DECODINGS
Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts Newsletter
Spring 2023, Vol. 32, No.3 (April 5 edition)
*Call for Papers SLSA 2023: Alien, Arizona State University, Game Studies Stream
*Election: Member-at-Large Candidate Statements
*Membership Renewal
*SLSA Awards: Travel, Essay, Lifetime
*Executive Committee Quarterly Meeting Notes
*Policies: Respectful Behavior and Freedom of Speech
*Ombudspersons
*New Book Series: Proximities: Experiments in Nearness
*AnthropoScene Book Series
*European Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts: Meeting May 18-21, 2023, Erlangen
CALL FOR PAPERS FOR SLSA 2023: Alien, Arizona State University, October 26-29
Organizers Adam Nocek and Stacey Moran announced that the Center for Philosophical Technologies in the School of Arts, Media, and Engineering at Arizona State University, Tempe AZ, will host the next annual meeting. The theme is “Alien,” and the meeting is scheduled for October 26-29, 2023. The organizers are arranging for conference meeting space and hotels and encourage proposals and inquiries.
Aliens are among us. They’re welcomed, subjugated, theorized, fetishized, and abhorred; they’re of this world and out of this world, in time and out of time, human and inhuman, with and without reference. And they’re also deeply embedded within the critical and speculative discourses of 21st century art, design, science, and theoretical humanities: from systems of political, economic, and legal alienation to alien forms of computational rationality, and the onslaught of xeno- architectures, feminisms, and materialisms, aliens are clearly among us. For these reasons, the alien landscape of the Sonoran Desert will play host to 2023 annual conference for the Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts.
We invite papers, panels, workshops, roundtables, and creative work that engages with the theme of Alien, broadly defined. We also welcome proposals addressing topics on other SLSA-related themes.
Deadline extended: All submissions are due by April 17, 2023.
The link for proposals is now open at https://easychair.org/my/conference?conf=slsa2023
Possible Topics
Immigration, citizenship, bordering/critical border studies, border-crossing, hybridity, (re)(de)territoriality, territory/neighborhood/urban/Cultural borderlands
Environmentalism, native/alien species/invasive/indigenous and overcoming the dichotomy, microbes,
biodiversity
Astrobiology, weird life
Alien landscapes, geographies
Alien encounters
Alienation, immigration, race and nationality; race, culture, identity
Alienation and economy Alienation and education
Alienation and belonging
Alien intelligence, animal intelligence (plant intelligence)
Alien reasoning, AI, computational rationality
Xeno-feminism, architecture, art, design, materialism
Disciplines that are ‘alien’ to one another
Monstrous other, feminism, racism, queer, abject
Science fiction, alien encounters, mythmaking
Violence exclusion and the making of alien bodies
Theoretical outsides Artistic outsides exo-planet
Reshape the relation between the in/human, extra/terrestrial, familiar/alien
Strangers to/in/of/… this world
All submissions are due by April 17, 2023: https://easychair.org/my/conference?conf=slsa2023
-Stand-alone papers: please submit title, 250-word abstracts, and bio
-Panels and streams: please provide a 250-word panel/stream description along with titles, individual abstracts, and bios
-Roundtables and workshops: please provide a 250-word abstract along with names and bios of participants
SLSA 2023 Organizing Committee: Conference Organizers: Adam Nocek, Stacey Moran
Art Exhibition Curators: DB Bauer, Luke Kautz, Erika Hanson Operations Coordinator: Silvia Neretti
Questions and concerns:
SLSA 2023 GAME STUDIES STREAM CFP!
Submit to the Game Studies Stream for SLSA 2023, October 26-29, at Arizona State University. We are planning for things to be in-person. This year’s conference theme is “Alien”:
https://litsciarts.org/
While it is not necessary to directly address the theme, possible topics might include games and aliens, aliens in games, gaming while alien, alien play, weird games, Halloween games, games and belonging, games and borders, games and citizenship, and so on. Work on digital or analog games welcome. We are thinking of constituting a few panels and perhaps a roundtable or reprise a “SLSArcade” depending on the number of submissions. Preformed panels are great, of course.
