CfP: EUROFAN & GFF Annual Conference 2011

EUROFAN: New Directions in Post-Cold War European Fantastic

As part of the
Salzburg Annual Conferences in English Literature and Culture

and in collaboration with the
Arts & Aesthetics program area
(Focus »Science and Art«)

an der
Salzburg University
29. September to 1. October 2011

organized by
Sabine Coelsch-Foisner, Sarah Herbe and Markus Oppolzer

Since the end of the Cold War, fantastic texts, films, artworks and new media practices have addressed social and political issues across Europe.

We don't understand the fantastic as a finished product, but a dynamic process and a very specific way of dealing with reality. The fantastic breaks through the mimetic through supernatural, magical and visionary means. In this way she transcends the boundaries of literary genres, spaces and identities. The fantastic initiates new dialogues about time, space and societies and feeds contemporary technologies of culture production and their use in the daily lives of more and more Europeans. Europe's cultural diversity offers a unique opportunity to examine how contemporary fantastic as a global cultural phenomenon is locally generated and reinterpreted in transnational debate. Through changing networks of publishers, audiovisual industries, digital media, online communities, visitor attractions and tourism infrastructure, the fantastic has reached unprecedented dimensions. Since it traditionally permeates literary genres, cultural practices and places of art and cultural mediation, it plays a central role in cultural and socio-political transfer. With the fall of the Berlin Wall, an era of massive changes and upheavals began in Europe. This includes rethinking categories such as capitalism and communism, East and West, national and transnational, homeland and migration, borders and border crossings, past and future, identity and society. At the same time, new fantastic forms that transcend the boundaries of high and popular culture have emerged.

The aim of the conference is to shed light on how the fantastic reacts to and shapes the dynamic cultural contexts in Europe, how it contributes to the cognitive and affective dimensions of European identity, what role it plays in cultural exchanges between European societies and communities after the Cold War coming. Of particular interest are transformations of the fantastic in literary production, in (auto-)biographical writing, in film, folklore, computer and role-playing games, in cultural infrastructures such as museums and multi-sensory attractions, events and social practices. We welcome proposals that address the following questions:

Genre change: How did the cultural and socio-political developments of the post-Cold War era change the perception of fantastic genres and what new terminologies emerged during this period? What is the political significance of the genre change for the different settings? How has the growing cultural acceptance of the fantastic influenced concepts of high and low culture, and how could it develop into a privileged site for engaging with cultural identities?
Fantastic film and new media: what is the role of the fantastic in European cinema? By what means does film manage and articulate the relationships between nation, Europe and international capital since the end of the Cold War? What effects do contemporary media have on the fantastic and vice versa, how have strategies of the fantastic paved the way for the emergence of contemporary media cultures? (participatory media culture, »media convergence«, fan fiction)?
Cultural infrastructures and social practices: What role do cultural infrastructures play in the construction of history and the communication of cultural values ​​through narrative and multisensory experience? How are places of cultural memory, history, trauma, museum facilities and visitor attractions emotionalized with the help of fantastic mechanisms and topoi? What role does the fantastic play in the construction and reshaping of different categories of identity in the new Europe (retoldings of myths and folklore, festivals, events, performances)?
We ask all interested parties to send proposals of no more than 350 words, including contact details and short biographical information, to the organizing team by January 15, 2011:

Prof. Dr. Sabine Coelsch-Foisner
University of Salzburg
Department of English and American Studies
Academy Street 24
5020 Salzburg, Austria
Tel .: + 43-662-8044-4422
Fax: +43-662-8044-167
Email: sabine.coelsch-foisner@sbg.ac.at

dr Sarah Herbe
University of Salzburg
Department of English and American Studies
Academy Street 24
5020 Salzburg, Austria
Tel .: + 43-662-8044-4402
Fax: +43-662-8044-167
Email: sarah.herbe@sbg.ac.at
and

dr Markus Oppolzer
University of Salzburg
Department of English and American Studies
Academy Street 24
5020 Salzburg, Austria
Tel .: + 43-662-8044-4408
Fax: +43-662-8044-167
Email: markus.oppolzer@sbg.ac.at