WisCon 32: Call for Paper Proposals

WisCon 32: Call for Paper Proposals for Academic Track

WisCon 32, the world’s leading feminist science fiction convention, will be held on Memorial Day weekend, May 23 - 26, 2008, at the Concourse Hotel in downtown Madison, Wisconsin, USA. WisCon encourages discussion, debate and extrapolation of ideas relating to feminism, gender, ‘race’ and class in the context of feminist science fiction and fantasy. The convention focuses on writers, editors and other artists, and their work exploring these themes and opening new dimensions and territory in these issues. As well as an extensive program of fan and author oriented events, WisCon has a single track of academic programming that is open to undergraduate, postgraduate and independent scholars. This track operates very much like a conventional academic conference, with scholarly presentations based on extensive research. The use of PowerPoint presentations, the screening of DVDs, or more performance-oriented presentations is encouraged, subject to the limitations of time available and the demand on the academic programming room.

We invite individual papers and panel presentations on science fiction and fantasy, with an emphasis on issues of feminism, gender, ‘race’, and class. Scholarly work on fandom is also invited. We especially welcome papers on the work of this year's guests of honor, Maureen McHugh and L. Timmel Duchamp. The due date for proposals of 300 words is Monday, January 14, 2008. For panels, one abstract of 300 words should be submitted by each panel member: all three panel members, and the panel title, should be identified by name on each abstract. They should be sent to the convener of academic programming at academic32@wiscon.info In addition to your preferred paper title and the full abstract, please supply a short title (60 characters max) and a brief abstract (no more than 100 words) for inclusion in the program book if your abstract is accepted. Acceptance of abstracts will be notified by 31^st January 2008 so no extensions to the stated deadline will be available.

Please note that academic panels have a total duration of 75 minutes. As an individual speaker, you should therefore expect that your maximum allotted speaking time will be 20 minutes with 5 minutes for questions. If you would like to give a longer presentation, this will be considered, subject to space availability in the academic program. At WisCon 31, however, the space was fully occupied with 3 papers per session.

However, if you would like to suggest a more extensive presentation and / or a participatory session, please do consider submitting your ideas to WisCon by filling in a Program Idea Submission Form. This online form can be found at (insert URL. WisCon programming tracks have been restructured this year, under the headings of: Reading, Viewing and Critiquing Science Fiction; Feminism and Other Social Change Movements; Power, Privilege and Oppression; Politics, Spirituality and Organized Religion; The Craft and Business of Writing Science Fiction, and Science and Technology. Detailed descriptions of the type of programming solicited for each track can be found on the WisCon website (insert URL here).

For detailed information about WisCon, the world’s leading feminist science fiction convention, see: http://www.wiscon.info/index.php

Please feel free to circulate this call to your own networks.