This call for papers has nothing to do with me organisationally but I repost it here for your interest and imagination:
CFP: Technology as Cure – Representations of Disability in Science Fiction
Call for Papers
Representations of Disability in Science Fiction (essay collection; abstracts due Nov. 18/11)
Contributions are invited for an essay collection on the representations
of disability and the disabled body in science fiction. Technology is
often characterized as a cure for the disabled body – one that either
elides or exacerbates corporeal difference. From block buster films and
televised space operas to cyberpunk and hard SF, disabled bodies are
often modified and supported by technological interventions. How are
dis/ability, medical “breakthroughs,” (bio) technologies, and the body
theorized, materialized, and politicized in science fiction? This
collection is particularly interested in the ways dis/abled bodies
challenge normative discourses of ability, generate novel spaces of
embodiment, and proliferate new understandings of human being.
Contributions are welcomed from both academic- and arts-based
researchers and practitioners from a wide range of critical
perspectives: literary studies, disability studies, feminist studies,
science and technology studies, critical theory, race studies, queer
studies, media studies, film studies, Aboriginal studies, cultural
studies, and rhetoric studies. Papers may deal with the representation
of disability in any form of popular genre SF: film, television, and
print (including all SF subgenres i.e.: feminist SF, post-cyberpunk,
hard SF, steampunk, etc.). All possible topics related to the
representation of disability and disabled persons in SF are welcome:
dis/ability, illness, technology as cure, prosthesis, diseased
bodies/contagion, care of the self, alterations to the body, corporeal
boundaries, environmental modifications, medical care, and alternative
constructions of being.
Send a 300- to 500-word abstract, working title, and a brief bio, by email in a Word attachment, to kathryn@academiceditingcanada.ca before or on November 18, 2011. Inquiries are also welcome. Final papers should range in length from 5000-8000 words
About the editor: Kathryn Allan received her PhD in English Literature
from McMaster University (2010) studying feminist post-cyberpunk SF and
theories of the vulnerable body. She currently is an independent SF
scholar, working as a freelance writer and (academic) editor.
http://www.academiceditingcanada.ca/blog/item/72-cfp
