Island Dynamics – noise and sparks

Fantastika Review and GIFCon Keynotes

I’m back, somewhat windburnt from the Island Dynamics: Darkness conference in Svalbard, as those on my Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram will have seen in many, many photos over the last few days. So here are a couple of quick academic updates:

Just before I left, Fantastika published Volume 3, Issue 1 of their journal, which includes my first ever conference report from 2018’s GIFCon event. I’m very grateful to Head Editor Chuckie Palmer-Patel for giving me this opportunity to contribute, and to Francis Gene-Rowe for his steady editorial hand. I’d also like to take this opportunity to wish Dr Palmer-Patel all the best with her upcoming maternity leave.

This issue also features fantastic contributions from my fellow GIFCon committee members Marita Arvaniti and Katarina O’Dette – and you can download it for free! Find it online at https://fantastikajournal.com/publications/.

Additionally, here’s some very exciting news from GIFCon:

Brian Attebery, Leverhulme Visiting Professor at the University of Glasgow, and GIFCon 2019 keynote speaker.

GIFCon has now announced three keynote speakers: world-leading Fantasy scholar Prof. Brian Attebery, who is the author of Strategies of Fantasy, Stories About Stories, and originator of the ‘Fuzzy Set’ theory of genre; celebrated graphic novel theorist Dr. Mel Gibson, known for her work with diversity representation in comics; and multi-award-winning, bestselling YA author and poet Catherine Fisher. As you may have gathered, this will be a wonderful opportunity for Fantasy scholars outside the US to hear one of genre’s most influential academics, as well as some fascinating insights from Dr Gibson and Catherine Fisher. As it happens, the call for papers on ‘Mapping the Mythosphere’ has also been extended to 28th January, so you still have time to get your abstracts in if you’d like the chance to appear alongside them.

GIFCon 2019 takes place over 23rd – 24th May. For more details of this year’s event, and how to submit your abstract to GIFCon, see www.gifcon.org.

Island Dynamics: Darkness conference

This coming weekend, I’ll be starting my two day journey to Svalbard, a small town inside the Arctic Circle, for this year’s Island Dynamics: Darkness conference. At this wonderfully interdisciplinary event, I’ll be presenting “That Place Was Trying to Show Me Something”: Womanspace, Balance, and the Dark Side of the Force in Star Wars: The Last Jedi, my rehabilitation of the Dark Side by comparison with sites of self-discovery in C.S. Lewis’s Till We Have Faces and Ursula K. Le Guin’s Earthsea saga.

This is a very special trip for me: not only is this my first solo conference event outside of Scotland, but I’ve longed to see the Arctic Circle for many years, and even the possibility of seeing the Aurora Borealis and the light display on the Global Seed Bank has me excited beyond words.

If you’re going along, I’ll see you over 15th – 16th January. If not, you can find out more about what you’re missing at https://darknessconference2019.wordpress.com/.

Before I go, just a reminder that GIFCon’s 2019 Call for Papers: ‘Mapping the Mythosphere’ closes on 14th January. We have some truly special guests lined up for you this year, who I can’t reveal just yet (sorry!), but trust me when I say that this will be an opportunity of a lifetime for European scholars of the Fantastic. In the meantime, if you’re a bit stuck for ideas for your abstract, this week, we’ll be running #PaperPrompts on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to kickstart your thoughts.

For more information about the current call for papers, including guidance on how to craft an abstract, head to www.gifcon.org.