Although science fiction has been a popular literary genre in several South Asian languages it has received little critical attention. The absence is even more acute in the areas of cinema, theatre, radio, television, the visual arts, and new media. This lack of scholarship leads to the misassumption that science fiction has been of little consequence to the South Asian literary, cinematic and artistic imaginations. However, this has hardly been the case, as one realizes from the popularity of vernacular science fiction over at least two centuries of literary history. In more recent times,cinema, painting, installation art, graphic novels, plays, as well as radio and television series have drawn upon science fiction to generate new inquiries into time, space, history and memory, raising ontological questions about technology’s interface with the contemporary world.
This issue is an attempt to recover and assess the histories and imaginaries of science fiction in South Asia across a diverse range of mediatised, artistic and literary forms. It marks a small step towards calibrating the region’s scientific and technological imagination outside of a developmental paradigm. We seek to solicit contributions from scholars, filmmakers, artists, writers, as well as sci-fi enthusiasts offering historical and critical perspectives on significant texts, individuals, institutions, and themes that have shaped the cultural and artistic expression of science fiction across South Asia.
Dates and Submissions policy
Please write to rashmi.sawhney@gmail.com or aartiwani@gmail.com to discuss your ideas. Abstracts of 500 words along with an author bio should be emailed to us by the 5th of November 2014.
In addition to critical essays of 6000-8000 words, we also welcome shorter creative pieces of 2000-4000 words in the form of interviews, photo essays (B/W), speculative pieces, translations of short stories, and artists’ reflections on science-fiction influenced work.
The deadline for the first draft is 30th January 2015. All contributions will be peer-reviewed and the final submission will be due by 30thMarch. The issue will be published by June 2015.
All copyrights are to be cleared by the authors. Guidelines to the Intellect house-style are available here.