[CW-Grad] Call for Papers: Special Issue of Science Fiction Studies

[Adrienne Thomas]

Call for Papers: Special Issue of Science Fiction Studies

Science Fiction in/and California

            This special issue of Science Fiction Studies invites critical
and scholarly articles dealing with California as a science fiction space,
theme, or concept. The West Coast of the US, and California in particular,
has long been a source of inspiration for the sf imagination: the state's
history offers a rich repository of utopian schemes, dystopian realities,
collectivist experiments, and commercial and ecological catastrophes. During
the Cold War and after, California has represented the vanguard of
technoscientific progress, free-market ideology, lifestyle libertarianism,
and countercultural experimentation. California shares the seismic
instabilities of the Pacific Rim and is integrated into the cultural and
economic exchanges facilitated and regulated by global capital throughout
the region. California exists in the larger cultural imagination as both a
much-dreamed-of sphere of spiritual discovery and multicultural hybridity as
well as a nightmarish realm of ecological disaster and race war. The
physical and ideological contrast between Northern and Southern California
has inspired writers and thinkers, inside and outside the genre, for
generations, from Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49 to William Gibson's
Virtual Light.  

            In this issue, we hope to promote dialogues between theorists of
the new urban geography, such as Mike Davis and David Harvey, and sf writers
and critics. Philip K. Dick, Kim Stanley Robinson, Neal Stephenson, Ursula
K. Le Guin, Robert Silverberg, Octavia E. Butler, and William Gibson have
all depicted California in their work, whether as a site of utopian
inspiration or as a dystopic realm where history and authenticity are erased
and natural beauty is threatened by economic and ecological mismanagement.
California has offered sf writers a fruitful space where forward-thinking
blueprints-sociopolitical and sexual utopias, technocultural avant-gardes,
impulses towards collective and personal reinvention-are projected onto a
beautiful and fragile landscape. We enourage essays that address these
concerns or any others related to how California has figured within sf
discourse.

            Abstracts of 500 words should be submitted by 1 February 2011.
Full drafts of essays will be required by 1 May 2011. Send abstracts to
Jonathan Alexander (<jfalexan at uci.edu>) and Catherine Liu (<liu at uci.edu>). 

 

Thank you,

 

Adrienne

 

Adrienne L. Thomas

MFA Coordinator

Creative Writing and Writing for the Performing Arts

University of California, Riverside

900 University Ave

4145 INTS Building

Riverside, CA 92521

Voice: (951) 827-5568 

Fax: (951) 827-3619 

 

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