Call for Papers | ZER0 FUTURE: Is The Future Obsolete?
Deadline: Monday, April 14, 2014
The McGill Institute for Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies (IGSF) is pleased to invite presentation proposals for a one-day conference entitled “ZER0 FUTURE”. The conference is associated with The HTMlles 11 “ZER0 FUTURE” feminist festival of media arts + digital culture, produced by Studio XX held November 7-15 in Montreal, Canada.
The HTMlles is an international platform dedicated to the presentation of women’s, trans and gender non-conforming artists’ independent media artworks in a transdisciplinary environment that strives for anti-oppression.
Friday, November 7, 2014
A day-long conference associated with
The HTMlles 11 | ZER0 FUTURE
Feminist festival of media arts + digital culture
The “ZER0 FUTURE” festival and conference contemplate the intersecting, hopeful and dystopian imaginaries of current futurisms. While the 1990s marked the end of the century that mobilized around the promise and seeming progress of the future, the start of the 21st century has witnessed the intensification of economic crises and global climactic events that increasingly call the future into question. On television screens, on portable game players and in popular music cultures, zombies, aliens and other monstrous and fantastical figures have proliferated, taking shape in cultural formations such as afrofuturism, cyberfeminism, in queer and feminist manifestoes, and in feminist and anti-colonial reinventions of future temporality.
We invite submissions for conference presentations that shed light on the perception of today’s futures, including critical and creative interventions inspired by (but not limited to): afrofuturism, chicanafuturism, feminist cyberpunk, utopian and dystopic cyberfeminism or other feminist science fiction and queer futurity, for instance. We will accept submissions for both academic talks and non-traditional conference presentations. Submissions will be accepted in either English or French (though please note that the conference will only offer passive translation for those who need it). We particularly encourage graduate students and post-graduate scholars to apply, though submissions will also be accepted from faculty and non-academic participants.
- After more than a century, should we still care about “the future”?
- Are negativity, nihilism, cynicism and irony useful ethics, or simply more politics of the privileged?
- What sort of creativity can come out of being liberated from the future?
- How do we negotiate the tension that exists between an oppressive future in the present and making the present our terrain of struggle in order to (re)build community?
- What sort of non-market value can co-emerge “without a future” and the refusal of neoliberal resilience/positivity?
- What kind of feminist ethics can we create by differently orienting ourselves to the future?
- Is the notion of Zero Future frightening, encouraging or something else?
- How should we, or ought we, embrace together Zero Future?
Submissions
Interested persons should submit a 250-word abstract including a title, a short bio and contact information to Prof. Carrie Rentschler, Director, Institute for Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies, at info.igsf@mcgill.ca by Monday April 14, 2014. .
As the subject line of your email, please include your last name followed by: Zero Future Conference (eg: “Smith: Abstract Zero Future Conference”). All abstracts must be submitted electronically, in PDF format.