Call for Programming for Barricades: A Les Mis Convention – Fan Track
Barricades invites fans and scholars to submit proposals for the convention’s fan track, which will form the programming of the con.
Submissions for the fan and academic programming tracks open: December 4, 2023
Submissions close: March 15, 2024
Notification of proposal acceptance: by April 15, 2024
Contact: programming@barricadescon.com
We are interested in submissions that address any aspect of Les Mis, its adaptations, its context, its authorship, its production, and its reception, including topics such as:
- Textual analyses of Les Mis and its adaptations – we want to hear about your headcanons and AUs!
- Different interpretations of Hugo’s characters (e.g., Hugo’s neurodiverse characters).
- After-hours roast/adoration panels (shame Hugo for his weird culinary habits/his sex diaries/his general everything or yell about why you love or hate a Les Mis adaptation).
- Cosplay (historical costuming resources, how you made a replica of Enjolras’s xylophone vest, where to start if you’re new to cosplay).
- Recommendations/explorations of other stories and fandoms for fans of Les Mis, both historical and totally unexpected (just why is The Untamed so popular among Les Mis fans anyway?).
- Assigning Les Mis characters their Daemons/fursonas.
- Analyses or discussions of Les Mis in all its forms from different perspectives and approaches.
- Why high school/college/university/coffee shop AUs are so widespread in the Les Mis fandom.
- The soulmate AU phenomenon.
- Gender, sexuality, race, class, and disability in Les Mis, its adaptations, and fanwork.
- Canon-era and modern-era fanwork alike!
- Social justice and protest from the nineteenth century to the present day, including organising, prison abolition, and sex work politics.
- Translations and subtitles of Les Mis and its adaptations.
- Popular receptions of Les Mis around the world, in different cultures and subcultures.
- Les Mis fan and participatory cultures, fan activities, and transformative work.
- Collaborative writing and RPing.
- Canon Fandom 101: Intro to the contextual history surrounding Les Mis; intro to French Romanticism, famous Romantics, Hugo’s circles; intro to historical fashion in the early nineteenth century; a historical research guide for writing Les Mis era fic, etc., etc., etc.!
This is not by any means an exhaustive list; we welcome and encourage submissions that address topics beyond those listed here.
Proposals could be for programming taking the form of:
- Presentations of varying lengths, with or without visual accompaniment, and with or without Q&As at the end of the presentations.
- Presentations of creative or critical fanwork.
- Discussions (informal or seminar-style and moderated) of specific topics.
- Panels or roundtables on fan-centred and/or scholarly topics.
- Meetups (e.g., for fans or for fans and academics in general, for attendees interested in specific topics, for specific demographics of attendees such as fans of colour).
- Workshops (e.g., tips for writing long fic, how to research the nineteenth century).
- Interviews.
- Special events.
- Games.
- Pre-created videos (there’s no need to present live!).
Again, this is not an exhaustive list and we welcome and encourage submissions for programming taking forms beyond those listed here. Please see our Fan Track or Academic Track? page for guidelines on how to choose which track your work is best suited to, as well as for further information about run times.
Please use our submission form to submit your proposal from December 4, 2023 to April 15, 2024. We also welcome enquiries and questions before this date at programming@barricadescon.com.
Some programming items, especially those with special technology or scheduling requirements, may be accepted on a rolling basis during the submission period. In early 2022, the programming committee will poll the registered membership about their interest in attending and participating in all programming items, accepted and pending. Based on the poll results, we will assign panelists, make the final schedule, and notify programming participants of their assignments.
