We are seeking speakers to fill up a panel at the APL Conference “Borders/Freedom/Civility” at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, June 12-15, 2024, on the question of how science fiction aesthetics, the experience of science fiction, and the experience of otherness in science fiction relate. Science Fiction is one of the foremost genres exploring the relation between the alien other as a way of thinking through interhuman relations across borders, but, as a liminally “high” literary form, it is often excluded from discussions of the aesthetic experience of literature as a driving force of intellectual engagement. Positing that the aesthetic experience of otherness is a key feature of virtually all science fiction, this panel seeks to begin a conversation about how we can think those aesthetic experiences (in phenomenological, psychological, and social terms), and what understanding them, and their crucial role in science fiction, tells us about the value of science fiction in the contemporary with regard to the politics of identity and difference. Topics we are looking for might include, but are not limited to:

-         Presentations on concrete aesthetic work in science fiction (in all languages)

-         Discussions of the position and constitution of aesthetic experience in popular science fiction texts

-         Arguments about the interlinkage between science fiction, otherness, and aesthetic experience

-         Prompts towards a narrative of science fiction as an educational tool in democratic society

The length of the talk should not exceed twenty minutes.

Proposals for papers (250 words with a short, three sentence biography) should be send to Tim Lanzendörfer (tlanzend@em.uni-frankfurt.de) and Herle-Christin Jessen (H.Jessen@lmu.de) by February 28, 2024.