CRSF 2012

So, this isn't going to be one of those blogs where I talk about why I haven't updated lately. I'm taking it for granted that you understand that occasionally life gets in the way of blogging and leaving it at that. However in this case, I will make a slight exception to that rule by saying that I've been writing papers, and one of them was presented at the brilliant Current Research in Speculative Fiction conference in Liverpool last month.

 For those of you not in the know, the University of Liverpool is one of the best places in the world to study speculative fiction. Home to Professor David Seed, Andy Sawyer, the journal Foundation and a phenomenal amount of speculative fiction in the library, it is the place I might have gone had I not been in love with Trinity College Dublin. It is also home to a wonderful set of graduate students including Glyn Morgan, Chris Pak, Michelle Yost and David McWilliam, who organised the CRSF conference, bringing together all of us mad researchers in speculative fiction in one place. You can find their post-conference report here: http://currentresearchinspeculativefiction.blogspot.ie/.

With thirteen panels running in four time slots and no time turners available, I clearly didn't make it to everything, much as I would have liked to. The day started with Professor David Seed's keynote speech on narrative frames in early science fiction, which was incredibly interesting and reinforced my belief that one of the most entertaining elements of science fiction is its ability to play with literary forms and techniques. After that I went to my panel on American TV to give my paper on ecocriticism and the disruption of bodily integrity in Fringe. My panel buddies were Eve Bennett and Anna McFarlane, talking about Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and Lost respectively. As always when I'm presenting at a conference with such good speakers, I worried that my paper wasn't up to scratch, but it was a really fun panel with lots of conversation afterwards. The only downside was that my panel was simultaneous with one of my friend's, so I didn't get to hear her talk. After that I wandered into the gaming panel to hear Christos Callow discuss morality and philosophy in Fallout: New Vegas and Andrew Ferguson's paper on how glitches and narrative theory in Final Fantasy VI. The afternoon kicked off with a second keynote speech from Professor Fred Botting of Kingstong University London, "More Things: Horror, Materialism and Speculative Realism". Then came the afternoon sessions, starting with the European SF panel, where I learned about Spanish dystopias from Mariano Martin Rodriguez, Italian SF magazines from Giulia Iannuzzi and the potential end of anthropocentrism from Sandra Mänty. I wrapped the afternoon at the Transhuman/AI panel with Hallvard Haug's talk on Mnemotechnics in Charles Stross’ Accelerando, Amy Christmas's paper on augmented intimacies and Caroline Egan's paper on sterility in dystopias. (A special shout out goes to both Caroline and Ruth Doherty, the remainder of the 'Trinity Contingent', as we came to be known. You guys were amazing conference buddies!)

There are of course many other papers that were presented that day, but these were the ones I was fortunate enough to hear, and from the standards that I saw, the rest of the conference was equally brilliant. Outside of panel times, it was a great group to spend time with, and my only regret is that the conference didn't last a few days.

This won't be my only conference this year. I'll be speaking first at the Grant Morrison conference in Trinity in September, then at the Tolkien Forest and the City conference, also in Trinity in September, and at a symposium at the University of Aberdeen in October (for which I don't yet have a link). So it'll be a busy year, but a good one, I think, if CRSF is anything to go by.