Current Research in Speculative Fiction Conference 2024
Current Research in Speculative Fiction 2024
14th Annual Conference
3 – 5th July 2024, University of Liverpool, Offline and Online, https://crsfhome.home.blog/
“I realize I don’t know very much. None of us knows very much. But we can all learn more. Then we can teach one another. We can stop denying reality or hoping it will go away by magic.”(Octavia Butler, Parable of the Sower)
KEYNOTES: Lindz McLeod (Manchester Metropolitan University); TBC
AUTHOR ROUNDTABLE: (TBC)
ACADEMIC PUBLISHING ROUNDTABLE (TBC)
SF WRITING WORKSHOP
Dr Rachel Handley (Possible Worlds and Other Stories, 2022; various other publications including in The Liminal Review and Sonder Magazine)
OTHER ACTIVITIES (in person): ARCHIVE VISIT (July 3rd); OPEN MIC (July 4th)
“Economics was like psychology, a pseudoscience trying to hide that fact with intense theoretical hyperelaboration. And gross domestic product was one of those unfortunate measurement concepts, like inches or the British thermal unit, that ought to have been retired long before.” (Kim Stanley Robinson, Blue Mars)
“When the reasoning mind is forced to confront the impossible again and again, it has no choice but to adapt.”
(N.K. Jemisin, The Fifth Season)
Whether it is science fiction, fantasy, or horror, speculative fiction allows us to imagine new worlds, for authors and readers to fully engage their imaginations with what is beyond our current capabilities or comprehension. We build up Earth in beauty and destruction. We think of distant new planets or dimensions, radical and fantastical species, and find that even in the darkest dystopias there is something to learn. For CRSF’s 14th year, this hybrid offline/online event seeks to generate interdisciplinary discussions of growth in speculative fiction, exploring the theme in its many different guises.
We welcome papers from the fields of literary studies, creative writing, media studies, philosophy, art, anthropology, sociology, and political theory that speak to, but are not limited to:
- Technological growth, uplift fictions; advanced societies
- Expansion; population growth; space colonisation; speculative worlds
- Representations of waste such as nuclear waste; humans and animals as waste; natural resources
- Representations of transhumanism, augmented or artificial intelligence, robotics, and extra-terrestrial life
- The body and its transformations (the posthuman body; the racialised & gendered body; the queer body)
- Speculative fiction as a vehicle of political critique and social transformation
- Interrelationships between power, fantasy, actors, action, forms, and reality
- Forms of alternative kinship made possible (or restricted) by speculative fiction
- Breaching boundaries in speculative fiction
We welcome proposals for academic and artistic contributions that speak to any of the issues. Papers should be 15-20 minutes long. Abstracts (max. 300 words) and a short biographical note (max. 100 words) should be submitted to crsf.team@gmail.com by March 24th. For those reading at the open mic, please submit your piece (any speculative prose, poetry, or drama, max. 1500 words) to the same address by May 31st to secure a reading spot on the night.
All queries can be directed to the above email address or message on Twitter @CRSFteam or Instagram @crsfliverpool.