CFP: SF and the Canon

[faustus]

An intriguingly positioned set of speakers.

SF and the Canon

Proposals for 20 minute papers are sought for a one day conference to take place at Anglia Ruskin University on Saturday 24 March 2007. The conference seeks to explore interfaces between the genre of science fiction (often studied in isolation or not at all) and more traditional, canonical literatures and discourses. There will be panels on SF and the classical tradition, SF and Shakespeare and SF and the Victorians. Confirmed speakers include Michael Bywater, Joss Hands, Tony Keen, Genevieve Liveley, Nick Lowe, Katy Price, Jonathan Sawday, Peter Stockwell and Rowlie Wymer. Please send proposals (approx. 300 words) to Professor Sarah Annes Brown, Department of English, Communication, Film and Media, Anglia Ruskin University, East Road, Cambridge, CB1 1PT. (sarah.brown@anglia.ac.uk).

Comments

[swisstone.livejournal.com]

S'pose I'd better work out what I'm going to talk about (something to do with Asimov and Gibbon, I suspect).

[drasecretcampus.livejournal.com]

Sounds good. What's odd is - beyond the obvious - few of these are sf scholars/academics. Wymer has published on Wyndham - and that's it, although he teaches sf - Stockwell has a book on language and sf, but that's about it (a co-edited collection Impossibility Fiction). Nick I presume is the film reviewer? They're advertising it from the canon's side of the equation. There are half a dozen names I might have expected to see there as well.

[swisstone.livejournal.com]

As you know, academia can be terribly compartmentalized, and people in interdisciplinary areas don't always know about others working in similar areas but from the other side. I think this is particularly the case with sf, where people read or watch sf for fun, and when they involve it in their study, don't know about the critical bibliography from the sf perspective. This is very much the case in Classics, where there are a lot of people working on sf and the Classics, but of those, only myself and Nick Lowe (who is indeed the Interzone reviewer, Classics academic and active fanzine fan back in the 1970s) have connections with the sf critical establishment, and Nick's aren't that strong.

I am trying to do my bit to forge more connections. When Sarah (whose background appears to be joint English/Classics) first contacted me about this conference, having been put on to me by Nick, I did suggest that she get in touch people in the sf field, and put forward your and Farah's names. I know she contacted Farah.

[drasecretcampus.livejournal.com]

My nose isn't out of joint for myself - but my ex-supervisor for my PhD is on that list and must have known about the conference at an early stage. You would have hoped, just for old time's sake...

I have a feeling it might have that odd inside out feel that I felt when Marxism 2000 and 2001 had sessions on sf and fantasy. They didn't start from where I'd start.