The conference Feminist Imaginaria: Going Beyond Realism, to be held on April 17, 2021, in Leeds (UK) invites submissions of abstracts.

Please note that the conference date is provisional and subject to change due to the epidemiological situation with the COVID-19 pandemic. We will not open a fee payment system until we are sure we can host the event. Please do not book flights and accommodation before the conference date is confirmed by the organizer.

Femspec Journal and The Centre for Research in Social Sciences and Humanities, in partnership with Intellect, are seeking abstracts of 250-300 words for papers or creative works in any medium–poetry, fiction, film, TV, dance, theatre, music, opera, social media, gaming, graphic novels, or genre–surrealism, science fiction, magical realism, gothic, horror, fantasy, myth, folklore, rock, punk, etc, that challenges gender using tools that go beyond realism using the speculative exploration of any kind including supernatural or utopian/dystopian framing, posing the “what if,” making gender-bending solutions to contemporary global social and cultural issues, using imagination and fantasy to pose resolution to these problems showing how the problems grew from lack of alignment of power relations between the sexes in the first place.

We encourage submissions of single papers, of panels of three to four papers, and creative works. Themes and questions to be explored might include (but not limited to):

  • sci-fi in popular television
  • gender in Black Mirrors, the Outcasts, Misfits, the Sarah Jane Adventures, etc.
  • what would happen if women had the power to imagine the world? What new kinds of institutions would emerge and what obstacles? How might we meet and overcome those challenges?
  • what can we learn from The Handmaid’s Tale, in any of its forms–novel, film, television series? or The Testaments?
  • Historically, women have imagined worlds before. What are the lessons to be learned from how these texts have worn with time: The Furies, The Wanderground, Demeter Flower, Motherlines, Parable of the Sower? Female Man?
  • How did the journey of the Enterprise change when its Captain became a woman? Or did it?
  • How did the plots change when Dr Who became a woman? Or did they? What propelled that change? How do you account for the reaction of the fan base?
  • Are the superheroines in series like SuperGirl every really allowed to save the world? Why, and how? Or why not?
Submissions

Submissions of abstracts (up to 300 words) with an email contact should be sent to Dr Batya Weinbaum (weinbaumbatya@gmail.com) and Dr Martina Topić (martinahr@gmail.com) by November 30, 2020. Decisions will be sent by December 30 and registrations are due by March 1st 2021.

Publications

Two special numbers of a journal will be edited, one issue on arts and literature for Femspec and one for an Intellect journal (depending on submissions to the conference).

More info

Call for Papers | Femspec journal | Intellect journals