, he devine right of kings replaced the old myths about the divine lineage of monarchs. Machiavelli's realpolitiks and the advent of Renaissance humanism put the concept of divine right in question. The human rather than the divine started to define the monarchs in the West. In the East, however, while Europe was restricting its monarchs, the Meiji restoration puts the emperor at the center of the political system in Japan. The Victorian and Edwardian ages are the last literary periods to be named after monarchs. They both witnessed the rise of Gothic literature. The figure of Dracula strikes the reader as a monarchic figure. But this monarch is a posthuman figure cursed with immortality and a hunger for human blood. In recent years, the gothic and horror genres have gained remarkable popularity in cinema and popular culture. The figures of the Mummy and the vampire are usually depicted as monarchic figures that seek revenge for past wrongs. Revenge is closely related to the theme of royalty. In classical and Renaissance, modern and contemporary revenge narratives where loyalty to a deceased patriarch gives legitimacy to the actions of their heirs. Indeed, revenge narratives in Shakespeare and beyond are generally based on father-son emotional dynamics. These emotional dynamics are described as monarchic by Martha C Nussbaum in her book Political Emotions: Why Love Matters for Justice. In Victorian and contemporary horror fiction, the father-son dynamics are more complex as the royal father is the past self of the revenant. 

*CFP* "DRACONES IN MUNDO: DRAGONS IN LITERATURE, FILM, AND POP CULTURE", A SERIES OF EDITED VOLUMES

As the popularity of mythical creatures in films and literature grows, there is one creature that remains prominent: the dragon. Dragons have become most visible recently in the cinematic versions of The Hobbit and in George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire (Game of Thrones Series). However, there are other films, such as Dragonslayer (1981), Reign of Fire (2002), Dragonheart (1996), and the How to Train Your Dragon series (2010-2019), and numerous adult and children’s literature series that feature dragons.

This call for papers will result in several themed volumes under each of these main headings:

 

Full volume(s):

• Wings, Wonders, and Warriors: Dragons in Children’s Literature and Graphic Novels

*CFP* "NATIONHOOD, IDENTITY, AND SPECULATIVE FICTION", BOOKS BEYOND BOUNDARIES CONFERENCE

Books Beyond Boundaries Conference: Nationhood, Identity, and Speculative Fiction

15th-16th January 2021,

Ulster University, Belfast Campus

 

'Culture is the context within which we need to situate the self, for it is only by virtue of the interpretations, orientations and values provided by culture that we can formulate our identities, say ‘who we are’, and ‘where we are coming from’ (Benhabib, 2000:18)

From C.S. Lewis to James Shaw, Northern Irish and Irish fiction is best known for its imagined histories, futures, and alternate realities. However, speculative fiction from writers of colour and ethnic minorities have been notably absent from the literary canon. While the island of Ireland has continued to grow more culturally diverse in the twenty-first century, there has been little engagement with how the cultural identity of Northern Ireland and Ireland has been transformed through immigration.

*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* "THE CLIMATE CATASTROPHE: A CREATIVE AND CRITICAL SURVIVAL GUIDE", BOOK PROJECT

The Climate Catastrophe: A Creative and Critical Survival Guide is a book project that builds on the ethos of the three (to date) eco_media symposia, in proposing an interdisciplinary response to the various catastrophes – human and nonhuman – currently threatening the planet. The editors of The Climate Catastrophe are posting an open call for chapter proposals. Chapters should address the current climate situation in various ways: some pieces will be critical/theoretical/empirical in nature, where others will recount and describe creative approaches through art, filmmaking, sound design, and photography.

With the circulation of vaccines around the world, we thought we were shifting to a new phase of life after the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the Delta variant of the virus threatens populations worldwide, plunging millions back into lockdown. The core questions for this publication will thus be: how might we maintain focus on environmental issues, on the ever-present existential threat that predated the chaos of 2020? How has the pandemic changed – and how does it continue to change – our approach to or understanding of our world and our place in it? What creative, theoretical, empirical or philosophical approaches might best help us move forward in innovative and responsible ways?

Topics could include — but are not limited to:

*CFP* "INVESTIGATING TRUE CRIME & THE MEDIA", JOURNALISM@NEWCASTLE CONFERENCE

"Investigating True Crime & the Media"

Journalism@Newcastle

Ethical Space, the International Journal of Communication Ethics

23 June 2022

Submissions are open to researchers, PhD students, and practitioners working in the field, and parity of esteem will be afforded to both theoretically-driven and practice-related papers.

We particularly welcome submissions from diverse voices and nations and regions beyond Western perspectives. The aims of the conference and  double issue are to explore current and emerging concepts, developments and potential future trajectories of true crime narratives and  production from a global perspective.

