Lauren J. Lacey & Alexis Lothian
Academic Programming

We invite you to submit papers, panels, and presentations for Academic Programming at WisCon 41! Join us for a weekend dedicated to imagining, exploring, and critiquing alternate worlds, technological transformations, and the possibilities and processes for creating the feminist, decolonial, anti-racist, anti-ableist, anti-fascist futures we so badly need.

WisCon has a track of academic programming that is open to undergraduate, postgraduate, and independent scholars. One of the benefits of this track is that it strengthens the links between the wider feminist science fiction community and students and other scholars working on feminist science fiction and fantasy and related fields. The track operates very much like a conventional academic conference, with presentations based on individual or collaborative research. However, scholarly work on all aspects of feminist science fiction reaches an audience at WisCon that gives a kind of passionate and informed feedback that is rare at academic conferences.

We invite proposals from anyone with a scholarly interest in the intersections of gender, sexuality, race, class, and disability with science fiction — broadly defined — in literature, media, culture, and politics. We particularly welcome scholarship on the work of our Guests of Honor, Kelly Sue DeConnick and Amal El-Mohtar, and on the histories and cultures of feminist and social-justice-oriented fan communities. We encourage submissions from scholars in all fields, including interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary areas, and from amateur and independent scholars as well as graduate students, postdocs, and faculty.

Deadline

The deadline for submitting proposals for our Academic Programming is Thursday, Feb. 23, at 11:59pm Central Time.

An incomplete list of possible subjects

• The political work of speculative imagination in the new age of right-wing populism
• Speculative aspects of feminist and social justice movements
• Science fiction and feminist science and technology studies
• Gender, sexuality, race, class, and disability in individual works of science fiction and fantasy, especially in the works of our Guests of Honor
• Feminist, queer, critical race, and critical disability analysis of science fiction and fantasy in media (film, television, music, video games, online culture)
• Race, colonialism, and speculative fiction; Afrofuturism and related cultural movements
• Fan cultures and communities
• Teaching feminist science fiction and other aspects of feminist pedagogy
• Feminist practice and speculative fiction in academic institutions

An incomplete list of possible formats

• 15-20 minute paper presentations, with or without visual accompaniment
• Groups of presentations submitted together as panels
• Presentation of scholarly creative works, including digital scholarship
• Readings from recently published or forthcoming scholarly books
• Discussion-based panels and roundtables on scholarly research, teaching, or service
• Mentoring sessions on academic professional life: graduate study, the job market, tenure and promotion, publishing and presentation, doing scholarship outside conventional institutions
• Screenings and discussions of short films or videos

Submitting your proposal

Submit your proposal using our online form (requires a WisCon login). You will be asked for a 100-word abstract, which will be printed in the convention’s program, and for a more detailed proposal of up to 500 words. If you are proposing something other than a traditional paper, please make sure you describe the format of your proposed program item. A projector and screen will be available; if you have further technological needs, please let us know in your proposal.

Announcing a new workshop on feminist scholarship!

This year, for the first time, we will be running a workshop on feminist science fiction scholarship as part of WisCon’s Writers’ Workshop, which takes place on Friday, May 26, before the conventional officially begins. The deadline for submitting work will be in April.  Further announcements will be made on the WisCon blog and listed on the Academic Programming page.

If you have any questions, contact us via email: academic@wiscon.net