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The Future is Now: World Authorship and Creative Futures Call for Papers ACLA 2017 Universiteit Utrecht in Utrecht, the Netherlands, July 6-9, 2017. Organisers: Emily Spiers, Lancaster University (UK), Rebecca Braun, Lancaster University (UK), Tobias Boes, University of Notre Dame (USA) *with apologies for cross-posting* If the future is theoretically unknowable, but at the same time often utilized as a repository for societies’ fears about the current moment, or as an extrapolation of the present according to a linear model of ‘progress’ (Urry 2015), how are world authors bringing their imaginative and creative capacities to thinking and making futures differently, in ways based neither on fear, nor on entrenched ideas about change, time, and progress? Instead of proceeding from a concept of world literature as a largely anonymized, intertextual field of literary relations, or focusing on literature as a ‘network’ or ‘system’ and texts as agents in their own right, this panel considers authors as transformative agents who can at least potentially affect every stage in the production, distribution, reception and consumption of literature. Departing from this understanding of authors as transformative agents, our objective is to reflect on the roles world authors play in imagining, creating, co-designing and/or advocating preferable social futures, whether local or global. How do authors anticipate or envisage the future in their texts, in their practices and in their person? This question naturally incorporates the performative choices authors make in speculative representations of future worlds, whether utopian or dystopian: what are the implications of the catastrophic forecasting or scenario-building featured in dystopian fiction? What is the social function of literary utopias? Yet the question also invites consideration of the other diverse ways in which authors function as transformative agents, not only in textual or literary worlds, but more broadly in societies. We welcome, for example, examinations of innovations utilized or developed by authors, whether collaborative, linguistic, aesthetic, narratological, multimodal or technological, which generate progressive creative visions for the future and, with them, the potential for, or realization of, significant social impact. How might, for example, digital manifestations and practices of authorship transform understandings of what authorship is, both in literary industries and in people’s every-day lives? How might creative innovations or collaborative creative networks, for example, modify the relationships between author, text, reader, and the wider social field? What roles do various geopolitical, ecological and economic contexts play in how authors envisage or discuss social futures? Are there culturally specific notions of authorship, or of literature’s social value and function vis à vis the future, and what happens to these notions when a text or an author enters the global literary market? We encourage submissions on any historical period, not just the present day, and are keen to think differently, both about the normative Anglo-European context of comparative literature and the methodologies we might use to transcend it. Individuals interested in participating in this seminar should contact the organisers as soon as possible before submitting their abstract to the ACLA website ([log in to unmask]<redir.aspx?REF=kYE39T8M7q5XtktprxfwxzMVhFLPgvNjwapFJ_3zZ1Qg3_3x7tDTCAFtYWlsdG86ZS5zcGllcnNAbGFuY2FzdGVyLmFjLnVr>; [log in to unmask]<redir.aspx?REF=1KRKg66rNHN_qoCj7Mk5bD-OBqeauJQ6XJibcyA-S28g3_3x7tDTCAFtYWlsdG86dGJvZXNAbmQuZWR1>; [log in to unmask]<redir.aspx?REF=rRdXAlbwOLBrOHD4IexCvuFOR-SgHGOk8xmPl6HhyX4g3_3x7tDTCAFtYWlsdG86ci5icmF1bkBsYW5jYXN0ZXIuYWMudWs.> ) You will then be required to submit a 300-word abstract for a 20-minute presentation on the ACLA website during the submission period (September 1 - September 23, 2016) (http://www.acla.org/future-now-world-authorship-and-creative-futures<redir.aspx?REF=peEcUaHJr6p3BLBXTxo5XU1D-yQdrrwdUWXt54n2CNsg3_3x7tDTCAFodHRwOi8vd3d3LmFjbGEub3JnL2Z1dHVyZS1ub3ctd29ybGQtYXV0aG9yc2hpcC1hbmQtY3JlYXRpdmUtZnV0dXJlcw..>). Emily Spiers Lecturer in Creative Futures Institute for Social Futures<redir.aspx?REF=3sT8UaP47CcdydWvtZyXkEbHYR4ctAVWhKyKLr5HDhMg3_3x7tDTCAFodHRwOi8vd3d3LmxhbmNhc3Rlci5hYy51ay9zb2NpYWwtZnV0dXJlcy9yZXNlYXJjaC9jcmVhdGl2ZS1mdXR1cmVzLw..> Department of Languages & Cultures<redir.aspx?REF=yGPkA8o6mRNsYlg5g9Hqw6awT-Qwjq0OrWbWRZIzfCQg3_3x7tDTCAFodHRwOi8vd3d3LnJlc2VhcmNoLmxhbmNzLmFjLnVrL3BvcnRhbC9lbi9wZW9wbGUvZW1pbHktc3BpZXJzKDBlNDU5YmMxLWJlZGMtNDEyNC04NWI0LWRlZTRlNDE3NDgzZikuaHRtbA..> Bowland North Lancaster University United Kingdom LA1 4YT