The Science Fiction 'New Wave'
At Fifty conference
Keynote: Professor Rob Latham
(UC, Riverside): Senior Editor, Science Fiction Studies; editorial
board member, The Journal of Science Fiction Film and Television and The
Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts.
Saturday 31 May - Sunday 1 June
2014
University of East Anglia,
Norwich
Conference Organisers: Dr
Mark P. Williams | Dr Jacob Huntley | Dr Matthew Taunton
*****
In May 1964 New
Worlds #142 hits the newsstands. It is the first edition edited by
Michael Moorcock and ushers in a creative, and much debated, reinterpretation
of the aesthetics of Science Fiction. The "New Wave" has begun. This
period of aesthetic innovation connected a great many of the pressing concerns
of the day, from the apocalyptic threat of the Cold War to the potential of the
Space Age, but it also preceded the concerns of subsequent generations
including postmodernism, questions of identity and subjectivity, and the nature
of history.
Fifty years after that landmark issue the
ripples continue to be felt, washing through various modes of fantastic
literature from slipstream to the New Weird, from cyberpunk to steampunk.
As a way of celebrating and acknowledging
the influence of Moorcock’s tenure as editor of New Worlds starting
with that seminal May/June issue, the University of East Anglia will be hosting
a conference, The Science Fiction New Wave at Fifty over the weekend of 31st
May – 1st June 2014.
*****
Professor Rob Latham is a senior editor
of Science Fiction Studies and member of the editorial boards
of The Journal of Science Fiction Film and Television and The
Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts. He is currently completing a
book on New Wave Science Fiction focusing on its connections to counterculture
movements and debates of the 1960s and '70s.
Submissions Extended
Submissions by Monday 10th
March 2014
Papers are invited on any aspect of
"New Wave" Science Fiction related to New Worlds, from
key writers such as J G Ballard, Hilary Baily and M. John Harrison, to Moorcock
himself, or comparisons between the British and American versions of "New
Wave" and their relationships with Science Fiction as a mode. We
also welcome panel proposals of up to four papers with a unifying theme.
This conference emphasises the
international and culturally dialogic qualities of “New Wave” SF and is
particularly interested in papers exploring how the themes and concepts which drive
the 'movement' have been transformed in the intervening decades, and how they
manifest in contemporary fiction today.
Topics for discussion might
include but are not limited to:
·
Inner Space versus Outer Space
·
The “New Wave” and the “New Weird”
·
New Worlds as inspiration for Steampunk and/or Cyberpunk
·
Time Travel and Subjectivity
·
Synthesis of the avant-garde and populism in the “New Wave”
·
Apocalypse and ecological catastrophe
·
“New Wave” and transgression
Writers for discussion might
include:
Hilary Bailey
J.G. Ballard
Samuel R. Delany
M. John Harrison
Michael Moorcock
Pamela Zoline
Alongside other writers and
artists connected with or inspired by the "New Wave"
Abstracts
Papers
Please send abstracts of up to 500 words,
together with author’s bio of 50 words.
Panels
Full panel proposals should either have
individual paper abstracts of 250 words with a brief statement of 150 words to
describe the panel, or be one abstract of around 750 words. These should
be accompanied by a 50 word biographical statement for each panellist.
*****
Submissions to: Dr Mark
P. Williams (Mark.Williams@uea.ac.uk);
Dr Jacob Huntley (Jacob.huntley@uea.ac.uk);
Dr Matthew Taunton (M.Taunton@uea.ac.uk).
*****
Conference registration will be
live from Monday 17th March 2014 onwards (see below).
*****
Organiser Profiles
Information
Further
information and updates will be posted to the UEA Events page —
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