#152 = Volume 51, Part 1 = March 2024
NOTES AND CORRESPONDENCESpeculative Fictions and Cultures of Science Book Award 2022 Winner. The Speculative Fictions and Cultures of Science Book Award (previously the Science Fiction and Technoculture Studies Book Prize) honors an outstanding scholarly monograph that explores the intersections between popular culture, particularly science fiction, and the discourses and cultures of technoscience. The award is designed to recognize groundbreaking and exceptional contributions to the field. Books published in English between 1 January and 31 December 2022 were eligible for the award. The jury for the prize were Elizabeth Swanstrom (University of Utah), Gerry Canavan (Marquette University), and Paweł Frelik (University of Warsaw), who served as jury chair. After intense deliberations, the jury announce that the twelfth annual SFCS book award has been won by Nicole Starosielski, Associate Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication at New York University, for her Media Hot and Cold (Duke UP 2022). The monograph is nothing short of a new paradigm for thinking about science, technology, and cultural texts. Starosielski twists McLuhan’s hot and cold media into a groundbreaking consideration of the role of heating and cooling in the postwar US, tracing the dream of mastering temperature across myriad sites of coloniality, empire, and struggles for social justice. Although the book is not centrally focused on speculative texts, its theoretical framework explores a fresh mix of already existing and speculative technologies, from artificially intelligent thermostats to energy generation and climate emergency to experimental heat-rays and the cold rooms necessary for advanced computation. In the process, it creates conditions for novel readings of both old and new works across a range of media, from classic figures in the genre such as Wells and Lovecraft to newer entries, including Mr. Robot and “coldsploitation” film. Media Hot and Cold reveals thermopower as nothing less than the key theoretical concept of the Anthropocene, and it promises to be a vibrant and productive framework for discussing speculative texts across a range of media, including those that are not obviously conceptualized as such. For this reason, Nicole Starosielski’s Media Hot and Cold was the committee’s unanimous choice for the 2022 SFTS Book Prize. The committee is also pleased to recognize Kazue Harada’s excellent Sexuality, Maternity, and (Re)productive Futures: Women’s Speculative Fiction in Contemporary Japan (Brill) as its 2022 honorable mention for its inventive interdisciplinary exploration of popular-culture texts at the intersections of science and technology studies, gender and sexuality studies, childhood studies, and aging studies.—SFS
Special Issue of Hélice: Motherhood in SF (FALL-WINTER 2024). Many works of feminist speculative fiction specifically address topics such as reproduction (natural and assisted), reproductive control, and gender roles from different perspectives, sometimes holding opposing views. Gestational capacity is often considered one of the key indicators of sexual difference, becoming a recurring theme in feminist studies. Yet the topic of gestation and parenting is seldom addressed in science fiction. As Joanna Russ wrote in 2007, in many feminist science-fiction texts that address gender, “the processes of parenting are never described.” Rather, “The women who appear in these stories are [often] young and childless or middle-aged, with their children already grown and secure” (25).
The reason for this may have been a desire to escape misogynistic attacks on fiction that addresses these issues (cf. Algis Budrys’s dismissive phrase “diaper stories,” describing sf tales such as Judith Merrill’s “That Only a Mother” (1948), or the strong influence of the feminisms of the 1970s and 1980s as raised by critics such as Shulamith Firestone (1970) and Jennifer Allen (1984), who concluded that pregnant women and mothers were, in a way, biologically trapped. As Adrienne Rich pointed out during that era, however, in contrast to the more traditional “motherhood,” which can be experienced as a patriarchal institution, “motherhood,” defined and centered on women, can be understood as an experience of female empowerment, which would later open the door to “matricentric feminism” (Andrea O’Reilly 2016).
In summary, while motherhood as an institution is frequently a place of oppression defined by men, women’s own maternal experiences can become a source of power (O’Reilly 2021); hence, the importance of analyzing in depth the representation of issues such as gestation, childbirth, breastfeeding, and “matrescence,” understood as physical changes as well as psychological and emotional aspects that the surrogate mother goes through after childbirth. On the other hand, speculative art, by allowing projection into other universes and times and imagining different interpersonal relationships, in addition to questioning biological and gender(s) limits, inevitably participates in the erosion of fossilized visions of motherhood, giving space to the search for new possibilities in places that we could identify either as utopian or dystopian.
In this fertile terrain, in addition to the topics mentioned above, there is also room for the exploration of other pressing issues, including reproductive biotechnology, ectogenesis or cloning, xenobiology, haploid organisms, grafts with living beings or with artificial entities, microchimerism, and other topics that the current sf interested in reproduction seems eager to represent.
