<div dir="ltr">Greetings, everyone,<div><br></div><div>The most recent <i><a href="https://lareviewofbooks.org/">LA Review of Books</a></i> features compelling writing on current SFF texts and ideas about the future. This update comes from the International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts google group, which you can join by visiting <a href="https://groups.google.com/g/iafa-general">https://groups.google.com/g/iafa-general</a>. <br><br><div class="gmail_quote gmail_quote_container"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">---------- Forwarded message ---------<br>From: <span dir="auto"><<a href="mailto:iafa-general@googlegroups.com">iafa-general@googlegroups.com</a>></span><br>Date: Fri, Aug 8, 2025 at 2:16 PM<br>Subject: IAFA General List: Digest for <a href="mailto:iafa-general@googlegroups.com">iafa-general@googlegroups.com</a> - 2 updates in 2 topics<br>To: Digest recipients <<a href="mailto:iafa-general@googlegroups.com">iafa-general@googlegroups.com</a>><br></div><br><br>
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David Higgins <<a href="mailto:dmhiggin@gmail.com" target="_blank">dmhiggin@gmail.com</a>>: Aug 08 11:12AM -0400
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<br><br>
A few recent highlights from the *Los Angeles Review of Books*:<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
Bernabé S. Mendoza examines Nnedi Okorafor’s *Death of the Author*: “In<br>
this story, Okorafor personifies and gives creative expression to the<br>
Western division of the human.”<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<a href="https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/storytelling-as-reparative-act/" target="_blank">https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/storytelling-as-reparative-act/</a><br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
Jordan S. Carroll offers a review of recent reactionary futurism:<br>
“fundamentally,<br>
the Far Right believes that the future belongs to them.”<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<a href="https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/reactionary-futurism-2025/" target="_blank">https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/reactionary-futurism-2025/</a><br>
<br>
Chelsea Davis hangs out with dead people in Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s *The<br>
Bewitching*: “In Moreno-Garcia’s rendering, which blends Mexican<br>
teyolloquani witch lore with elements of the Spiritualist and Puritan<br>
supernatural, a bewitching is a form of obsessive, unwanted attention.”<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<a href="https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-heart-is-a-lonely-haunter/" target="_blank">https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-heart-is-a-lonely-haunter/</a><br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
Arnaud Gerspacher considers *Sad Planets* by Dominic Pettman and Eugene<br>
Thacker: “This is media studies that far exceeds the conventional bounds of<br>
human culture and technology.”<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<a href="https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-astronomy-of-melancholy/" target="_blank">https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-astronomy-of-melancholy/</a><br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
**<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
Thanks always to the volunteers who help with the LARB speculative fiction<br>
section:<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
Associate Editor (Horror): Jeffrey Weinstock<br>
<br>
Assistant Editors: Jeshua Enriquez, Christy Tidwell, and Jordan Carroll<br>
<br>
Editorial Assistants: Matthew Iung and Amanda Irene Rose<br>
<br>
<br>
-- <br>
David M. Higgins, Associate Professor and Chair<br>
Department of Humanities and Communication<br>
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Worldwide<br>
<br>
President, International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts<br>
Senior Editor, *Los Angeles Review of Books*<br>
<br>
"Beware of asking people to question what's real and what isn't. They may<br>
reach conclusions you didn't see coming."<br>
-- Crispin Hershey*. The Bone Clocks*, by David Mitchell.<br>
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CFP for ACLA seminar: "Fantasy and/against the academy"
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David Higgins <<a href="mailto:dmhiggin@gmail.com" target="_blank">dmhiggin@gmail.com</a>>: Aug 08 10:04AM -0400
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<br><br>
Please distribute! =)<br>
<br>
---------- Forwarded message ---------<br>
From: Benjamin Robertson <<a href="mailto:00011a347eb58b74-dmarc-request@jiscmail.ac.uk" target="_blank">00011a347eb58b74-dmarc-request@jiscmail.ac.uk</a>><br>
