[spectre] Call for Papers // ZER0 FUTURE: Is The Future Obsolete?

[Sophie Le-Phat Ho]

/ sorry for x-postings /

ZER0 FUTURE: Is The Future Obsolete?
Call for Papers
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 at 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.

More info:
https://www.mcgill.ca/igsf/events + http://htmlles.net/ + http://htmlles11.tumblr.com/
https://www.facebook.com/events/219076518300166/
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