Conservative SF – SFRA Review

Features

Call for Papers: Conservative/Right-Wing Science Fiction

The Editorial Collective

Editor’s Note: We are extending the deadline for this symposium in order to further publicize it: we did not receive the volume of submissions this topic deserves, and encourage scholars of SF to consider submitting a proposal.

While the dramatic resurgence of conservative, right-wing, and openly fascist movements became more visibly mainstream once the Trump 2016 campaign began to develop momentum, the SF world had already been introduced to this growth in unapologetically right-wing discourse via the controversies surrounding the various Puppies movements and their attempts to hijack the major awards in the years immediately prior. With the dramatic success of right-wing movements in the years before and since 2016, we of the SF community are well-suited to explore the works and worlds of SF created by right-wing authors as well as authors estranging right-wing discourse.

The SFRA Review is interested in short papers addressing conservative/right-wing SF in all its manifestations: literature, film, other media, games. We are also interested in papers addressing the science-fictionality of right-wing discourse outside of explicitly SF media.

Papers should be from 3000-5000 words in length, with references in MLA style and few if any discursive footnotes.
Our primary areas of interest are how right-wing discourse manifests in SF, how SF estranges right-wing discourse and how 21st-century conservative discourse takes on a science-fictional aspect.
Papers by conservative writers, or papers that take a conservative stance on works or the genre of SF, are absolutely welcome. Racism, etc., will not be tolerated, but a good-faith conservative argument is well within the purview of this collection.
Papers that engage with conservative theorists or media figures are also absolutely welcome, insofar as the papers address the science-fictionality of their discourse. Again, good-faith argumentation is our goal here; so long as the argument of the paper itself does not engage in (e.g.) gender essentialism, we welcome papers that address such tropes in the writing/speech of conservative theorists or figures.
Papers that engage with conservative/reactionary approaches by fandom to changes in works, genres or the overall discourse of SF, broadly defined, are also welcome.
Metacommentary about (e.g.) the Puppies is welcome; however, we are more interested in literary analysis, in the broadest sense, of works of SF and/or right-wing discourse.
Much right-wing SF is of questionable literary quality: we are less interested in papers whose primary rationale is to point this out than we are in how and why right-wing tropes manifest or are estranged in works of right-wing SF or discourse.
Images should be at least 2000 pixels wide; given that this is literary analysis, the exceptions to copyright for fair use will apply.
Please send email to Ian Campbell (icampbell@gsu.edu) with the subject line SFRA Conservative SF and a brief description of your paper by 15 September 2022. Any other queries should be sent to this address, as well, with the same subject line.
Complete drafts are due 15 February 2023.
Edits will be due 15 April 2023.
Papers will be published in the Spring 2023 issue (53.2) on 01 May 2023.

We sincerely hope that you will be interested in what we feel is an important aspect of SF in these current times and encourage you to submit.