Shaping Change: Remembering Octavia E. Butler Through Archives, Art, and Worldmaking Call for Proposals

[Moya Bailey]

Shaping Change: Remembering Octavia E. Butler Through Archives, Art, and Worldmaking Call for Proposals

Due 4/7/2016* Conference 6/3-5/2016

The Arthur C. Clarke Center for Human Imagination, the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers’ Workshop at University of California, San Diego, and the Octavia E. Butler Legacy Network invite proposal submissions for a three-day conference June 3-5, 2016 in honor of Octavia Butler. We invite proposals for papers, poems, performances, playlists, prescriptions, potions, procedures, and processes in celebration, admiration, and analysis of Butler that highlight her life, published work, engagement with her archives, and explorations of her impact on humanity. Her experiences as a working-class, quirky Black girl growing up in southern California profoundly shaped her life and writing. This regional gathering endeavors to engage these intersecting identities through multiple mediums and fields of study. We would like participants to consider how Butler’s work helps us imagine a future where justice is attainable and differences are celebrated and consider the following questions:

100 years from now, how have we shaped change (through art, activism, and archives) in the world? What have we left behind that that we can draw from our presents and pasts? What lessons in Butler’s life and writing will help forestall what seems like the inevitable collapse of human civilization?

We welcome submissions from artists, activists, academics, organizers, writers, educators, etc. *Please email your 250 word abstracts and 100 word bio to ShapingC...@gmail.com by April 7, 2016 for full consideration. Early submissions are encouraged. Participants will be notified beginning April 21, 2016.

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Moya Bailey

Northeastern University NULab

Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Postdoctoral Fellow

moyabailey.com

"All you touch you change." - Octavia Butler