Call for Papers: ‘Humanity in Extremis:  Modern Dystopias’

A Conference at the University of Regina:  February 8-9, 2019

Keynote Speaker:  Cherie Dimaline, author of The Marrow Thieves (2017)

Imaginary and real dystopian worlds occupy an important place in contemporary culture.  Popular television series such as the adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale or the Netflix series, The Rain, invite the viewer to imagine humanity in extremis, subject to intense environmental, social or psychological pressures.  Novelists like Cormac McCarthy (The Road) and Omar el Akaad (American War) present post-apocalyptic worlds in which the struggle to survive exposes humanity’s frailties as well as its potentialities.  Others, like Naomi Alderman (The Power) imagine worlds in which normative relationships defined by gender, class, or race are turned upside down.  Such works are revealing both of contemporary anxieties and our enduring fascination with what it means to be human.  This call for papers invites proposals for papers, presentations, or performances from all disciplines that reflect upon the relationship between modern Dystopias and the human condition.  Topics may include:

• Feminist Dystopias
• Urban Dystopias
• Refugees and Dystopia
• Environmental catastrophe and Dystopia
• Technological and Digital Dystopias
• Military Dystopias
• Indigenous Dystopias
• Capitalist / Consumer Dystopias
• Dystopias, Past, Present and Future / Real and Unreal
• The Dystopian Critique of Language
• The Dystopian Survivor’s Tale
• Communication and the Cryptic in Dystopian worlds
• Dystopia and Resistance / Dystopia and the Underground

Please submit paper proposals (300 words) and a brief CV to humanities.research@uregina.ca.

Deadline for submission of proposals:  September 30, 2018.