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.
University of East Anglia 31 May—1 June, 2014
Conference Organisers: Dr Mark P. Williams | Dr Jacob Huntley | Dr Matthew Taunton
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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.
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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.
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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).
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Conference registration will be live from Monday 17th March 2014 onwards (see below).
further Information
Further information regarding registration opening and closing dates will be posted to the UEA Events page —
Click here or copy and paste the URL from below:
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ORGANISER PROFILES
Dr Mark P. Williams | https://independent.academia.edu/MarkPWilliams
Dr Jacob Huntley | https://www.uea.ac.uk/literature/people/profile/jacob-huntley
Dr Matthew Taunton | http://www.uea.ac.uk/literature/people/profile/m-taunton