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February 27, 2006
What to See at the Conference: SF Division
SF Area Session Introduction
This year’s conference promises to be another exciting and thought-provoking exploration of the fantastic in its many genre and media forms. Part of the fun and challenge of the conference will be trying to choose among many papers being given simultaneously. This brief introduction to SF area programming is aimed to help you in this difficult task.
The theme of this year’s conference is Drawn by the Fantastic, focused on visual media and visual images within all media. The SF area has two paper sessions focused on this theme.
Session 47: Image and Graphic Texts in Wells, Dick and Miller with presentations by Shawn Smolen-Morton, Kelley Meyer, and Graham J. Murphy will explore the relationship between sf texts and illustrations
Session 60: Ideologies of Technology and Science in Graphic SF features papers by Richard Landom and Rob Latham on sf conventions translated into graphic novels and on the visual aspects of New Wave sf.
For those interested in the question of what it means to do sf scholarship we have two paper sessions focused on such questions.
Session 10: Metalanguages and Metanarratives in Science Fiction will consider sf fiction through theories of language and representation ranging from postmodernism to metalinguistics in papers given by John Fast, Ethan Sproat and James Arthur Anderson.
Session 42: SF Scholarship: Crossing Academic and Marketing Genre provides presenters Neil Easterbrook, Jean Lorrah, and C.W. Sullivan with a chance to ask us to consider the methods of sf scholarship and the role of market forces in what we do.
The international aspect of our organisation is strongly represented in two of this year’s sf panels that consider the influence of national and literary cultures on sf texts.
Session 8: Cultural Influences on SF Narratives and Graphics features papers by Lisa Yaszek, Rebecca Rowe, and Edward James that consider, respectively, 1950s US culture, Japanese manga, and the British Commonwealth.
Session 64: Futurity and Free Will in Butler and Gibson focuses on the work of William Gibson and Octavia Butler, two canonical sf authors, in papers given by Jennifer Orme, Stacie Hanes, and Bill Senior.
Finally, the SF area has a number of panels that focus in a variety of ways on theories of alterity and the representation of otherness in sf.
Session 7: Marked Bodies and Identities in Science Fiction engages with subject theory in discussions of queer subjectivity, tattooed bodies, and biometric technology by presenters Robert von der Osten, Patricia Melzer, and Kim Surkan.
Session 18: Constructions, Inversion and Conventions of ‘Race’ in Science Fiction with presentations by Krista Kasdorf, Rachel Swirsky, and Sharon Louise Degraw looks at various images of racial otherness in sf.
Session 34: Art, Mythology and Ethics in Le Guin and Tepper considers the representation of gender and species otherness in these authors in papers presented by William Burling, Madeline Malan, and Joan Gordon.
Session 49: Science Fiction’s Theorising of Alterity and Performativity considers the full range of otherness from animals to aliens to technobodies in papers presented by Sherryl Vint, Grace Dillon, and Veronica Hollinger.
Session 89: Body and Machine with presentations by Liz Hoiem, Elizabeth Barnes and Amy Hale further considers the boundaries of humanity with papers on automata, Philip K. Dick, and transhumanism.
In addition to hearing from our exciting list of presenters, there are also opportunities for audience participation and interaction sessions within the SF area.
Session 56: SF Roundtable is an opportunity to consider the importance of visual and material technology for sf representations through a group discussion Chapter 8, “Synthesis: The 1939 New York World’s Fair,” from David Nye’s The American Technological Sublime lead by Robin Anne Reid, Len Hatfield, and Sherryl Vint. Download the article from the site and join us for a lively discussion.
Session74 : Panel: The Secret History of Science Fiction: Remediation and the Visual in SF opens with ideas from panellists Mark Bould, Joe Sutliff Sanders, Shelley Rodrigo and Sherryl Vint on the importance of visual media and the representation of media in sf, and then opens for a wider discussion with the audience about these issues.
Sherryl Vint, Incoming SF Division Head
Posted by ChrissieMains at February 27, 2006 12:37 AM