[csaa-forum] CFP: DEMANDING THE IMPOSSIBLE: THE THIRD AUSTRALIAN CONFERENCE ON UTOPIA, DYSTOPIA AND SCIENCE FICTION,5-6 December 2007

[Andrew Milner]

Conference Announcement and Call for Papers

DEMANDING THE IMPOSSIBLE: THE THIRD AUSTRALIAN CONFERENCE ON UTOPIA, 
DYSTOPIA AND SCIENCE FICTION
5-6 December 2007

Centre for Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies, Monash 
University, Clayton Campus, Melbourne, Australia

Keynote Speakers:

TOM MOYLAN
Glucksman Professor of Contemporary Writing and Director of the Ralahine 
Center for Utopian Studies, University of Limerick

LYMAN TOWER SARGENT
Professor Emeritus of Political Science, University of Missouri, St. 
Louis, and Visiting Fellow, Mansfield College, University of Oxford

LUCY SUSSEX
Distinguished Australian science fiction writer and author of 'A Tour 
Guide in Utopia'

Other Speakers will include:

Andrew Benjamin (Professor of Critical Theory, CCLCS), Roland Boer 
(Associate Professor, CCLCS), Ian Buchanan (Professor of Critical 
Theory, Cardiff University), Verity Burgmann (Professor of Politics, 
University of Melbourne), Jacqueline Dutton (Senior Lecturer in French, 
University of Melbourne), Andrew Milner (Professor of Cultural Studies, 
CCLCS), Chris Palmer (Head of English, La Trobe University), Kate Rigby 
(Director, CCLCS).

CONFERENCE WEBSITE:

http://www.arts.monash.edu.au/lcl/conferences/utopias3/

In December 2001 the University of Tasmania hosted a successful 
conference around the theme of Antipodean Utopias. In December 2005, 
Monash University hosted a second conference, around the theme of 
Imagining the Future, to mark the long-awaited publication of 
Archaeologies of the Future, Fredric Jameson's full-length monograph on 
utopia and science fiction. In all, there were something like 90 papers 
presented to this conference, including one by Jameson himself. This 
third conference will return to the question of how we imagine the 
future and whether such imaginings remain open to the unforeseeable. 
Jameson famously concludes that utopia is `a meditation on the 
impossible, on the unrealizable in its own right'. Hopefully, the 
conference will play some small part in prompting similar such 
meditations on the impossible. Its keynote speakers will be: Tom Moylan, 
author of 'Demand the Impossible' and 'Scraps of the Untainted Sky'; 
Lyman Tower Sargent, founding editor of 'Utopian Studies' and co-editor 
of 'The Utopia Reader'; and Lucy Sussex, author of 'A Tour Guide in Utopia'.

The conference invites papers from scholars, writers and others 
interested in utopia, dystopia and science fiction.

ABSTRACTS

Abstracts (approx. 100-150 words) should be sent by 30 September 2007 by 
e-mail to <Utopias at arts.monash.edu.au> or by post to Utopias3 
Conference, Centre for Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies, 
Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria 3800, AUSTRALIA.
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