Date: Tue, Aug 5, 2025 at 1:39 PM<br>
Subject: CFP for ACLA seminar: "Fantasy and/against the academy"<br>
<br>
Hello all,<br>
<br>
I wanted to draw your attention to a seminar I am organizing for the<br>
American Comparative Literature Conference that will take place in<br>
Montreal, Quebec, Canada from February 26 - March 1, 2026.<br>
<br>
The paper proposal window runs from August 26 - October 2, 2025.<br>
<br>
Proposals should be submitted to the conference site, which can be found<br>
here: <a href="https://www.acla.org/annual-meeting" target="_blank">https://www.acla.org/annual-meeting</a><br>
<br>
The CFP is pasted below.<br>
<br>
Please reach out with any questions you might have.<br>
<br>
-- <br>
Benjamin J Robertson<br>
Associate Professor, Department of English<br>
University of Colorado at Boulder<br>
Hellems 101 | 226 UCB<br>
Boulder, Colorado 80309-0226<br>
<br>
Fantasy and/against the academy<br>
<br>
This seminar begins with the critical fiction that dominant modes of<br>
academic discourse remain incapable of addressing generic fantasy as<br>
fantasy. If science fiction has long been celebrated for its capacity to<br>
estrange us from the historical, empirical world in a cognitive fashion,<br>
fantasy has long been dismissed for its noncognitive estrangements. If sf<br>
dovetails with various critical and historicist approaches to literature<br>
and culture, fantasy is part and parcel of a pathological resistance to<br>
such intellectual techniques. However, as China Miéville writes, in<br>
“Cognition as Ideology: A Dialectic of SF Theory,” “At the same<br>
sociological level at which SF and fantasy continue to be distinguished,<br>
the boundaries between them also […] continue to erode. Where that has<br>
hitherto been seen as pathological in SF theory, it is to be hoped that, by<br>
undermining the supposedly radical distinction between the two on the basis<br>
of cognition, that erosion can now be seen as perfectly legitimate.” This<br>
erosion derives in part from what Miéville elsewhere describes as the<br>
fantastical nature of life under late capitalism, a hallucinatory,<br>
ungrounded experience characterized by profound alienation and determined<br>
by the failure of systems of valorization and signification. As modernity’s<br>
enclosures dissolve, the historical or empirical world has become<br>
increasingly recalcitrant with regard to intellectual techniques first<br>
developed under the auspices of industrial capitalism. In this context,<br>
such techniques that assume and reproduce the distinction between science<br>
fiction and fantasy—between the cognitive and the historical, on one hand,<br>
and the noncognitive and a- or anti-historical, on the other—cease to<br>
function. Does fantasy suggest a way out of an impasse that science fiction<br>
and other representationalist literature cannot face or does its ongoing<br>
popularity in popular culture suggest a failure of modernity that cannot be<br>
put right?<br>
<br>
I invite paper proposals that address generic fantasy in the context here<br>
described, understood in the broadest possible sense. Papers may address,<br>
for example:<br>
<br>
• fantasy’s reception, or lack thereof, in academia;<br>
• fantasy in relation to discourses that also challenge modern<br>
intellectual practices and techniques, such as feminism, postcolonialism,<br>
Afro- and Africanfuturism, Afropessimism, queer theory, Latinx studies, new<br>
materialism, and so on;<br>
• particular fantasies in relation to these or other discourses;<br>
• the limits of thinking with or about fantasy in an academic context;<br>
• fantasy as a symptom of, or antidote to, contemporary discourses of<br>
fascism, authoritarianism, trans- and homophobia, ableism, misogyny, or<br>
white supremacy;<br>
• the politics of canon formation in fantasy studies;<br>
• counter-histories or genealogies of the fantasy genre; and/or<br>
• the nature of (non)representation in fantasy.<br>
<br>
Please contact Benjamin J. Robertson at <a href="mailto:benjamin.j.robertson@colorado.edu" target="_blank">benjamin.j.robertson@colorado.edu</a><br>
with questions.<br>
<br>
------------------------------<br>
<br>
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<br>
<br>
-- <br>
David M. Higgins, Associate Professor and Chair<br>
Department of Humanities and Communication<br>
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Worldwide<br>
<br>
President, International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts<br>
Senior Editor, *Los Angeles Review of Books*<br>
<br>
"Beware of asking people to question what's real and what isn't. They may<br>
reach conclusions you didn't see coming."<br>
-- Crispin Hershey*. The Bone Clocks*, by David Mitchell.<br>
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