MCLC: Sci-fi and Planetary Healing--cfp

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Sci-fi and Planetary Healing–cfp
CFP for a symposium on S-F* and Planetary Healing
at Tamkang University in Tamsui, Taiwan
(November 12, 2016)
Entitled “To the Future with Regrets: Writing S-F and Giving Voice to Planetary Healing,” this one-day symposium will be held on Saturday, November 12, 2016 at Tamkang University in Tamsui, Taiwan. It is our belief that, while the generic focus of Sci-fi is mainly on the hypothetical and the apocalyptic fate of the humans, our approach to S-F should not be limited to Sci-fi exclusively; we need to embrace speculative fiction in its most inclusive nature and diverse forms. By way of this “generic double-dipping” in critiquing earthly existence, we’ll multitask critical and constructive roles not just in predictions of the humans’ dubious pursuit of technological supremacy, but in assertive and interventional engagement with the present-day and on-going trends of human mastery of the natural world. Much like weather forecast and hazards prevention in our own times, we deploy the mode of S-F to explore the devolution and permutation of West-led modernity and its lopsided growth and progress as evidenced in petro-modernity, free-market economy, nuclear proliferation, population explosion, disease control via biomedicine, etc.
Equally viable and necessary is the call for cataclysmic healing by way of empowering the human imaginary and therapeutic landscapes. We have witnessed provocative visions via literary and filmic arts as vital alternative testimonies to jaded and often biased official accounts in retracing the outbreaks of human-made environmental disasters. We’ll revisit the “native-soil” writing of cultural rejuvenation in post-trauma China and Taiwan of the 1980s, and the on-going revival of the hoyo-culture after the nuclear meltdown of Fukoshima, Japan. We seek open dialogues among informed scholars and activists; we foster synergy for ways of thinking, modes of writing and life practices on S-F and planetary healing that can yield renewing forms of sustainability in urban growth, “stewardships” in resource consumption, disaster prevention and restorative relief.
We publish this CFP to invite those who are or will be in the vicinity of Taipei and Tamsui, to present at the scheduled panels or attend to contribute to the discussion of the two issues in the interest of ecocriticism in Taiwan, East Asia and the US. Please contact the Co-organizers: Peter Huang, Tamkang University, Taiwan at peter at mail.tku.edu.tw and/or Xinmin Liu, Center for Chinese Studies Taipei, Taiwan at xmliu33 at gmail.com
by denton.2 at osu.edu on September 17, 2016
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