Please email Edmond Chang at change@ohio.edu: 1) title of your presentation, 2) your abstract (300 words), or 3) 3-5 keywords (i.e. what are your foci), and finally 4) your contact information and affiliation (name, title, email, institution) by Friday, March 31, 2023. Separately, if you have a game you would like to demo, please let us know.
2023 ELECTION: All 2022 and 2023 SLSA members will be sent an electronic ballot to elect a member-at-large to serve fall 2023-fall 2025, replacing Joshua DiCaglio and Anne Hudson Jones. Here are statements from the two candidates for the open member-at-large position:
Shane Denson, Associate Professor, Film and Media Studies, Stanford University
As a long-time member, I feel it is time to give back and become more involved in SLSA governance. As Member-at-Large, I hope to contribute to maintaining SLSA’s strong interdisciplinary profile, which matches my own trajectory: with a background in philosophy and literature, I now teach film & media studies in the Department of Art & Art History at Stanford, where I also hold appointments in German Studies and Communication and direct the PhD Program in Modern Thought & Literature. For more information about my work, which is primarily in the area of media aesthetics and media philosophy, please see shanedenson.com. It would be my pleasure to serve the SLSA community as Member-at-Large.
Paula Leverage, Associate Professor, School of Languages and Cultures, Purdue University
My experience chairing the 2022 SLSA conference afforded a global perspective of the diversity, depth and importance of the members’ work and left me with a profound appreciation for the society’s place within and beyond the academic world. I would like to continue to work closely with SLSA to help build and maintain its research and public humanities interests. As a faculty member in a School of Languages and Cultures, I bring experience with global languages and cultures, and an interest in expanding participation in the society from similar departments of other institutions.
MEMBERSHIP RENEWAL: All participants in annual SLSA conferences should be members of the society. Elections will be held in March for 2023 members. Please remember to renew your membership; rates are noted here: https://www.litsciarts.org/join-renew-membership/ Benefits of membership include the newsletter Decodings, the LITSCI listserv, and the journal Configurations, which explores the relations of literature and the arts to the sciences and technology. Founded in 1993, the journal continues to set the stage for transdisciplinary research concerning the interplay between science, technology, and the arts. https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/36 Members can access the Configurations online archive of articles, useful resources for teaching and scholarship at the above link.
SLSA AWARDS
Travel Awards: SLSA provides a limited number of travel awards for underfunded individuals attending the annual conference of the society. Members of SLSA who present at the annual conference may apply for travel subventions by emailing their name, title of their SLSA presentation, an indication of how long one has been a member of SLSA, and any information about their funding for the conference to Carol Colatrella, Executive Director, carol.colatrella@lmc.gatech.edu by August 1. Please provide estimated travel expenses and the amount of support (if any) anticipated from other sources. If you have received travel support from SLSA in the past, please include information about that support (when and how much). SLSA officers will review applications and approve funds for as many as our budget permits; preference will be given to students and those most in need. Each person awarded funds will be presented with a US check at the conference business meeting. SLSA travel funds can be used to defray hotel, registration, transportation, or other travel expenses
NSF Travel Awards: SLSA members who are US citizens or students enrolled in US institutions may apply for NSF funds to be applied to transportation to and from the conference and for conference registration. at https://airtable.com/shruYZ97cFfzgp2ky by August 5. Recipients will also need to upload receipts within two weeks after the conference at this link: https://airtable.com/shrcU9U7zoUk0vID8
NOTE: Eligible members may apply for both travel awards. See details at https://litsciarts.org/awards/
The Bruns Essay Prize: The Bruns Graduate Essay Prize, in honor of Edward F. Bruns, is awarded annually to the best essay written by a graduate student member of the Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts. Graduate students wishing to have their essays considered for the $500 prize should submit them by August 1 to N. Katherine Hayles, Department of English, Duke University, via electronic mail to katherine.hayles@duke.edu. Please send a copy of your formatted essay as a PDF or Word file or send a pointer to a URL where the essay is posted.