*CFP* "SPECULATIVE FICTION'S INTERSECTIONS WITH POSTHUMANISM AND NEW MATERIALISM", SPECIAL ISSUE, EXTRAPOLATION JOURNAL

Extrapolation invites papers for a special issue investigating how speculative fiction, broadly conceived, dramatizes the tensions between the material limitations of the body and efforts to think beyond the human subject in posthumanism and new materialism. Taking our cues from contemporary authors like Jeff VanderMeer, Nalo Hopkinson, Caitlín Kiernan, Kathe Koja, Ken Liu, and China Miéville, we will examine how experimentation with form serves to articulate human practices for enduring and even flourishing in our extra-human reality. We are particularly invested in the ways speculative texts critique the centrality of the human while remaining attentive to the lived experience of the material body as it responds to ecological, technological, and economic demands that exceed human capacities of understanding.

Despite its modest aim to investigate thought and life that operates beyond the boundaries of enlightenment humanism, the field of the critical posthumanities often employs a rhetoric of extremes that invites us to abolish, expunge, contort, challenge, and undo the category of the human entirely. Yet, this expansive model of posthuman(ist) thought is often haunted by bodies, environments, and matter that resist being tamed by intellectual abstraction. Concomitantly, the turn to new materialism takes up problems of inter-relation and ecological co-constitution, offering ethical practices for coping with threats posed by the Anthropocene. Aiming to think more expansively than anthropocentrism allows, new materialist discourse disavows the human subject as the agent of our world to describe, instead, how agency—or animacy—is distributed beyond the human. 

*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* "BODIES OF WATER IN AFRICAN AMERICAN FICTION & FILM", BOOK CHAPTER

We invite abstracts for a new book of original essays which explore the meaning and/or function of still or moving bodies of water -- lakes, rivers, the sea, gulfs, streams, ponds, canals -- in narratives by African Americans.  In particular, we seek other innovative and provocative critiques of images of water in 20th and 21st Century African American fiction and film, poetry and drama.  At once, a few pieces of literature and film come to mind:  August Wilson’s Gem of the Ocean; Zora Neal Hurston’s Janie Crawford in the Everglades; Michelle Cliff’s short story collection, Bodies of Water; so much of Toni Morrison’s fiction; readings of Julie Dash’s Daughters of the Dust; Spike Lee on Hurricane Katrina; and, Kasi Lemmons’ Eve’s Bayou, for example.  Our volume wants analyses which acknowledge the legitimacy of but move beyond the familiar or conventional interpretations of the Atlantic Ocean Middle Passage and/or Transatlantic Slave Trade.  

Some possible questions for African American analysis, including environmental or ecocritical contemplation:

• What roles do bodies of water play in African American literary and filmic creative imagination?  In particular, how does the trope of water/waterways get interwoven into works by African American authors and filmmakers?  

*CFP* "REFLECTIONS AND REVERSALS. SYMBIOSIS BETWEEN POLITICAL COMMUNICATION AND AUDIOVISUAL FICTION", III INTERNACIONAL SYMPOSIUM OF POLITICAL COMMUNICATION

 Reflections and reverslas. Symbiosis between political communication and audiovisual fiction

III International Symposium of Political Communication

Faculty of Philology and Communication

University of Barcelona

December 2-3, 2021

Even though audiovisual fiction is usually studied within cultural bounds (Trenzado Romero, 2000), it also presents an important political dimension taking into account that representations play a large role “when it comes to determining which social reality is to be constructed; that is, which figures and forms will prevail in the process of modelling life and social institutions” (Ryan and Kellner, 1988: 13). The spectacularisation of politics is inspired, partly, by the processes of fictionalisation and, at the same time, spheres such as the cinema or scenarios characteristic of serialised fiction are also a reflection of that reality (Rodríguez and Padilla, 2018). In turn, fiction can be a pretext of understanding so as to find the significance of knowledge and to try to bring it closer to a framework of reality (Oliveros Aya, 2010). However, beyond being a call and a reminder of certain events or political phenomena, fiction can also represent reality “by means of a different type of evidence and therefore it can offer a different and more complete approach to realism” (Whitebrook, 1991: 5). It can be said that, as a significant part of mass culture, audiovisual fiction contributes decisively to the formation, debate, inspiration and interpretation of a variety of political imaginaries.

*CFP* "ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND THE HUMAN. CROSS-CULTURAL PERSPECTIVES ON SCIENCE AND FICTION", CONFERENCE AND EDITED VOLUME

Current debates on artificial intelligence often conflate the realities of AI technologies with the fictional renditions of what they might one day become. They are said to be able to learn, make autonomous decisions or process information much faster than humans, which raises hopes and fears alike. What if these useful technologies will one day develop their own intentions that run contrary to those of humans? The line between science and fiction is becoming increasingly blurry: what is already a fact, what is still only imagination; and is it even possible to make this clear-cut distinction? Innovation and development goals in the field of AI are inspired by popular culture, such as its portrayal in literature, comics, film or television. 

