Unofficial WisCon 40 Programming Idea-Generation Fest

[laceblade]

Let’s talk about what we would like to see at WisCon 40 for programming, any topic.

Post any thoughts you have, however semi-formed.
People can comment & try to come up with the best panels possible! Anyone can suggest panel ideas: People who run the convention, authors, attendees, or people who have never attended WisCon and never will. Please feel free to join in!

If the comments go in a direction you dislike, or you don't want to participate in a discussion, you can submit your own panel idea here on WisCon's website.

Things to know:
--Not every panel idea that gets suggested ends up on the schedule. Programming chairs typically have to cut about 50% of the panels due to space/time constraints.
--Much closer to WisCon 40, people will be able to vote on WisCon's website for panels they'd like to attend, & also indicate their interest in being a panelist or a moderator. These votes matter.
--Programming minions edit panel titles/descriptions after they've been submitted. Sometimes they combine multiple panels on the same theme into a single panel.


Commenting disclaimer: If you're reading this on LiveJournal, I would appreciate it if you could post your comments on the Dreamwidth post, so they're all in one spot. Of course, if you are unable to do so, comment at LJ.

Comments

[inkstone]

Female gaze in anime and manga!

Free is the obvious, clear example but things like that.

[laceblade]

I WOULD LIKE THIS. So many discussions/reviews of anime review the possibility of a non-male gaze entirely (see this thread about how ANN's Editor-in-Chief reduces the options for POV to either being a male viewer or THE ROOM.

It'd be such a relief to have people focus on the female gaze instead. (or can we go with non-male gaze? I'd be interested in genderqueer perspectives on this as well.)

[as yet untitled panel]

[laceblade]

I think it'd be neat to discuss autonomy versus the public good in SF. I first thought of this specifically in relation to anime. For example, the necessity for adolescents to sacrifice their personal lives/relationships because Only They can pilot giant robots/whatever to save the world. Examples: Evangelion obvs, Voices of a Distant Star, etc.

The idea of blatantly illegal human subjects experimentation (where the subjects are held against their will and the experiments delve into torture) are also common - most recently in the Charlotte anime of the 2015 summer anime season, but going back even to Final Fantasy VII - Zack, Cloud, Vincent, Aeris, and Red XIII are all essentially imprisoned for experimentation.
Where are the IRBs in these universes?!

In lots of Western action SF movies, one ultimate evil is the removal of people's individuality in addition to their autonomy. The absence of color in stories like The Giver, the need for people to assimilate and avoid attention lest their dystopian government try to kill them. It's a very...desperado feel, like a successor to cowboy Western movies, or what I assume constitute the constant worries of white male Libertarians in the U.S. in a surveillance state (when in reality a surveillance state would have much more negative effects on women, people of color, and other oppressed parties).

It seems like a more "feminist" ideal that sometimes making sacrifices for the common good is a thing that would ultimately be positive, but obviously this needs to be done in a way that individuals retain their own autonomy. Are there examples of this - contribution without exploitation - happening in feminist SF? Is there a way for society to progress technologically without becoming a horrifying dystopia?

Re: [as yet untitled panel]

[brainwane]

I am a bit biased here, but the rather anarchist way that people choose to sacrifice their futures in order to contribute to exploration missions in Leonard Richardson's book Constellation Games strikes me as an example of contribution with respect for autonomy and without exploitation. (This is explored more in the bonus story "The Time Somn Died".)

[jiawen]

How to moderate online communities in a feminist way: How do you promote a discussion-based community that doesn't exclude marginalized voices? What roles should moderators play?

Diverse voices, not just diverse products: A lot of cis, white, hetero men are realizing that diversity is a great marketing technique, so we're seeing more diversity in representation. Yet people of color, trans people, BLG people and others continue to be silenced or gatekept out of the limelight -- it's still the cis, white, hetero men who get paid. Who's responsible -- consumers, gatekeepers, The Market, or someone else?

Teaching men to listen: On panels, in online conversations, and in pretty much every channel of communication in society, men are taught that any conversational void must be filled with their voices. Men continue to talk over women, restate things that women have already said, ignore what women have said and generally dominate conversations. How can men learn to pipe down and listen for a change?

