[csaa-forum] Conference Announcement - CHANGING THE CLIMATE: UTOPIA, DYSTOPIA AND CATASTROPHE The Fourth Australian Conference on Utopia, Dystopia and Science Fiction

[Andrew Milner]

CENTRE  FOR COMPARATIVE LITERATURE AND CULTURAL STUDIES
Monash University
Melbourne
Australia

CHANGING THE CLIMATE: UTOPIA, DYSTOPIA AND CATASTROPHE
The Fourth Australian Conference on Utopia, Dystopia and Science Fiction

30th August – 1st September 2010

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 that of 'Imagining 
the Future', to mark the long-awaited publication of Fredric Jameson’s 
book 'Archaeologies of the Future'. A third conference, 'Demanding the 
Impossible', followed in December 2007, again at Monash. Despite the 
apparent optimism of all three conference themes, dystopia remained a 
recurrent preoccupation in their discussions. This fourth conference 
will directly address the questions of dystopia and catastrophe with 
special reference to a problem that increasingly haunts our imaginings 
of the future, that of actual or possible environmental catastrophe. As 
Jameson himself wrote in 'The Seeds of Time': ‘It seems … easier for us 
today to imagine the thoroughgoing deterioration of the earth and of 
nature than the breakdown of late capitalism; perhaps that is due to 
some weakness in our imaginations’. Hopefully, this conference will play 
some small part in changing that particular climate of opinion.

The conference invites papers from scholars, writers and others 
interested in the interplay between ecology and ecocriticism, utopia, 
dystopia and science fiction.

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS:

Tom Moylan
Glucksman Professor of Contemporary Writing and Director of the Ralahine 
Center for Utopian Studies, University of Limerick, author of 'Demand 
the Impossible' (1986), 'Scraps of the Untainted Sky' (2000) and 'Dark 
Horizons' (2003).

Kim Stanley Robinson
Distinguished science fiction writer, winner of two Hugo Awards and 
author of 'Antarctica' (1997) and the Science in the Capital Trilogy - 
'Forty Signs of Rain' (2004), 'Fifty Degrees Below' (2005) and 'Sixty 
Days and Counting' (2007).

OTHER SPEAKERS will include:

Roland Boer (Professor of Theology, University of Newcastle), Ian 
Buchanan (Professor of Critical Theory, Cardiff University), Verity 
Burgmann (Professor of Politics, University of Melbourne), Jacqueline 
Dutton (Head of French, University of Melbourne), Andrew Milner 
(Professor of Cultural Studies, CCLCS), Kate Rigby (Associate Professor, 
CCLCS).

CONFERENCE VENUE:

Monash Conference Centre, Level 7, 30 Collins Street, Melbourne, 
Victoria 3000, AUSTRALIA.

FURTHER INFORMATION:

Conference website:
http://www.arts.monash.edu.au/lcl/conferences/utopias4/index.php

Email: Utopias at arts.monash.edu.au

Mail:
Utopias4 Conference,
Centre for Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies,
Clayton campus,
Monash University,
Victoria 3800,
AUSTRALIA.