CALIFORNIA IN SCIENCE FICTION AT UCI
[I'm excited about being part of this exciting discussion! Particularly looking forward to sharing a platform with my old friend Steve Barnes!]
The Future is Here:
California in Science Fiction
A Symposium
April 4
Humanities Gateway 1030
UC, Irvine
The West Coast of the US, and California in particular, has long been a
source of inspiration for the SF imagination: the state’s history offers a
rich repository of utopian schemes, dystopian realities, collectivist
experiments, and commercial and ecological catastrophes. During the Cold
War and after, California has represented the vanguard of technoscientific
progress, free-market ideology, lifestyle libertarianism, and
countercultural experimentation. California shares the seismic
instabilities of the Pacific Rim and is integrated into the cultural and
economic exchanges facilitated and regulated by global capital throughout
the region. California exists in the larger cultural imagination as both a
much-dreamed-of sphere of spiritual discovery and multicultural hybridity
as well as a nightmarish realm of ecological disaster and race war. Join
us for a lively discussion of these and other issues with SF writers,
theorists, and critics.
Noon: Introductions by Jonathan Alexander
12.30 -1:30: Oath of Fealty: Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, and Gregory
Benford on the classic novel about a surveillance community in Los Angeles
1:30 - 3:00: A State of Difference: Sheila Finch and Steven Barnes on
writing gender and race in Californian SF
3:00 - 4:30: Breakout sessions: Writing SF
Roundtable with Sheila Finch and Steven Barnes
Recommended Lecture: Geert Lovink guest lecture: "Wikileaks beyond Julian
Assange: the Politics and Aesthetics of Big Data"
4:30 - 5:00: Concluding Roundtable: The Critics & Theorists React: CA & SF?
Catherine Liu, UCI Film and Media
Sherryl Vint, UCR English
Matthew Wolf-Meyer UCSC Anthropology
Sponsored with a grant from the California Studies Consortium, the UCI> Humanities Collective and the UCI Center for Excellence in Writing and Communication.
The Future is Here:
California in Science Fiction
A Symposium
April 4
Humanities Gateway 1030
UC, Irvine
The West Coast of the US, and California in particular, has long been a
source of inspiration for the SF imagination: the state’s history offers a
rich repository of utopian schemes, dystopian realities, collectivist
experiments, and commercial and ecological catastrophes. During the Cold
War and after, California has represented the vanguard of technoscientific
progress, free-market ideology, lifestyle libertarianism, and
countercultural experimentation. California shares the seismic
instabilities of the Pacific Rim and is integrated into the cultural and
economic exchanges facilitated and regulated by global capital throughout
the region. California exists in the larger cultural imagination as both a
much-dreamed-of sphere of spiritual discovery and multicultural hybridity
as well as a nightmarish realm of ecological disaster and race war. Join
us for a lively discussion of these and other issues with SF writers,
theorists, and critics.
Noon: Introductions by Jonathan Alexander
12.30 -1:30: Oath of Fealty: Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, and Gregory
Benford on the classic novel about a surveillance community in Los Angeles
1:30 - 3:00: A State of Difference: Sheila Finch and Steven Barnes on
writing gender and race in Californian SF
3:00 - 4:30: Breakout sessions: Writing SF
Roundtable with Sheila Finch and Steven Barnes
Recommended Lecture: Geert Lovink guest lecture: "Wikileaks beyond Julian
Assange: the Politics and Aesthetics of Big Data"
4:30 - 5:00: Concluding Roundtable: The Critics & Theorists React: CA & SF?
Catherine Liu, UCI Film and Media
Sherryl Vint, UCR English
Matthew Wolf-Meyer UCSC Anthropology
Sponsored with a grant from the California Studies Consortium, the UCI> Humanities Collective and the UCI Center for Excellence in Writing and Communication.