Provocative Parables at the Intersection of the Secular and the Supernatural #CFP

Synopsis: A number of anniversaries in 2021 — the tenth of the premiere of David Benioff and W.B. Weiss’ television series, Game of Thrones, Tom Perrotta’s novel, The Leftovers, and Terrence Malick’s film, The Tree of Life, and the twentieth of Neil Gaiman’s novel, American Gods — is a provocative occasion for a critical reexamination of these and related parables at the intersection of the secular and the supernatural, in their original formulations and as they have developed subsequently. (A few additional examples, albeit not enjoying similar anniversaries, include, say, The Dark Tower, Dune, Gilead, The Handmaid’s Tale and The Testaments, His Dark Materials and The Book of Dust, Lost, Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents, Raised by Wolves, and The Satanic Verses.) The intended panel/roundtable will explore such a reexamination.

All approaches are welcome.

Submission guidelines: Please forward a detailed abstract, roughly three to five hundred words in length, together with a cv, by December 30, 2020, to Trip McCrossin, Department of Philosophy, Rutgers University, at: [email protected]. Selected participants will be added to the schedule by the Area’s Chair. (Please do not submit directly using the conference website’s dedicated submission link, especially if you may want to present in other ways, in accordance with the following guidelines: “One person cannot be added to more than one paper proposal per conference. You may only send one proposal to one area at one time. If for some reason, your abstract is not accepted by an area, you may then send it to an alternative area. However, an individual may submit one creative work or be a part of one roundtable in addition to presenting a paper” (http://pcaaca.org/conference/submitting-paper-proposal-pca-conference).

Inquiries, expressions of interest, general or particular, questions and concerns, and so on and so forth to: [email protected].

Of possible related interest:

The Dune Series Ranked, and the Question of White Saviors

Retrospective: Chapterhouse Dune

A call for papers: ReFocus: The Films of Alejandro Jodorowsky

A call for papers from The Witch Institute

A call for papers on gender, race, and beyond in superhero cinema

There are two new Dune board games, called Dune and Dune: Imperium.