akashiver | Oooh! CFPs!

Note that these cfps are all for collections that already have publishers lined up.

Call for Papers – Investigating Battlestar Galactica: Flesh, Spirit, and
Steel

Since its inception as a miniseries in 2003, Battlestar Galactica has
been a critical and popular science fiction success, garnering media
attention and honors such as the prestigious Peabody Award and accolades from the
American Film Institute (AFI). The series' storytelling, technical craft,
and acting have created a dense, powerful text rich for interpretation.

This is a call for papers for an anthology, Investigating Battlestar
Galactica: Flesh, Spirit, and Steel, published by IB Tauris Books, and to
be edited by Roz Kaveney and Jennifer Stoy. Its target audience is
a "smart pop" or basic undergraduate audience. Theory-driven papers are
welcome; however, the format is aimed at a less footnoted/endnoted style
with more close reading and textual-based criticism.

We are looking for paper proposals, as essays may be given leeway to
include season four in early 2008. The proposal should be 250-750 words,
and emailed to both editors (contact information and due dates listed
below).

Topics in particular that the editors would like to see abstracts on:

+ The series' place in televisual SF history, both in
relation to its own original incarnation, to the
various SF subgenres it engages with, including
military SF, the engagement of SF with religion and
the sublime, and SF's games with identity and "what it
means to be human."

+ Relatedly, the reversal of prototypical genre
tropes; ie, the agency of women in the series, Lee
Adama's place as semi-"ornament" for far more active
female characters, Bill Adama's sentimentality
compared to Laura Roslin's ruthless realpolitik, and
so forth.

+ The series as contemporary political allegory, and
its commentary on American political topics such as
the Iraq War, the War on Terror, 9/11, et cetera.

+ The use of allegory and referentiality in the series
in general, or a particular use of referentiality that
catches the essayist's eye (for example, the use of
Mormon/LDS theology, the musical references from "our"
world, et alia.)

+ Feminist readings of many of the series' themes and
leitmotifs, such as "downloading."

+ The online fandom surrounding the series; in
particular, the relative prominence of female/female
slash versus male/male.

+ Various character-focused essay from theoretical
points of view; a gender studies essay on the
character of Starbuck would most certainly be welcome.

Please note these topics are only suggestions, and
that the editors will accept abstracts/proposals on
other subjects relating to the reimagined Galactica.

Submit your proposal/abstract, along with biographical
information, to Roz Kaveney (rkaveney_at_googlemail.com)
and Jennifer Stoy (jenniferoksana_at_yahoo.com) by
OCTOBER 10, 2007. Responses will be given by November
1, 2007.

The editors of theory_at_buffalo are seeking submissions for the 2009 issue
(#13) on the theme of possibility and futurity.

Possibility has been philosophically important since Aristotle’s
Metaphysics, yet despite some notable exceptions (Spinoza, Leibniz, Kant,
for instance) it was not until the 20th century that possibility came into
its own, and with the futural as its dominant modality, displaced the
dominance of actuality and the present. Since this turn toward possibility
continental philosophy has seen a delineation of two camps of thinking on
this subject: one which traces its roots from Aristotle through Heidegger
to figures such as Agamben, Arendt, and Derrida, while the other returns to
Spinoza and includes Deleuze as well as others. To the extent that such a
division in the thinking of possibility signals a split in contemporary
theory, an investigation into the nature of this division is also an
inquiry into the condition of theory and its conditions of possibility.
Given the priority of possibility in the discourses of theory and the
tensions that mark it, we seek to engage these two traditions of
approaching possibility and futurity in order to explore the condition of
theory and the possibilities of its future.

We welcome all papers that examine the theme of possibility and the futural
in any number of disciplines, including but not limited to: art, feminism,
film, literature, philosophy, politics and visual studies. Possible topics
might include: theory’s possibilities; art and possibility
(science-fiction, fantasy, etc.); the impossible; ontology and possibility;
the imagination; the virtual; possibility and knowledge; the event; the
possibility of utopia/revolution and utopian/revolutionary possibilities;
calculating the possible (probability, gambling, randomness, contingency);
potentiality and power; possibility and phenomenology; and possible worlds.
We are particularly interested in the relevant theoretical works of
Agamben, Arendt, Aristotle, Bloch, Deleuze, Derrida, Foucault, Heidegger,
Irigaray, Kant, Kristeva, Leibniz and Spinoza, although other critical
perspectives are also welcome.

theory_at_buffalo also accepts book reviews. These can be on any topic and
must be 1200 words or less. All other submissions should be no longer than
10,000 words. Please send two blind copies with a cover page and disk to
the address below. Alternatively, you may send your submission as an MS
Word attachment to dbc8_at_buffalo.edu or jfkurt_at_buffalo.edu, re:
theory_at_buffalo 13. Articles to be published must be received no later than
September 1st 2008.

theory_at_buffalo
David Collins and James Kurt, Editors
Department of Comparative Literature
638 Samuel Clemens Hall, North Campus
State University of New York at Buffalo
Buffalo, NY 14260
USA

Submissions are sought for a forthcoming multidisciplinary anthology of
critical essays on the subject of Fantasy and Native America to be
published by the Mythopoeic Press (http://www.mythsoc.org/press) in early
2009.

This volume is premised on the idea that there is a tremendous
opportunity for multidisciplinary dialogue and discovery regarding the
subject of Fantasy and Native America. The fantastic in Native American
literature, often identified as a subject for Native American studies and
classified as magical realism, may yield new insights when explored with
the tools used by scholars of the fantasy genre. The use of Native
American settings, characters, and mythology by non-Native fantasists may
also offer new information when considered from the perspective of Native
American studies. The goal of this volume is to transcend the narrow
boundaries of disciplines and categories in order to consider Native
American literature, and Native America in literature, within the global
context of fantasy.

Essays should relate to one of the following topics:

1. Works by Native American authors (for example: works by Leslie Marmon
Silko or Louise Erdrich) or traditional Native American mythology that
could be considered fantasy or that include elements of the fantasy
genre; or

2. Fantasy works by non-Native authors that incorporate either Native
American mythology or Native American people and settings (for example:
works by Charles de Lint or Orson Scott Card).

Abstracts of 300 words or less should be submitted, along with complete
contact information for and a biographical paragraph about the submitter,
by email to both editors by December 1, 2007.

If accepted, articles should be completed as Word documents with MLA
formatting. Submissions should be sent electronically to both editors by
July 1, 2008.

Editors:

David Oberhelman
Oklahoma State University
d.oberhelman_at_okstate.edu

Amy H. Sturgis
Belmont University
sturgisa_at_mail.belmont.edu