At the same time, images of these technologies drive discussions and set particular priorities in politics, business, journalism, religion, civil society, ethics or research. Fictions, potentials and scenarios inform a society about the hopes, risks, solutions and expectations associated with new technologies. But what is more, the discourses on AI, robots and intelligent, even sentient machines are nothing short of a mirror of the human condition: they renew fundamental questions on concepts such as consciousness, free will and autonomy or the ways we humans think, act and feel.

*CFP* "LGBTQIA+ FANTASTIKA GRAPHICS", A DIGITAL SYMPOSIUM

“Fantastika” – a term appropriated from a range of Slavonic languages by John Clute – embraces the genres of Fantasy, Science Fiction, and Horror, but can also include Alternate History, Gothic, Steampunk, Young Adult Dystopic Fiction, or any other radically imaginative narrative space. Our goal is to bring together academics, independent researchers, creators, and audiences who share an interest in this diverse range of fields with the aim of opening up new dialogues, productive controversies, and critical collaborations.

Following the 2020-pandemic hiatus, we are pleased to re-launch our annual conferences this year as a digital symposium. LGBTQIA+ Fantastika Graphics focuses on graphics and illustrations in its widest possible remit (comic books, manga, animes, cartoons, picture books, video games, and other such productions.) [This is an updated remit from ‘graphic novels’; please disregard previous CFPs.] We are interested in works that contain representations of the LGBTQIA+ community, relationships, and full spectrum of identities. We welcome abstracts for 15-minute papers or panels of 2-4 people on LGBTQIA+ Fantastika as they occur in the graphic form. Some suggested topics are:

*CFP* "SENSING THE ARCHIVE. EXPLORING THE DIGITAL (IM)MATERIALITY OF THE MOVING IMAGE ARCHIVE", ISSUE 19, FRAMES CINEMA JOURNAL

Shrunken film strips, faded footage, distorted sound, and a harsh vinegar scent; such lamentable deterioration exposes the material vulnerabilities of audio-visual heritage which often determine the work of archivists and conservators. With constant changes in the technology of access have come profound changes to the world of dusty boxes, narrow strip-lit and high-stacked aisles, and data stored in obscure and obsolescent formats. At the same time, audio-visual materials offer new sensory modes of historiography. What kinds of historical knowledge lie within these resources and how can they be revived?

Mass digitisation has transformed the ways in which we can access, understand, and interact with histories stored in audio-visual media. Digitisation highlights the tangibility of the medium, and the fluidity of the material. Archives have always had their absences and lacunae, but digital materiality – or immateriality – produces new instabilities that require novel ways of approaching audio-visual heritage. How does our sensory experience of film history change due to the digital turn? What kind of research behaviours and patterns can this process enhance, and what kinds of research are inhibited?

*CFP* "IMAG(IN)ING THE NATION: LITERATURE, THE ARTS AND PROCESSES OF NATIONAL CONSTRUCTION", RELATIONAL FORMS VI CONFERENCE

Relational Forms VI

Imag(in)ing the Nation: Literature, the Arts and Processes of National Construction

2 - 4 December 2021

Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Porto, Portugal

 

According to scholars, criteria for nationhood have typically involved a commonality of ethnicity, language or religion, historically prolonged occupation of a stretch of land, frequently linked to the existence of a state apparatus, collective experience, and shared memories. Literature and the other arts have often been mobilized to support (if not altogether participate in the construction of) this sense of belonging and identity, which they can also challenge and complicate. Nationalism may simply be described as the most extreme form of such engagements and allegiances. In his 1945 essay “Notes on Nationalism”, George Orwell denounces the characteristic aggressiveness and single-mindedness of the nationalist, as well as the peculiar indifference to reality such attitudes entail. Orwell’s essay betrays a sense of urgency derived both from the hazards of the Second World War and from the perceived political and ideological threats of the approaching Cold War – a term he would himself coin. 

*CFP* "COMUNICACIÓN Y CRISIS EN EL ESPACIO PÚBLICO", VOL. 31, Nº 3, REVISTA EL PROFESIONAL DE LA INFORMACIÓN

En los últimos años hemos asistido a un proceso de creciente polarización y descrédito de las instituciones que tradicionalmente han sido representativas de un sistema democrático (Bennett; Pfetsch, 2018), tanto en la esfera internacional como en el contexto español. La irrupción de los populismos, la atomización del voto (Stroud, 2010) y las dificultades para alcanzar mayorías que permitan la formación de gobiernos sólidos plantean serias incógnitas de futuro en un escenario comunicativo híbrido, en el que la desinformación (Guess; Nyhan; Reifler, 2018) empieza a alcanzar niveles preocupantes para una mayoría de ciudadanos.