The Schachterle Essay Prize: Lance Schachterle, founding president of the society, has established an annual prize of $250 in honor of his parents to recognize the best new essay on literature and science written in English by a nontenured scholar. Eligible authors wishing to submit essays (published or accepted for publication) should send them prior to August 1 to SLSA’s Executive Director, Carol Colatrella, LMC, Georgia Institute of Technology via electronic mail to carol.colatrella@lmc.gatech.edu. Please send a copy of your formatted essay as a PDF or Word file or send a pointer to a URL where the essay is posted.
SLSA Michelle Kendrick Memorial Book Prize: SLSA holds an annual competition for the Michelle Kendrick Memorial Book Prize awarded each year to the best academic book on literature, science, and the arts published by an SLSA member. The prize will be announced at the annual SLSA conference. Established in the fall of 2006 in memory of Michelle Kendrick of Washington State University-Vancouver, an energetic, well-loved scholar of literature and science and long-time member of SLSA, the Kendrick Prize is open to any book of original scholarship on literature, science, and the arts published between July 1 and June 30 for awarding in the following fall. The winner will receive $250.00. To be considered for this year’s (or last’s) Kendrick Prize, please send three copies of your book by June 30 to: Professor Robert Markley, Department of English, 608 South Wright Street, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL 61801
Note: All awards described above are presented during the Business Meeting of the annual fall conference. One may submit only one entry to one of the two essay prize competitions.
SLSA Lifetime Achievement Award: Laura Otis, chair of the Lifetime Achievement Award Committee, and members Elizabeth Donaldson and Dennis Summers call for nominations for the award. Send nominations of candidates whose significant, interdisciplinary scholarship or artwork is exemplary of SLSA to lotis@emory.edu, edonalds@nyit.edu, and dennis@quantumdanceworks.com.
Quarterly Executive Meeting Notes, February 3, 2023
Attending: David Cecchetto, Rajani Sudan, Josh DiCaglio, Amanda Greene, Raymond Malewitz, Anne Hudson Jones, Melissa Littlefield, Elizabeth Donaldson, Paula Leverge, Ranjodh Singh Dhaliwal, Edmond Chang, Wayne Miller, Dennis Summers, Jay Labinger, Alan Rauch, Carol Colatrella
President’s Report: David reported that he and Arielle Saiber have received many proposals for the Proximities book series, and he indicated that the series from University of Minnesota Press will soon publish two books and more proposals for volumes have been accepted for publication. Send inquiries and proposals to him and Arielle. A call for papers for the series is posted at https://litsciarts.org/proximitiesflyer.pdf
Configurations: Journal editors Rajani and Melissa indicated that contributors and reviewers are taking longer to complete their work, which affects the production schedule.
2023 Conference: Wayne reported that Adam and Stacey have selected Easy Chair as the platform for the 2023 SLSA at ASU. The link for proposals is now open at https://easychair.org/my/conference?conf=slsa2023
2024 Conference: Rajani will plan the conference with Dallas area colleagues, including Pam Gossin.
Update to Conference Guidelines: Josh, David, Rajani, Melissa, Ed, Ranjodh, Elizabeth, and Dennis engaged in discussion about the pros and cons of incorporating “streamed” panels of papers at SLSA. After the meeting, David added this note summarizing the executive’s perspective on the issue to SLSA conference guidelines: “There is a standing practice of individuals organizing “streams” at SLSA, which typically consist of two or more pre-formed panels. It is helpful to include reference to this practice in the CFP, and to ask people who plan to organize a stream to reach out to organizers early in the process. The CFP should include a statement advising people to subscribe to the list-serv so that they don’t miss specific calls for participants on streams. In many (but not all) cases, it is appropriate to suggest that stream organizers post their specific calls to the list-serv.”
Social Media: Email Ed Chang and Ranjodh with news to be posted on Facebook and Twitter.
Bylaws Update: The executive committee has proposed updated SLSA Bylaws to reflect current practices. Members are requested to review the proposed Bylaws now posted at
https://litsciarts.org/2023/02/03/draft-bylaws-feb-2-2023/ Email Carol with any suggested revisions by April 1, 2023. Members attending SLSA 2023 at ASU will be asked to vote on the proposed Bylaws.