[jiawen]

"How do you promote a discussion-based community" should be "How do you promote an online community (forum, LJ community, WoW clan or whatever else)", I think.

[emceeaich]

I'd love to see azurelunatic on this panel. She gave a talk on Moderation at Open Source Bridge this year https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoSGgPAIoS8 (also reason to get Azz into the program cabal.)

[jiawen]

"Yet people of color, trans people, BLG people and others... ": Make that "Yet people of color, trans people, BLG people and others who create games, books, movies, etc." to clarify who I'm talking about.

Sense8

[emceeaich]

Several panels off of this topic:

* How Sense8 botched multi-culturalism (See Claire Light's post http://thenerdsofcolor.org/2015/06/10/sense8-and-the-failure-of-global-imagination/)
* Sense8 and Polyamory (this got brought up on FB or Twitter and I'll defer to the Poly Cabal on this.)
* OMG Nomi (an unabashed squee-fest): a trans woman protagonist who isn't a parody, isn't pathetic, has a relationship, and kicks butt
* Nomi isn't the trans hero we're looking for: someone take the piss out of us in the previous panel idea

Not Another Trans Panel

[emceeaich]

The same idea as Not Another Race Panel and Not Another Disability Panel, a bunch of trans people get to talk about stuff other than trans stuff, topics selected by random process or moderator whim.

Re: Not Another Trans Panel

[jiawen]

We tried "Disspelling Trans Myths" a while ago, and then did it again, but a straight up "Not Another Trans Panel" would be fun, if it wouldn't be appropriative.

Re: Not Another Trans Panel

[lifeinneon]

I'm totally for this. I wanted to suggest this last year but I missed the submission window. I'd feel more comfortable if there were a way to reach out to the Not Another Race Panel folks first because I feel like they ought to be given a chance to say no to using the idea before it gets too far along in the process.

The U.S.'s Dystopian Political Reality

[laceblade]

Unable to change abortion laws that have already been decided upon by the Supreme Court at the federal level, many state legislatures have gotten laws approved that effectively ban abortions by curtailing various rules for "medical" reasons. Protections for voting rights have eroded in a similar manner, at the state level.

While dystopian literature has all but taken over the field of Young Adult SF, the resolutions offered by these narratives are often violent. How could SF/F predict more realistic/more feminist ways to combat local hostile governments?

Re: The U.S.'s Dystopian Political Reality

[jiawen]

"The dystopia is already here, it's just not evenly distributed" as a potential title.

[brainwane]

Thanks for hosting this!

A friend of mine was talking the other day about the performance of respectability in fat acceptance spaces, about the ritual disclaimer "of course I eat well and exercise and blah blah blah" and about how fat acceptance conversations need to accept, on equal terms, people (especially women) who prefer not to. I'm too little versed in that movement to discuss the topic but maybe other people would like to?

Zen Cho's list of "inconvenient women" makes me think that it would be nice to anatomize choices authors have in writing "unlikable" women (ruthless, mercenary, etc.), and about ways we can help readers empathize with people even when we don't identify with them. Rather than a book-recommendation panel I'd want this discussion to be more about lenses and frameworks.

Has WisCon hosted a "learn how to vid 101" workshop in the past?

Learn how to Vid 101 Workshop

[laceblade]

Hey - I don't remember that we've had a panel like this, and I checked with A Vidding Person & they agreed that it hasn't been done yet.

I'm assuming this would be a thing for which panelists would like a/v capabilities?

[jiawen]

I still want to have a panel about trans issues and manga. Possibly maybe focusing on Hourou Musuko (Wandering Son). Please, bunches of people go out and read it. (It's available in English now.)

I also still want to have a panel about trans people and gaming. Maybe trans people and RPGs, specifically.

And a panel where a bunch of trans people just talk about stuff would be fun.

[wallflowerdalek]

How do we swing Hamilton into a WisCon panel?

[laceblade]

I've been trying to think about this! There's no sf/f aspect, obviously, but I think there's a lot to be discussed in terms of remix culture - the musical itself is obviously a transformative work.