La pérdida de credibilidad de los medios de comunicación tradicionales, en paralelo a las posibilidades de creación y distribución de mensajes en la esfera pública a través de las redes sociales, ha abierto la puerta a actores políticos y sociales que habían quedado excluidos de la misma, pero también ha rebajado los estándares para la circulación de mensajes centrados en la divulgación de falsedades o en el discurso del odio. En este contexto, lejos de facilitar el consenso y la unidad en torno a valores democráticos, han contribuido a la polarización y disgregación (Sunstein, 2019), así como a una mayor presencia y visibilidad de posturas políticas que confrontan directamente con estos principios. La irrupción de un partido que comulga con los principios de la extrema derecha en el panorama político español -con representación en las instituciones tras casi cuatro décadas de presencia marginal, plantea la necesidad de reflexionar sobre un escenario político, social y mediático que se retroalimenta, y sobre las implicaciones en el sistema democrático.

*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* "BEYOND THE WHITE HOUSE: THE FIRST LADY IN FILM, FICTION, AND CULTURE", EDITED COLLECTION

This edited collection seeks to explore the representation of the First Lady in a range of different texts and media. The collection aims to examine the President’s wife in a purely cultural context by investigating the ways in which she has been represented, embodied, characterised and commemorated in film, fiction, memoir, photography and portraiture, television, theatre, education, museum studies, fashion, and social media. Beyond the White House is an original work that makes use of cultural interpretation to reconfigure the figure of the First Lady as a culturally authoritative individual possessing the ability to sway, change, inspire, and manipulate public attention and opinion. Moving away from biographies and histories, this is the first volume of its kind to consider the representation of the First Lady figure through the prism of popular culture - and therefore consider her impact upon ‘cultural politics’ - and the first to regard her as a strategically important socio-cultural figure.

Removed from the patriarchal hierarchy of White House politics and expectations, the First Lady emerges as a force of her own; she subtly carves out cultural agency and gender identity despite her (in)visibility in the public eye. Simply by being the ‘First Lady of the United States’ she possesses what MaryAnne Borrelli has labelled the “performance of descriptive representation” (Women and the White House: 229). The relationship between the woman and the office is paramount; the existence of the title ‘First Lady’ permits popular culture to tolerate or reject not only political and cultural manoeuvring, but also issues of gender, race, self, location, fashion, identity, satire, memory, authority, and even pedagogy. The office of the First Lady is what the woman makes it, and Beyond the White House she has become a commanding cultural icon.

*CFP* "CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON HULU'S 'CASTLE ROCK'", HULU SERIES

The Hulu series Castle Rock (2018 – 2019) occupies a unique textual space that both builds upon and transcends traditional notions of adaptation in its approach to Stephen King’s canon, engaging with the significance of place, intersecting narratives, and multiple worlds. As stated in the opening credits, Castle Rock is ‘based on characters and settings by Stephen King’, but it uses those established elements to create something original, telling new stories, building on iconic characters and creating compelling tales for new ones, situated within one of King’s signature Maine towns. Through this positioning, Castle Rock is able to reimagine and expand upon King’s work, world, characters and interconnections, participating in acts of both adaptation and creation, reflecting on King’s influence on the larger landscapes of horror and popular culture.

We are seeking proposals that critically analyze Castle Rock from a range of theoretical perspectives, including but not limited to:

• Castle Rock as adaptation of King 
• Castle Rock’s connection to other adaptations of King’s work

*CFP* "#SPOILTHECONFERENCE", AN INTERDISCIPLINARY CONFERENCE ON SPOILERS

#spoiltheconference

An Interdisciplinary Conference on Spoilers

University of Zurich 18 & 19 March 2022

 

Spoilers seem to be everywhere these days – or rather, the fear of producing or encountering them. By now, spoiler warnings are no longer confined to online media; even reviewers in the most traditional newspapers try not to reveal too much about the plot. It is almost universally accepted that there are few graver social missteps than spoiling a TV show, movie, or recently released book. This is quite stunning, since the concept of the spoiler is rather new. The concept has always existed in some way, as Richard Greene argues. As long as there have been stories, it has been possible to divulge in advance how they end. Still, the concept of the spoiler as we know it today is rather young, and its emergence seems to be inextricably linked with the rise of online media. Not only was the term ‘spoiler’ in its current meaning first used in a post to a Usenet newsgroup; more importantly, spoiling requires a media system where information is broken down into small bits which can be shared almost instantly. While it is easy to skip a review in a printed newspaper and avoid potential spoilers, it is impossible to ‘unsee’ a Tweet or a Facebook post.