2012 BSFA Lecture at Eastercon

The 2012 BSFA Lecture at Eastercon will be given by Dr Marc Morris, and is entitled 'Regime Change in England, 1066'. It draws on his recently-published book The Norman Conquest. The lecture will be given at 2.30 on Saturday April 7th, in the Commonwealth Hall of the Radisson Edwardian Hotel, Heathrow. The lecture is open to any members of Eastercon (if you're not already a member, I'm afraid membership is now closed).

Marc is a mediaeval historian and broadcaster.  He presented the television series Castle in 2003, and wrote the accompanying book (a new edition comes out in May 2012).  He is also the author of The Bigod Earls of Norfolk in the Thirteenth Century, and A Great and Terrible King: Edward I and the Forging of Britain.  His new book, published on March 29, is a history of The Norman Conquest.  Copies will be available to purchase at Eastercon. He also appeared in the most recent episode of Time Team.

The BSFA lecture is intended as a companion to the George Hay Lecture presented at the Eastercon by the Science Fiction Foundation. Where the Hay Lecture invites scientists, the BSFA Lecture invites academics from the arts and humanities (with a particular bias towards history), because we recognise that science fiction fans aren’t only interested in science.  The lecturers are given a remit to speak “on a subject that is likely to be of interest to science fiction fans" – i.e. on whatever they want!  This is the fourth BSFA Lecture.

Science Fiction Foundation SF Criticism Masterclass 2012

The application deadline is approaching for the 2012 Science Fiction Foundation SF Criticism Masterclass (28 February). I've been on three of the six Masterclasses, and found them extremely useful in learning about the craft of writing about sf, and in making new contacts in the sf community. This year has a particularly good set of class leaders. The Masterclass is good value, and I highly recommend it.

Details:

http://www.sf-foundation.org/masterclass/criticism2012

Science Fiction Foundation SF Criticism Masterclass 2012

Class Leaders:

• Edward James
• M. John Harrison
• Kari Sperring

The Science Fiction Foundation (SFF) will be holding the sixth annual Masterclass in sf criticism in 2012.

Dates: June 22nd, 23rd, 24th 2012.

Location: Middlesex University, London (the Hendon Campus, nearest underground, Hendon).Delegate costs will be £190 per person, excluding accommodation.
Accommodation: students are asked to find their own accommodation, but help is available from the administrator (farah.sf@gmail.com)

Applicants should write to Farah Mendlesohn at farah.sf@gmail.com. Applicants are asked to provide a CV and a writing sample; these will be assessed by an Applications Committee consisting of Farah Mendlesohn, Graham Sleight and Andy Sawyer.

Completed applications must be received by 28th February 2012.

BSFA Awards nominations

For a number of reasons (largely because we can), the BSFA awards nominations deadline has been extended until 2200 UK time, Thursday 19th January. If you're a BSFA member, please nominate here, or e-mail awards@bsfa.co.uk.

To give you an idea of what's been nominated so far, you can look at this list. Those that get the most nominations will get on the final ballot.

For the record, I've nominated Christopher Priest's The Islanders (Gollancz) in Best Novel. For Best Art I've nominated Anne Sudworth's cover of Liz Williams’ A Glass of Shadow. and in best non-fiction, I've nominated David Seed's Science Fiction: A Very Short Introduction, Mike Ashley's Out of This World: Science Fiction But Not As You Know It, and Adam Roberts' introduction to Justina Robson's Heliotrope.

And I'm delighted that the collection I edited with Simon Bradshaw and Graham Sleight, The Unsilent Library, has been nominated, and that the cover by Pete Young has also been nominated.

Royal Holloway Classics Day

A few months ago, the Principal of Royal Holloway came up with a wheeze for the Classics Department - amalgamate it with History and lose six of its posts. I was amazed. This was not some minor department with a few staff too busy concentrating on their own navels to produce decent work. This was one of the best-respected departments in the country. The department's success had been recognised in more benign days by the promotion of a number of its staff to chairs.

I was lucky enough to teach a few courses there for a year in 1998-99, and it was the best experience in my teaching life up to that point. At the end of the year one student listed me as one of the best teachers they'd had - I was tremendously honoured, because I knew how good the other staff were there, and to be so considered was extremely flattering.

The College management has since modified considerably their proposals (see http://supportclassicsatrhul.wordpress.com/). But they still need to be reminded how vital the subject is. Tomorrow, there's a Classics day at the college. It kicks off at 10, and has lectures, quizzes, and a version of Aristophanes' Clouds. Unfortunately, I'm off to Germany, so I can't go. But I'll be thinking of my friends and former colleagues.

Swords, Sorcery, Sandals and Space: The Fantastika and the Classical World. A Science Fiction Foundation Conference in 2013

Swords, Sorcery, Sandals and Space: The Fantastika and the Classical World. A Science Fiction Foundation Conference

At The Foresight Centre, University of Liverpool

Guests of Honour/Plenary Speakers: Edith Hall, Nick Lowe, and Catherynne M. Valente

Website: http://www.sf-foundation.org/conference

Call for papers

The culture of the Classical world continues to shape that of the modern West. Those studying the Fantastika (science fiction, fantasy and horror) know that it has many of its roots in the literature of the Graeco-Roman world (Homer’s Odyssey, Lucian’s True History). At the same time, scholars of Classical Reception are increasingly investigating all aspects of popular culture, and have begun looking at science fiction. However, scholars of the one are not often enough in contact with scholars of the other. This conference aims to bridge the divide, and provide a forum in which SF and Classical Reception scholars can meet and exchange ideas.