Deadline for final version of the articles is 1 September 2024. Please contact <jeskeal@unizar.es> with any questions about an early abstract deadline of 1 February 2024. Length should be 7000-8000 words, and the essay should be written in English or Spanish. Submissions should be emailed to the editors of the journal, who will answer any questions and queries. See Hélice’s Guidelines for authors at <https://www.revistahelice.com/ normas/Helice-AuthorGuidelines.pdf>.—Sara Martín Alegre <Sara.Martin@uab.cat>, Mariano Martín Rodríguez <martioa@ hotmail.com>, Mikel Peregrina <peretorian@gmail.com>
Framing the Unreal: Exploring Graphic/Visual Science Fiction & Fantasy. Deadline for submissions: 14 April 2024. The International Comparative Literature Research Committee on Comics Studies & Graphic Narrative (U Ca’ Foscari) announce a conference organized by the Laboratorio per lo Studio letterario del fumetto and the International Comparative Literature Association’s Standing Research Committee on Comics Studies & Graphic Narrative, convening at Ca’ Foscari University, Venice, Italy from 13-15 November 2024.
Andrew Milner in Locating Science Fiction (2012) argued that “the category of science fiction applies ... across a whole range of forms, from the novel and short story to pulp fiction and the comic book, from radio serial and television series to drama and film, from a printed text to a rock album.” One might legitimately add video games, toys, and role-playing games to this list, so that we may envision a multimedia continuum through which the science-fictional imagination spreads all over the world. Fantasy seems to be endowed with a similar power to infiltrate (one might even say “invade”) many different media. Moreover, the interaction and hybridization of science fiction and fantasy have proved to be an increasingly relevant trend that have produced remarkable comics inviting academic attention in a framework that is aware of the total sf context and the studies devoted to the fantastic in general. Academia has paid little attention to science fiction and fantasy in comics. Yet the growing corpus of graphic-narrative secondary literature continually offers more materials concerning fantasy and science-fictional comics, which are undoubtedly a vast territory for textual exploration. One might, for example, consider the diffusion of superhero comics, which—be they of DC Comics or Marvel descent—have always incorporated fantasy and science-fictional elements into their stories (Superman being, as we all know, an alien from planet Krypton, and Doctor Strange a sorcerer).
It is thus high time to devote a large-scale event to the discussion of science fiction and fantasy in comics; therefore, the ICLA Standing Research Committee on Comics Studies and Graphic narrative will celebrate its 20th anniversary by organizing a conference to be held at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Italy.
We look forward to receiving panel and presentation proposals along several lines of research, including:
Critical/theoretical approaches: How should SF/Fantasy comics be analyzed?
What “traditional” critical methodologies focusing on purely verbal literature could be applied to comics? Do we need specific instruments or literary analytical tools?
How might conversations such as Afrofuturism and Techno-Orientalism play out in such discourses?
The role of transmediality and comics: adaptations, remediations, rewritings, and other intertextual retellings.
Feminist studies in sf and their impact on comics. How do we address questions of race, class, gender, and the environment? Is this an opportunity to disentangle critical strains in science fiction and fantasy studies?
Unearthing the future and the past: the history of SF/F comics, methodological questions of historiography, comics archaeology, literary and historical traces. Video games and their relation to sf and fantasy.
Canonical issues: locating the key figures of fantasy and sf comics (panels on authors/series/characters/places).
Hybridization and slipstream: superheroes, supernatural detectives in science-fictional contexts, Lovecraftiana, postmodern comics, analyses of the works of Moore, Morrison, Gaiman, and similar creators.
Science fictional and fantasy politics: does the unreal have a political agenda? What current issues does it draw our attention to or alert us to in the real?
Graphic migrations: science fiction and fantasy comics translations, transnational diffusion, adaptation to different national contexts, Afro-futurism, and similar issues.