SLSA COMMITTEE MEMBERS AND APPOINTMENTS: SOCIAL MEDIA
Wayne Miller, Electronic Resources Coordinator, asks for new images for the SLSA website homepage (litsciarts.org). Ranjodh Singh Dhaliwal has joined Ed Chang in developing SLSA social media, Twitter and Facebook respectively. SLSA members interested in contributing to social media on behalf of the society are encouraged to email Ed (change@ohio.edu) and Ranjodh (rdhaliwa@nd.edu).
POLICIES ADOPTED: Respectful Behavior and Freedom of Speech & Call for Ombudspersons
The updated policies are posted here:
Any member interested in volunteering to serve as ombudsperson, should apply by emailing Carol Colatrella (carol.colatrella@lmc.gatech.edu); include a short statement of why you are interested in serving in this role and what experience you can bring the position. Current officers will review applications to make appointments.
Role of SLSA Ombudsperson
Each Ombudsperson is an impartial entity who strives to see that SLSA members and SLSA conference attendees are treated fairly and equitably. Any member/attendee can seek the advice of an Ombudsperson. The Ombudsperson is impartial, neutral, and confidential. The rights and interests of all parties to disputes are considered, with the goal of achieving fair outcomes. The primary responsibilities of the Ombudsperson are:
Ombudspersons: Marcel O’Gorman (marcel@uwaterloo.ca) and Kari Nixon (knixon@whitworth.edu)
NEW SLSA BOOK SERIES Proximities: Experiments in Nearness, from University of Minnesota Press: Adjacencies abound. We are past the moment of merely thinking in terms of how opposites attract and nodes network. Today, disciplines and fields move consciously proximate to one another, in conversation and growing together. Further, the future is no longer sometime in the distance, but appears near to us, often grasped as an impending horizon of political, social, economic, and environmental catastrophe. Now more than ever, so much is so close. See the Call for Proposals (https://litsciarts.org/proximitiesflyer.pdf) for more information.
Books in the Proximities series think proximately, that is, in disciplinary tandem, about the relationships within and between the arts, literature, and science, as well as how scholarship can best be in active dialogue with communities and the world around us today, and in the future. Published in association with the Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts, this series not only thinks across disciplines, but thinks about the continuities and crossings themselves, interrogating how and why their disciplinary proximities matter. Proximities publishes work that is crafted with nearness in mind: human nearness to one another and the world around us; nearness to one another’s thoughts; to our written and unwritten pasts; to critical trends and crises; to our futures ahead. This kind of scholarship powerfully catalyzes awareness of what it means to work interdisciplinarily by challenging assumptions about disciplinary thinking from the outside in, and the inside out. If interested in submitting a proposal, please contact the editors with a short description of your book project.
Series Editors: David Cecchetto—York University (Toronto, Canada) dcecchet@yorku.ca and Arielle Saiber—Johns Hopkins University asaiber@jhu.edu
ANTHROPOSCENE: PREVIOUS SLSA BOOK SERIES, PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS AnthropoScene is a book series from Penn State University Press, published in collaboration with the Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts. While not all scientists have accepted the term “anthropocene” as part of the geological timescale, the idea that humans are changing the planet and its environments in radical and irreversible ways has provoked new kinds of cross-disciplinary thinking about relationships among the arts, human technologies, and nature. This is the broad, cross-disciplinary basis for books published in the series. Books in this series include specialized studies for scholars in a variety of disciplines as well as widely accessible works of interest to broad audiences. Send questions to: Kendra Boileau, Assistant Director and Editor‐in‐Chief, at
kboileau@psu.edu. Or contact the SLSA liaison for the series, Pamela Gossin at psgossin@utdallas.edu or psgossin@gmail.com.
