Call for Papers
Science Fiction from Literature to the Screen (TV and/or Film) Area
2008 Film & History Conference
"Science Fiction from Literature to the Big or Small Screen"
October 30-November 2, 2008
Chicago, Illinois
www.uwosh.edu/filmandhistory
Third-Round Deadline: August 1, 2008
Science Fiction Across the Screens
Adaptation has become a major focus of contemporary film studies, as several recent
conferences devoted to the subject and the new Oxford University Press journal
Adaptation might suggest. However, those studies have typically downplayed or
neglected two key areas of adaptation. The first is genre narratives, as there has been
relatively little consideration given to the sort of formulaic narratives—horror, thriller,
and especially science fiction texts—that largely dominate contemporary popular
cinema. A second neglected area is one of media cross-over—and crossfertilization—particularly between film and television, as few attempts have been
made to study how these two media increasingly influence each other’s offerings.
Science Fiction Across the Screens seeks to address both of these neglected areas,
while focusing on what is arguably the most important of contemporary genres,
science fiction. To this end, the area’s co-chairs seek presentations that examine key
texts on multiple sides of the adaptation issue, and that can contribute to an
understanding of the sort of revisioning that is occurring today in science-fiction
media. Emphasis should be on science-fiction films that have generated television
series, on television series that have inspired popular science-fiction films, or on other
media incarnations—such as webisodes, phonisodes, on-line fiction, etc.—that draw
on film or televisual science-fiction texts.
We hope that the papers for this area will offer insights into the manner in which our
popular media interact, cross-pollinate their texts, and contribute to the reshaping of
our media experiences across the various “screens” on which we experience science
fiction.
Please send your 200-word proposal by August 1, 2008, to both chairs:
Gerald Duchovnay
General Editor, Post Script
Dept. of Literature and Languages
Texas A&M University-Commerce
Commerce, TX 75429-3011 USA
2
Email: Gerald_Duchovnay@tamu-commerce.edu
And
J. P. Telotte
School of Literature, Communication and Culture
Georgia Institute of Technology
Atlanta, GA 30332-0165 USA
Email: jay.telotte@lcc.gatech.edu
Panel proposals for up to four presenters are also welcome, but each presenter must submit
his or her own paper proposal. Deadline for third-round proposals: August 1, 2008.
This area, comprising multiple panels, is a part of the 2008 biennial Film & History
Conference, sponsored by The Center for the Study of Film and History. Speakers will
include founder John O'Connor and editor Peter C. Rollins (in a ceremony to celebrate the
transfer to the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh); Wheeler Winston Dixon, author of
Visions of the Apocalypse, Disaster and Memory, and Lost in the Fifties: Recovering Phantom
Hollywood; Sidney Perkowitz, Charles Howard Candler Professor of Physics at Emory
University and author of Hollywood Science: Movies, Science, & the End of the World; and
special-effects legend Stan Winston, our Keynote Speaker. For updates and registration
information about the upcoming meeting, see the Film & History website
(www.uwosh.edu/filmandhistory <http://www.uwosh.edu/filmandhistory> ).