Serial issues: collective versus individual authorship, publishing policies, continuity/discontinuity, reboots and retcons, and related topics.Proposals in English, Spanish, or Italian should be submitted in a MS Word file and include an email address and 200-word bio for all presenters. For panels (deadline by 15 April 2024), include a general introduction (200 words) and a 300-word abstract for each presentation. For stand-alone presentations (deadline is 31 May 2024) include a 400-word abstract. Send proposals to Angelo Piepoli <angelo.piepoli@gmail.com>, Umberto Rossi <ubertorossi_000@fastwebnet.it>, Davide Carnevale <davide.carnevale@ uniroma1.it>, and Alessandro Scarsella <lescarsella @unive.it>.—Angelo Piepoli, Umberto Rossi, and Alessandro Scarsella
Book Chapters: Class Conflict in 21st Century SF Film. Science fiction cinema is about a new idea or novum (Bloch and Suvin) and the impact of technology on our lives; and though often looking into the future, it also focuses on the present, reflecting problems of our time. These visions and phantasms and their realism bring science fiction into intense interaction with other genres, from comedy to horror and from fantasy to thriller. As in every major genre, sf has a great power in visualizing social structure. The forms of interaction between people, or between people and other things, are also of a social nature, and class relations are often (in one way or another) at the center of every situation in which science fiction depicts possibilities.
In the nineteenth century, class conflict manifested itself in all aspects of life, with industrialization, capitalism, and modernization. The genre also finds its place in the stories of sf as a genre that examines the novum—the effects of the new on our lives. Science fiction, primarily oriented towards the future, inevitably depicts ideal or uncomfortable situations related to social life in the stories it describes. Like every social structure, the societies that are the subject of sf narratives are at the center of various production and sharing relations. Thus it becomes necessary to consider the individual within his/her social relations.
Although Marxist theory has conducted the most intense debates on this subject, different views within and against Marxism have addressed social relations and thus class conflicts with new dimensions. Class conflicts, hegemony relations, the production of consent, imperialism, the influence of the ideological apparatuses of the state, and the changing structure of classes and identity debates reveal a wide network of theoretical relations in this regard. In this respect, the book aims to bring together theoretical perspectives that evaluate the way that science fiction imagines multidimensional societies.
Social classes—their changing structures, stratification, and class relations—are widely discussed topics in the genre. This book aims to continue this debate in a different context. Contributors are expected to present chapters with different theoretical perspectives centered on class conflict. The chapters will be written in an argumentative rather than a descriptive style, so that each will offer its own unique results and findings. The purpose of this book is not to describe class conflict in sf films, but rather to discuss class struggle from a spectrum of theoretical arguments. The edited volume is planned to be published within the “Critical Explorations in Science Fiction and Fantasy” series of McFarland books. McFarland has long had a strong reputation and influence in this field.
Each chapter will consist of comprehensive essays of 5,000-6,000 words, including endnotes and references. Chapters should be written in MLA 9 format. Please select one of the proposed chapters below, sending an abstract of at least 300 words (with five references that will guide the chapter), and a short author bio of 150 words, to <scificinemanadclassstruggle@ gmail.com>. Contributors are expected to hold a PhD and have institutional affiliation.
The editors have framed the chapters as follows, but we welcome proposals that are creative and address different topics; the general themes are Class Conflict in SF Film, Social Stratification, Otherness/Identity, Resistance to Oppression, and Migration & Refugees. Here are our suggested texts and approaches:
Part I: Social Stratification
1) The Platform 1-2, 2019-2024, Dir. Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia
2) In Time, 2011, Dir. Andrew NiccolPart II: Otherness / Identity
3) Matrix Resurrections, 2021, Dir. Lana Wachowski
4) Blade Runner 2049, 2017, Dir. Denis VilleneuvePart III: Resistance to Oppression
5) Snowpiercer, 2013, Dir. Bong Joon Ho
6) Cloud Atlas, 2012, Dir. Tom Tykwer, Lana & Lilly WachowskiPart IV: Migration & Refugees
7) Children of Men, 2006, Dir. Alfonso Cuarón
8) Dune, 2021-2024, Dir. Denis VilleneuvePart V: The Society of the Spectacle
9) Ready Player One, 2018, Dir. Steven Spielberg
10) The Stepford Wives, 2004, Dir. Frank OzPart VI: The Quest for Hope & Equality
11) Interstellar, 2014, Dir. Christopher Nolan
12) Mad Max Fury Road, 2015, Dir. George MillerOur anticipated publication date is Spring 2025. Do not hesitate to contact us at <scificinemanadclassstruggle@gmail.com> if you should have further questions.—Editors Cenk Tan, Pamukkale University, Turkey, and Miikail Boz, Isparta University of Applied Sciences, Turkey
NOAA Book Club and the Environment. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has announced the selections for their Planet Stewards Book Club for 2024. I am pleased to report that my sf climate-crisis novel, Fragment (2015), is in that wonderful company alongside the film Don’t Look Up (2021), and Bog and Swamp (2023), a non-fiction book by Annie Proulx. Fragment is published by Saskatoon’s small but bravely independent Thistledown Press.—Craig Russell, Winnipeg, Canada
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