We invite proposals for papers (20 minutes plus discussion) or themed panels of three or four papers from a wide range of disciplines (including Science Fiction, Classical Reception and Literature), from academics, students, fans, and anyone else interested, on any aspect of the interaction between the Classical world of Greece and Rome and science fiction, fantasy and horror. We are looking for papers on Classical elements in modern (post-1800) examples of the Fantastika, and on science fictional or fantastic elements in Classical literature. We are particularly interested in papers addressing literary science fiction or fantasy, where we feel investigations of the interaction with the ancient world are relatively rare. But we also welcome papers on film, television, radio, comics, games, or fan culture.

Please send proposals to conferences@sf-foundation.org, to arrive by 30 September 2012. Paper proposals should be no more than 300 words. Themed panels should also include an introduction to the panel, of no more than 300 words. Please include the name of the author/panel convener, and contact details.

Swords, Sorcery, Sandals and Space is organised by the Science Fiction Foundation, with the co- operation of the School of Archaeology, Classics and Egyptology at the University of Liverpool.

Tony Keen
Chair, 2013 Science Fiction Foundation Conference

Relaunch of FA Online

One of the things that occupied what turned out to be the last months on Martin Skidmore's life was FA Online, a relaunch of a (or as Martin had it, the) critical comics magazine that Martin had edited in the 1980s. Martin didn't do this simply as a vanity project - he had enough outlets for his writing about comics through Freaky Trigger and his LiveJournal (and if they were Japanese, his Japanese Arts site). But Martin felt that there was a need for a good comics review site to exist, so set about creating it.

Martin could have done something wonderful with FA Online, had he been given the chance. His friends can never do the same, but at least we can stop the site ossifying, and keep it growing as a tribute to Martin's memory - and also because we think there's a need for a good comics review stuff. Which is how Will Morgan, Andrew Moreton and (very much in a junior role) myself have come together as the new editorial team. We've just done the relaunch this evening, with new reviews and features, including an article on Captain America and a review of the new Cap movie by me.

We're also keen to reproduce some of Martin's older comics journalism, back before most of this was done online, and the first of these is up, a treatment of the 'Viet Blues' story of Alack Sinner.

So go read, comment, and if you're so inclined, write for us.

A science fiction bibliography

I've recently been appointed as an external supervisor for a graduate student working on Greek mythology and science fiction novels. I'm very excited by the project, and having my first graduate student since 1998 (I'd long assumed I wouldn't get any more). As part of the initial work for my student, I prepared a core bibliography of sf academic/critical works, which I thought I would share with you all.

I wouldn't necessarily expect any serious sf academic to have read all of these books cover to cover - I certainly haven't. But I would expect any Ph.D. proposal to make reference to at least two or three of them, and I would hope that a book-length work would make reference to most of them.

They are:

Brian W. Aldiss and David Wingrove, Trillion Year Spree: The History of Science Fiction (New York: Athenaeum, 1986)

Mark Bould, Andrew M. Butler, Adam Roberts and Sherryl Vint (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Science Fiction (Abingdon: Routledge, 2009)

John Clute, Pardon This Intrusion: Fantastika in the World Storm (Harold Wood: Beccon Publications, 2011)
John Clute, David Langford and Graham Sleight (eds.), The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (third online edition due soon - see http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/; the second edition, ed. John Clute and Peter Nicholls, London: Orbit, 1993, corrected paperback 1999, is also worth consulting)

Istvan Csicsery-Ronay, Jr., The Seven Beauties of Science Fiction (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2008)

Edward James and Farah Mendlesohn (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003)

Roger Luckhurst, Science Fiction (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2005)
Adam Roberts, The History of Science Fiction (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005)

David Seed, Science Fiction: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011)
David Seed (ed), A Companion to Science Fiction (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2005)

The following works are not perhaps so essential - some of them are primarily about fantasy, but have useful insights for sf, others are on subsidiary areas of sf. But they do come highly recommended (and not just by me):

Michael Ashley, Out of this World: Science Fiction, but not as we know it (London: British Library, 2011)

John Clute and John Grant (eds.), The Encyclopedia of Fantasy (London: Orbit, 1997)

Edward James and Farah Mendlesohn (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Fantasy Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011 [not yet published])

Paul Kincaid, A Very British Genre: A Short History of British Science Fiction and Fantasy (London: British Science Fiction Association, 1995)

Paul Kincaid, What it Is We Do When We Read Science Fiction (Harold Wood: Beccon Publications, 2008)
Farah Mendlesohn, Rhetorics of Fantasy (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2007)
Farah Mendlesohn, The Inter-Galactic Playground: A Critical Study of Children's and Teens' Science Fiction (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2009)

I'm open to comments here. Are there any obvious texts I've missed? I won't invite you to argue that there are works I've included that shouldn't be on this list, because I think they all should be.