[csaa-forum] FW: Demanding the Impossible: The Third Australian Conference on Utopia, , Dystopia and Science Fiction, 5th-6th December 2007

[Laurie Johnson]

Sent on behalf of Andrew Milner
[mailto:Andrew.Milner at arts.monash.edu.au] 

Demanding the Impossible: The Third Australian Conference on Utopia,
Dystopia and Science Fiction 5th-6th December 2007

A conference organised by the Centre for Comparative Literature and
Cultural Studies at Monash University, Melbourne.

Keynote Speakers:

TERRY EAGLETON
Professor of Cultural Theory and John Rylands Fellow at the University
of Manchester.

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:
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 (Associate Professor, CCLCS).

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: Terry Eagleton, whose recent publications
include After Theory, Sweet Violence and Holy Terror; 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 to Utopia.

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

Conference Abstracts:

Abstracts (approx. 100-150 words) should be sent by 31 October 2007 by
e-mail to <Utopias at arts.monash.edu.au>.

or by post to:
Utopias3 Conference,
Centre for Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies, Building 11,
Clayton campus, Monash University, Victoria 3800, AUSTRALIA.

Conference Proceedings:
Refereed proceedings of the conference will be published electronically
in the on-line journal Colloquy.


--
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/

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