Three academic talks: Jennifer Zwahr-Castro: Author and Character Gender in the Hugos From 2001-2020, over half of Hugo winners in this category have been women. The current study is a first step in a more nuanced understanding of gender representation among nominees in the best novel category and the central characters portrayed in those works. … Continue reading Manifestations of Gender
Two academic talks: Laura Osur: Alt-Histories Against Technological Determinism. For All Mankind (Apple TV+, 2019-) and Mary Robinette Kowal’s Lady Astronaut series (2018, 2020) present alternative histories of the space race. Read in conversation with each other and as part of a global debate around ethical technology and the commercialization of space, these two properties… Continue reading Changing the Future of the Future
Two academic talks: Bradford Lyau: Robert A. Heinlein: Radical Moderate and the Enlightenment Analyzing Robert A. Heinlein in light of recent revisions of the Enlightenment and studies analyzing Heinlein works. The different, often conflicting ideological slants used to describe Heinlein’s politics could be explained in part by this analysis. I will use Jonathan Israel’s recent… Continue reading Heinlein & Enlightenment; Asian Food Futures
Three academic talks: Emad El-Din Aysha: Sufi Science Fiction Sufism has been deployed many times in genre works, not least SF. Sufism however is lacking in Arabic and Islamic science fiction. The situation is changing as Arab SF authors, old and young, brave this fledging subgenre. The downside is commercialization and commodification of Sufism and… Continue reading Sufi, Arabic, and Italian SF
Science fiction prototyping is a promising way of thinking about future societies in the VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity) era. SF prototyping creates scenarios using workshops to activate the knowledge of multiple persons in a company, and to discuss how society should be by backcasting from a future image. We welcome distinguished researchers from… Continue reading Round Table on Business Innovation
Two academic talks: Hirotaka Osawa: SF Prototyping for Business Innovation SF prototyping is a business thinking method for utilizing science fiction narrative for making innovative ideas when considering the design of future societies. The method is getting famous in the US, China, and Japan. We compared it with conventional scenario planning in 9 groups, and… Continue reading The Future is Creating/Stealing Your Job
Three academic talks: Gillian Polack: Jewish Cultural Representation in Novik’s Spinning Silver. Foodways are integral to interpreting the use of food. How Jewish characters and culture are depicted in Spinning Silver through foodways demonstrates how Novik depicts cultures and religious values in the novel. Viewing foodways in the context of the culture of Jewish Lithuania… Continue reading Folklore & Mythology Across Three Traditions
