Call for Abstracts

[zakk]

Call for Abstracts

The Ultimate Star Trek and Philosophy

Edited by Kevin S. Decker and Jason T. Eberl

The Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture Series

Please circulate and post widely.
Apologies for cross-posting.

To propose ideas for future volumes in the Blackwell series please contact the Series Editor, William Irwin, at williamirwin@kings.edu

If you have comments or criticisms for the series, please contact the series editor after reading "Fancy Taking a Pop?" at http://www.psychologytoday.com/files/attachments/55564/fancy-taking-pop.pdf and 
"Writing for the Reader: A Defense of Philosophy and Popular Culture Books" at http://commons.pacificu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1490&context=eip

Abstracts and subsequent essays should be philosophically substantial but accessible, written to engage the intelligent lay reader. Works focusing on the five television series and twelve Star Trek films are acceptable, and supplementary material from the ST "expanded universe" of novels, comics and video games can be included. Contributors of accepted essays will receive an honorarium.

Possible themes and topics might include, but are not limited to, the following:
Sisko, Sarek, and Beverly Crusher as Parental Role Models; Prophecy and Fate on DS9; Uhura's Miniskirt and Captain Janeway: Feminism in Star Trek; "I Have Been and Always Shall Be Your Friend": The Value of Friendship on Starships; "The One with the Whales": Star Trek's Ecological Ethic; "A Very Correct Philosophy": Justifying the Prime Directive; A Secular Galaxy? Roddenberry's Humanist Vision of the Future; "It was...Fun": Metaphysics and Value of Death; From Jeffries to Okuda: Aesthetics of the Future; The Founders' Xenophobia: Race Theory in the Gamma Quadrant; Starships as "Home": The "Pioneering Spirit" vs. the "Nesting Instinct"; "Observer Effect": Ethics and Scientific Research; From Terrorist to Vedek: Moral Redemption and Rehabilitation; Principles vs. Pragmatism: Should Janeway Cling to Federation Values in the Delta Quadrant?; "Cogenitor": Ethical Relativism vs. Objectivism; Scotty as a "Relic": Elder Ethics; Justifiable Genocide? The Xindi's Prime Directive; David Marcus and Degra: Moral Responsibility for Technological Creations; "To Grow Beyond My Original Programming": Phenomenology of Inventing Oneself; "Theiss Titillation Theory": Sex in Star Trek; "Guilty Until Proven Innocent": Cardassian and Q Justice; Denobulans and Andorians: Alternative Family Structures in the Alpha Quadrant; "A Matter of Honor": Klingon's Warrior Ethic; "She's the Captain": Values in Leadership; Gary Mitchell and the Q: Does Absolute Power Corrupt Absolutely?; "...as We are Above the Amoeba": Is Incorporeality More Evolved?; An Extended Mind: Metaphysics of the Borg Collective Consciousness; A Heidegerrian View of Technology in Star Trek; "Risk is Our Business": Moral Value of Risk-Taking; Meta-Star Trek: Importance of Humor and Parody; "Trekkies/ers": Recognition and Subcultural Group Identity; The Hirogen and the Ethics of Hunting; Is Interspecies Cooperation Realistic?: Rousseau vs. Hobbes; Which Spock is the Real One? Alternate Universes and Identity; "The Needs of the Many": Starfleet's Utilitarian Ethic; Is Star Trek for Children?

Submission Guidelines:
1. Submission deadline for abstracts (100-500 words) and CVs: December 1, 2014.
2. Submission deadline for drafts of accepted papers: March 1, 2015.

Kindly submit by e-mail (with or without Word attachment) to: jeberl@marian.edu




www.psychologytoday.com
www.psychologytoday.com

[zakk]

SPECIAL ISSUE CALL FOR PAPERS BULLETIN OF SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, & SOCIETY

Deadline: February 01 2015

http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/bsts

Updated: October 10 2014

& for more info on BSTS: E DITOR - IN - CHIEF Susan Carol Losh Florida State University slosh@fsu.edu

SUBMIT YOUR MANUSCRIPT DUE February 1 st 2015 • A manuscript length between 5000 - 7000 words in length is strongly recommended • Format in Times New Roman, 12 point, double spaced). • For Book Reviews, we invite authors to review science fiction novels for their scholarly value in 600 - 800 words .

The relation between science and society is often heavily influenced by and identified in the intermediary figurations portrayed in the genre of science fiction. This depiction evokes a simultaneously important and yet all too simple dimension: Western popular culture has reflected on the signs and portents, utopian and nightmarish potentials, and promised comforts and current and future ethical crises of science in form of narrativizations from Jules Verne, Robert Heinlein, Ursula LeGuin , Iain Banks, Gene Roddenberry, Octavia Butler, Ron Moore, Margaret Atwood, and Charles Stross , in the form of novels and short stories, whether the Island of Dr. Moreau , Starship Trooper , or Halting State , Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders , Dune , Oryx and Crake , to movies and television, such as Star Trek, Babylon 5, The Jetsons , Orphan Black, ReGenesis , I, Robot, A.I., Minority Report, Gattaca , Battlestar Galactica , etc..

The influence on the popular perception of the potentials and promises of science as well on many innovative ideas that would become science offer exciting opportunities for critical reflections on these texts and media. We welcome both general reflections on this discourse as well as specific contributions that focus on a particular aspect of science or a chosen fiction, as well as social studies of "geek" or "nerd" culture that focus on the relation of geeks and science in this special issue. But the issue (whether the issue of Science/Sci - Fi or our SPECIAL ISSUE ) is not exhausted with discourse on science and science fiction that identifies Western popular culture with a global popular culture.

And even within the Western or Northern Sci - Fi discourse, ideologies, imperialisms, and biases determine the inclusion/exclusion of authors, characters, plots, etc. An author such as Octavia Butler is to this day the exception rather than the rule in a genre that is still dominated by white male writers. We therefore also actively invite authors who want to address the issue from within feminist, standpoint, intersectional, and queer discourses. Science Fiction is also not a Western invention nor exclusive to the Western discourse, in the same terms that STS has interrogated the Western colonial attitude towards non - Western and indigenous knowledges and their disqualification. Along those lines, we want to encourage writers who work with non - Western, postcolonial and decolonial subject matters. Finally we encourage what we would like to call 'Experiments in Social Science Fictions'; we approve of writers who use STS and social and political science ideas creatively, as tools to 'think with,' rather than producing 'yet another case study'. Science Fiction includes promises and predictions about what the future would, could, or should look like.

An active contribution by the science studies and the social sciences may prevent us saying one day " Woulda , Coulda , Shoulda ".

SCIENCE & SCIENCE FICTION with Special Issue Editors Alexander I. Stingl & Sabrina M. Weiss

got questions? CONTACT SPECIAL ISSUE EDITORS : Alexander Stingl , Drexel University nomadicscholarship@gmail.com Sabrina Weiss , RIT sabrinamweiss@gmail.com