call: Zero Future
Call for entries
Deadline: 14 April 2014
ZERO FUTURE: is the future obsolete?
Conference: Friday, November 7, 2014
A dayâ€long conference associated with
The HTMlles 11 | ZER0 FUTURE
Feminist festival of media arts + digital culture
Festival: November 7 †15, 2014
CALL FOR PAPERS: deadline April 14, 2014
The McGill Institute for Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies (IGSF) is pleased to invite presentation proposals for a oneâ€day
conference entitled “ZER0 FUTUREâ€. The conference is associated with The HTMlles 11 “ZER0 FUTURE†feminist festival of
media arts + digital culture, produced by Studio XX held November 7â€15 in Montreal, Canada.
The HTMlles is an international platform dedicated to the presentation of women’s, trans and gender nonâ€conforming artists’
independent media artworks in a transdisciplinary environment that strives for antiâ€oppression.
Friday, November 7, 2014 †A dayâ€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 antiâ€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 nonâ€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 postâ€graduate scholars to apply, though submissions will also be accepted from faculty and nonâ€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 nonâ€market value can coâ€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 250â€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”>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 Conferenceâ€). All abstracts must be submitted electronically, in PDF format.
More info:
https://www.mcgill.ca/igsf/
http://htmlles.net
http://htmlles11.tumblr.com/