AnthropoScene: The SLSA Book Series https://www.psupress.org/emailassets/NR_SLSA_1021.html
Electromagnetism and the Metonymic Imagination by Kieran Murphy
Love in a Time of Slaughters: Human-Animal Stories Against Genocide and Extinction by Susan McHugh
Anthropocene Reading: Literary History in Geologic Times. Edited by Tobias Menely and Jesse Oak Taylor
Editing the Soul: Science and Fiction in the Genome Age by Everett Hamner
The Art of Identification Eds. Rex Ferguson, Melissa M. Littlefield, and James Purdon
Fear and Nature: Ecohorror Stories from the Anthropcene. Eds. Christy Tidwell and Carter Soles
Fragments from the History of Loss by Louise Green
Oil Fictions. Eds. Stacey Balkan and Swaralipi Nandi.
Under the Literary Microscope. Eds. Sina Farzin, Susan M. Gaines, and Roslynn D. Haynes
SLSA Member Discount from Penn State University Press: Use promo code NR21 for 30% off AnthropoScene titles purchased directly, plus free domestic shipping and discounts on foreign shipping!
EUROPEAN Society for Literature, Science, and the Art is the sister organization of the international, USA-based Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts. SLSAeu welcomes colleagues in the humanities, the social sciences, the arts, and all fields of science, medicine, engineering, and computer sciences as well as independent scholars, artists, and scientists. https://www.slsa-eu.org/.
The next meeting of SLSAeu will be hosted by the Center for Literature and Natural Science in Erlangen, Germany, and will be held May 18-21, 2023. A call for proposals with contact information is available on the SLSA homepage: https://litsciarts.org/
SLSA EXECUTIVE BOARD (FALL 2022/WINTER 2023)
President: David Cecchetto, York University, Toronto (dcecchet@yorku.ca)
Executive Director: Carol Colatrella, Georgia Institute of Technology (carol.colatrella@lmc.gatech.edu)
First Vice-President: Rajani Sudan, Southern Methodist University (rsudan@mail.smu.edu)
Second Vice-President: Adam Nocek, Arizona State University (Adam.Nocek@asu.edu)
Members-at-Large: Joshua DiCaglio (2021-23); Anne Hudson Jones (2021-23); Amanda K. Greene (2022-24).
Graduate Student Liaisons: Ben Platt (plattbe@oregonstate.edu), Another position open
Configurations Editors: Melissa Littlefield, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Rajani Sudan, Southern Methodist University. Configurations Email address:
configurations@smu.edu
Configurations Book Review Editor: Jeffrey Karnicky, Department of English, 2505 University Avenue,
Drake University, Des Moines, IA 50311. Email: jeff.karnicky@drake.edu
Publications Committee: Pamela Gossin; Raymond Malewitz; Bruce Clarke
Electronic Resources Coordinator: Wayne Miller (wayne.miller@gmail.com)
Arts Liaisons: Dennis Summers (dennis@quantumdanceworks.com); Maria Whiteman (mtw1@iu.edu)
Social Media Liaisons: Ed Chang (change@ohio.edu); Adriana Knouf (a.knouf@northeastern.edu); Ranjodh
Singh Dhaliwal (rdhaliwa@nd.edu)
Ombudspersons: Marcel O’Gorman (marcel@uwaterloo.ca) and Kari Nixon (knixon@whitworth.edu)
Past Presidents: Marcel O’Gorman, University of Waterloo; Ron Broglio, Arizona State University; Robert Markley, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Laura Otis, Emory University; Richard Nash, Indiana University; Alan Rauch, University of North Carolina-Charlotte; Bruce Clarke, Texas Tech University; Eve Keller, Fordham University; Jay Labinger, California Institute of Technology; T. Hugh Crawford, Georgia Tech; Susan Squier, Penn State; Sidney Perkowitz, Emory University; Stuart Peterfreund, Northeastern University; James J. Bono, SUNY-Buffalo; N. Katherine Hayles, Duke University; Mark Greenberg, Drexel University; Lance Schachterle, Worcester Polytechnic Institute; Stephen J. Weininger, Worcester Polytechnic Institute
The Executive Director can be reached at (404) 894-1241 or carol.colatrella@lmc.gatech.edu.
Postal address: Carol Colatrella, Executive Director, SLSA, School of Literature, Media, and Communication,
Georgia Institute of Technology, 686 Cherry Street, Atlanta, GA 30332-0165
SLSA websites:
http://www.litsciarts.org and http://slsa.press.jhu.edu
