[csaa-forum] CFP: IMAGINING THE FUTURE: UTOPIA, DYSTOPIA AND SCIENCE FICTION

[Melissa Gregg]

> Conference Announcement and Call for Papers
>
> IMAGINING THE FUTURE: UTOPIA, DYSTOPIA AND SCIENCE FICTION
> 6-7 December 2005
>
> Centre for Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies
> Monash University, Clayton Campus
> Melbourne, Australia
>
> Keynote Speaker:
>
> FREDRIC JAMESON
> Distinguished Professor of Comparative Literature, Duke University
>
> Other Speakers will include:
>
> Kate Rigby (Director, CCLCS), Andrew Milner (Professor of Cultural 
> Studies, CCLCS), Peter Fitting (Director of Cinema Studies, University
> of Toronto), Ian Buchanan (Professor of Communications and Cultural 
> Studies, Charles Darwin University), Roland Boer (Logan Research 
> Fellow, Monash University) and Andrew Benjamin (Professor of Critical 
> Theory, CCLCS).
>
> CONFERENCE WEBSITE:
> http://www.arts.monash.edu.au/lcl/conferences/utopias/
>
> In the 20th century earlier utopian traditions were progressively 
> displaced by supposedly more 'scientific' understandings of progress,
> whether liberal, Fabian or Marxist. But in the 1960s utopian politics 
> re-emerged in and around the 'new social movements'. As with earlier
> utopianisms, these found significant aesthetic expression in literary 
> science fiction, including the work of writers like Ursula Le Guin,
> Joanna Russ, Marge Piercy, Samuel R. Delany and Kim Stanley Robinson. 
> Their most important philosophical expression came belatedly by way of 
> the Deleuzian influence on Hardt and Negri's Empire. In a 1982 essay 
> for Science Fiction Studies, Fredric Jameson famously defined the 
> problem of 'Progress v. Utopia' through the question 'Can We Imagine 
> the Future?' Timed to coincide with the long-awaited publication of 
> Archaeologies of the Future, Jameson's full-length monograph on the 
> subject, this conference will return to the question of whether and 
> how we can imagine the future and whether or not such imaginings 
> remain open to the unforeseeable.
>
> The conference invites papers that will address these questions via 
> the themes of utopia, dystopia and science fiction.
>
> ABSTRACTS
>
> Abstracts (approx. 100-150 words) should be sent by 30 September 2005 
> by e-mail to <utopias at arts.monash.edu.au> or by post to Utopias 
> Conference, Centre for Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies, 
> Monash University, Building 11, Melbourne, Victoria 3800, AUSTRALIA.
>
> REGISTRATION
>
> The conference will take place over two days.
>
> Full registration for the two days costs $150, with a concessional 
> price for students and the non-employed of $75.
>
> Registration for one day, either the 6th or 7th December, costs $80, 
> with a concessional price of $40.
>
> All prices are GST inclusive.
>
> Please make cheques payable to Monash University.
>
> Registration forms may be downloaded in Acrobat PDF format [121 KB] or 
> as a Rich Text File [RTF format 3.29 MB] from:
>
> http://www.arts.monash.edu.au/lcl/conferences/utopias/registration.html
>
> Send cheques and registration forms by 31 October 2005 to:
>
> Utopias Conference
> Centre for Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies
> Building 11
> Monash University
> Victoria 3800
> AUSTRALIA
>
> -- 
> Professor Andrew Milner
> Centre for Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies
> Monash University
> Melbourne
> Victoria 3800
> AUSTRALIA
>
> Phone: (61) (3) 9905 2979
> Fax: (61) (3) 9905 5593
> Email: Andrew.Milner at arts.monash.edu.au
> Homepage:
>   http://www.arts.monash.edu.au/cclcs/staff/milner/
>
>
Melissa Gregg
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Centre for Critical and Cultural Studies
4th Floor, Forgan Smith Tower
University of Queensland 4072
CRICOS provider number: 00025B

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