Wednesday 5th August – Friday 7th August 2015

Mansfield College, Oxford, United Kingdom

From the 10th century’s The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, to 19th century classics like War of the Worlds, to the universe of superheroes that populated comic books of the 20th century, to post-war television series like Star Trek TOS, to contemporary multi-media franchises including the Harry Potter series, The Hunger Games series and the A Song of Ice and Fire series, science fiction and fantasy have been a cornerstone of culture. The enduring popularity of these genres as a source of entertainment among the general public and an object of academic scrutiny raises important questions about the significance and meanings of these types of narratives.

This conference will explore how our present culture influences and is influenced by the fantastic elements we encounter in media such as books, movies, TV shows, plays, fan events, graphic novels, digital art and games. While including popular mass media, such as Hollywood blockbusters, conference organizers are also interested in niche and subcultural sci-fi products, such a multi user dungeons and vidding. The conference welcomes participants from all disciplines and fields. It encourages the submission of proposals for presentations, panels, workshops, readings, performances, installations, screenings and round table discussions on any topic related to science fiction and fantasy.

Please send 300- word abstracts by Friday 1st May 2015. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted byFriday 19th June 2015. Abstracts should be submitted simultaneously to both Organising Chairs; abstracts may be in Word or RTF formats with the following information and in this order:

a) author(s), b) affiliation as you would like it to appear in programme, c) email address, d) title of proposal, e) body of proposal, f) up to 10 keywords.
E-mails should be entitled: Sci-Fi1 Abstract Submission.

Please use plain text (Times Roman 12) and abstain from using footnotes and any special formatting, characters or emphasis (such as bold, italics or underline). We acknowledge receipt and answer to all paper proposals submitted. If you do not receive a reply from us in a week you should assume we did not receive your proposal; it might be lost in cyberspace! We suggest, then, to look for an alternative electronic route or resend.

Organising Chairs:
Nadine Farghaly: Nadine.Farghaly@gmx.net
Rob Fisher: scifi1@inter-disciplinary.net

For further details of the conference, please visit:
http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/critical-issues/ethos/sci-fi/call-for-presentations/