Avainsana: academic track

We are pleased to announce the Call for Papers for Finncon 2024 Academic Track, an international conference on speculative fiction. The conference takes place alongside Finncon 2024, on July 5–7, 2024 at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland.

Deadline for proposals is 31.3.2024.

The Academic Track is an established part of Finncon, one of the largest European science fiction and fantasy conventions, and a meeting point for academics from all over the world. In 2024, the theme of Finncon and the Academic Track will be ”Worlds”.

For us, speculative fiction is a broad umbrella term that includes science fiction, fantasy and horror, as well as related (sub)genres and categories across all media. Researchers of literature, film, comics, games, fan culture, and other research fields are all welcome to participate, regardless of their career stage.

Studying fiction specifically from the viewpoint of fictional worlds has been a major point of interest for researchers in the last decades – particularly for researchers of speculative fiction. ‘Possible worlds’  as a special type of world-building in fiction as well as imaginary worlds as such have been theorized within and across media, including literature, film and television, as well as games, comics, and more (e.g. Ryan 1991, Doležel 1997, Wolf 2012). Fictional worlds of fantasy, science fiction, and speculative imagination have been seen as an excellent example of this. ‘Transmedial worlds’ (Klastrup & Tosca 2004) has been one of the core methods for conceptualizing transmedia phenomena, where multiple media forms are used to expand the same fictional universe. Science fiction and fantasy have been recognized as genres dominating this transmedia landscape (Harvey 2015). Game worlds and their methods for engaging players have also been one of the central interests for the study of games, and have given rise to such new scholarly perspectives on fiction as environmental storytelling, where narrative elements are distributed around the game world for the player to find and use to build a story (Fernandez-Vara 2011). Currently, interest in the ‘multiverse’ concept, which tackles fiction involving coexisting multiple parallel worlds, is on the rise as well.

Our ability to imagine possible worlds is of particular importance when ecological and political crises seem to be dominating our world. Going forward, what past, present, or emerging perspectives to worlds should we consider?

Proposals falling under our conference theme are given precedence but all papers relating to speculative fiction are welcome. Possible topics include but are not limited to:

• Fantastic or science-based worlds across speculative fiction
• Poetics of worldbuilding: exposition, the creation and representation of narrative worlds
• World-creation: utopias, geneses, building artificial worlds, creating magical worlds
• World-destruction: apocalypses, dying worlds
• Worlds and resources: access to food, water, air, oil, or other resources in SFF; post-scarcity worlds
• Reconfiguring worlds (or their inhabitants): terraforming other worlds to accommodate human life, or reforming humans to survive life beyond Earth
• Portrayal of evolving worlds, climate change, ecological transitions
• Milieu-specific narratives: how speculative worlds affect the narrative?
• Situated experiences: interplay of characters and worlds in SFF; reader/viewer/player experiences with/in SFF worlds
• SFF and ecocriticism, environmental studies, or animal studies
• Speculative worlds across media: worlds and adaptation, transmedial storyworlds
• Speculative worlds and our world: Using SFF worlds to change our reality – activism, educational applications, et cetera.

Practical information

• Send us your paper proposal by 31.3.2024 by filling out this form.
• You should receive an automatic reply containing all your data – in case you don’t, please contact us.
• The academic track will mostly consist of 15-minute presentations but we are open to suggestions on programming items in other formats (discussions, workshops etc.) as well.
• You are free to propose multiple items.

The main language of the Academic Track will be English, as we aim for a global audience. However, if you have a strong preference for presenting in Finnish, it is also possible. In that case, you can fill the form in Finnish.

In case you have any questions, please contact Academic Track Co-Chairs:
Oskari Rantala (oskari.rantala@finncon.org)
Tanja Välisalo (tanja.valisalo@finncon.org)

Call for Papers for the Academic Track at FINNCON 2018 – “Encounters”

July 14–15, 2018, University of Turku, Finland

Finncon 2018 is one of the largest European events focusing on science fiction and fantasy. By tradition, it forgoes all membership fees, and is open for anyone and everyone. Dozens of presentations, panels and lectures discussing all imaginable aspects of science fiction and fantasy will be divided into programme tracks, most of which will be in Finnish, with some content in English or Swedish. For more information on the general structure of the con, see: https://2018.finncon.org/about-finncon/?lang=en.

As per usual, Finncon 2018 includes a multilingual academic track, organised in cooperation with Finncon 2018 and Finfar, the Finnish Society for Science Fiction and Fantasy Research (https://finfar.org/en/what-does-finfar-do/). The aim of the academic programme is to bring together a wide range of scholars working around various speculative themes and genres. This enables a broad, interdisciplinary discussion on the many ways in which fantasy, science fiction, horror and their myriad subgenres take their readers, users, and consumers to strange worlds, and in contact with strange creatures.

The theme of Finncon 2018 is Encounters, broadly understood, and the same theme will be the focus of the academic track. As dictionaries tell us, an ‘encounter’ is something that happens when you meet someone, significantly, and often unexpectedly. An encounter can also be a particular type of experience, for instance your first encounter with science fiction, or your first encounter “of the third kind”. We now invite proposals for scholarly papers that seek to examine, interrogate, and expand research related to any aspect of any kind of encounters, occuring in fiction targeted at any age group, in any medium, and/or based on any academic discipline.

This year’s Guest Scholar is Dr Merja Polvinen, a senior lecturer in English philology and docent in comparative literature at the University of Helsinki, who will give a plenary lecture and comment on the papers presented in the academic track. Other guests of honour at the Finncon 2018 include writer Lauren Beukes from South Africa and Finnish fantasy author Maria Turtschaninoff.

If you wish to be a part of the academic track 2018, please submit a 500-word proposal describing the content of your proposed paper, along with a few words about yourself and your research, to Jyrki Korpua (jyrki.korpua(at)oulu.fi) by April 30, 2018. Please note that each paper will be allotted a maximum presentation time of 20 minutes and plan your paper accordingly.

Accessing Turku from Helsinki is easy, with several direct train and bus connections running daily (with a drive time of 2 to 3 hours). There are also direct flight connections to Turku from several European cities, including Helsinki (for more information, visit: http://visitturku.fi/…/visit-…/turku-environs/getting-around). The University of Turku, located on the University Hill, serves as the convention venue (see: https://2018.finncon.org/about-finncon/venue/?lang=en).

If you have any questions about the Finncon 2018 or the Academic Track, do not hesitate to contact Jyrki Korpua (jyrki.korpua(at)oulu.fi).