ETA: Is that "enough"?! There are obviously other examples to be discussed - Wicked being an interpretation of book about a movie about a book lol. idk what the ~theme~ should be, though. That transformative works are & always have been a part of popular culture?

Gender, identity, and play

[were_duck]

I was sort of thinking about a panel on 'gender and play', about where the line is between appropriating someone else's identity and having the space to explore your own (even if yours is relatively conventional).

Re: Gender, identity, and play

[brainwane]

I'd be interested in participating in this, as a straight cis woman who enjoys playing with gender performance and worries about appropriation.

[nwhepcat]

I've been working extra hours today so my verbal skills are sinking too low to write an actual proposal type thing. All I know is I want to squee about Ann Leckie's Ancillary books.

[likeadeuce]

Rethinking the'Gift Economy' for Fanworks' - a lot of us are very attached to the concept of fanworks' as something we do for each other out of love, but is this in tension with the need to value creative work/ can it feed into exploitation.

[brainwane]

I'd love to see (and maybe participate in) this.

[jiawen]

"Pitiful or Powerful?": For trans people, the need to secure our rights (fair hiring practices, medical care, safety from cissupremacist violence, etc.) often leads us to portray ourselves as weak, oppressed and unable to make progress without the help of cis allies. Yet while some of us truly do experience a lot of marginalization for being trans, many of us have quite wonderful lives, and wish we didn't have to portray ourselves as underdogs to get anywhere. Many want to abandon the 'pitiful trans person' narrative for being more destructive than it is constructive. How can we reconcile the 'pitiful' with the 'powerful'? What balances have we found in this teeter-totter?

Slytherins for Harry: Using the power of persuasion & negotiation to outwit the Death Eaters blockin

[laceblade]

Full title (cut off by subject count): Slytherins for Harry: Using the power of persuasion & negotiation to outwit the Death Eaters blocking social justice action

How to manipulate people who AREN'T radical feminists to get them to do what we want without them realizing it. It doesn't matter WHY they do it, so long as they do what you want them to do.

Re: Slytherins for Harry: Using the power of persuasion & negotiation to outwit the Death Eaters blo

[laceblade]

Maybe "Slytherins for S.P.E.W." would be a better title.

The Star Wars Panel

[gabbysilang]

Does this need a description? Can it just be like

:D?

Re: The Star Wars Panel

[laceblade]

The Force Awakened the dormant Star Wars stan in all of us

[laceblade]

An idea from aileenwithan_a: I want someone to go full scorched earth and submit the "Is Rey a Mary Sue?" panel

[jiawen]

Living in the Post-Growth Future 2

Last year's panel didn't really progress beyond the description. We established rather nicely that the US and world economy increasingly decouple 'the economy' as a whole from actual personal well-being. That is, it's very possible for 'the economy' to do better while wages are still stagnated, incomes aren't growing, job security gets worse, etc. (I put 'the economy' in scare-quotes, because if it's possible to separate it from the actual well-being of people, then I don't think it deserves the title of 'the economy'.)

This year, I'd like to talk about how we actually deal with this kind of economy. Many young people are assuming social security won't exist for us, and indeed that we won't get to retire at all; the gig economy is replacing the concept of 'careers'; college is looking like an increasingly risky gamble; overall, many US young people are assuming, for perhaps the first time in history, that we will do worse than our parents' generation did. How do we deal with this? Governmental policy is a good thing to talk about, but I'd also like to talk about more immediate solutions that won't require years-long efforts. (Basic income, for example, is a great idea, but seems very unlikely to make headway in the US any time soon.) How do we deal with living in a post-growth economy?

And I'd really like help writing this description. I wrote the description for last year's panel, and despite being on it, it was frustrating how little progress we made beyond the description itself.

Gender Exploration via Video Games

[gabbysilang]

Anyone who's an actually-experienced gamer (as opposed to me, the baby-est gamer) up for figuring out a panel about exploring gender identity through game avatars? I'm thinking specifically of DA:I here, but only because that's one of like, two games I've played. HELP ME, INTERNET.