2nd Annual Sturgeon Symposium: Fantastic Worlds, Fraught Futures
Celebrating science fiction, speculative fiction, & the 2023-24 KU Common Book
Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower
September 20-22, 2023
with collaborative event on September 19
All events open to the public! Register now at link above!
(not required for attendance, but this will help us with planning.
Off-campus registrants, contact sfcenter@ku.edu for parking information)
NOTE: All events will be held
at the Hall Center for the Humanities,
900 Sunnyside Ave, Lawrence, KS,
except when otherwise noted. Virtual
events will be online only (not
simulcast)
Tuesday night, 9/19
6-8 pm, Kansas Union, The Jay
Feminist Futures Forum with Olaronke Akinmowo
In collaboration with the Emily Taylor Center for Women & Gender Equity and the KU Common Book
Wednesday, 9/20
(all virtual am, in-person zine workshop pm)
9:15-10:15 am, Virtual, Zoom link (Meeting ID: 712 192 3424)
Panel: Storytelling as alternative universe
Moderator: Ali Brox
- Sumanta Pramanik & Shri Krishan Rai, “Traversing the Multiverse in Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle through the Lens of Quantum Mechanics”
- Sarah Nolan, “Theodore Sturgeon’s Utopian Dreams: Encountering Generic Lineage in the Archive”
- Marleen S. Barr, “The Queens English Or What’s a Nice Feminist Scholar Like Me Doing Writing Science Fiction About a Former President Like This?”
10:30-11:15 am, Virtual, Zoom link (Meeting ID: 712 192 3424)
Panel: Ecocritical approaches to SFF
Moderator: Jasmine Holthaus
- Emad Aysha & Ahmad Al-Madhi, Ecocriticism and Environmental Themes in Arabic and Muslim Science Fiction
- [Azadeh Mehrpouyan, “Womanhood and Motherhood in Ecofeminist Science Fiction: Sheri Stewart Tepper” - unable to attend]
video recording
Some links from chat:
Work by Emad Aysha
Interview with Ahmad Al-Madhi (text link)
[lunch on your own]
1-2 pm, Virtual, Zoom link (Meeting ID: 712 192 3424)
Roundtable: Latinx Speculative Poetry Futures
- Angela Acosta (chair), Angel Leal [Violeta Orozco, unable to attend]
some links from chat:
Angela Acosta's poem in collection
Angel Leal's poem
Discord server: Calamitous: A Queer SFFH Writing Group
3-4:30 pm, Spencer Museum of Art (in person)
- Olaronke Akinmowo, Zine workshop
in collaboration with the Emily Taylor Center for Women & Gender Equity and the KU Common Book
Thursday 9/21
(virtual am, in-person pm)
9:30-10:15, Virtual, Zoom link (Meeting ID: 712 192 3424)
Panel: Ethics of Nonhuman Life
Moderator: Silvia Park
- [Sonakshi Srivastava, “In(ter)ventions: Technologies of Preserving Nonhuman Life in the Anthropocene” --unable to attend due to technical difficulties; presentation to be uploaded when available]
- Himangshu Sarma, “Nonhuman Animals and the Ethics of Biotechnology in Octavia Butler's Dawn”
10:30-11:00 am, Virtual, Zoom link (Meeting ID: 712 192 3424)
Panel: CSSF
Moderator: Katie Conrad
- Michael Alan Johnson and Sandra Jacobo, "Building Connections, Building Community: The Gunn Center's Efforts to Promote Science Fiction Scholarship"
[lunch on your own]
1 – 2 pm, Hall Center
L. L. McKinney Y. A. / S. F. creative writing workshop (in person)
All levels welcome! Join YA and SF author L. L. McKinney for this wonderful opportunity to work with a celebrated local writer of international renown and a noted advocate for equality and inclusion in the publishing world. McKinney is the author of the Nightmare-verse series and a number of SF and YA titles, including but not limited to Marvel's Black Widow: Bad Blood, Power Rangers Unlimited: Heir to Darkness, and contributions to The Black Girl Survivies in This One and Wonderland.
Crowdcast recording coming soon
2:15 – 3:15, Hall Center
Panel: Octavia Butler
Moderator: Giselle Anatol
- Deja Beamon, “Maternal Memory: Re-membering Black Motherhood in the Face of Alzheimer’s in Octavia E. Butler's Parable of the Sower”
- Kylee Smith, Something ‘other-than-human’: Re-reading Parable of the Sower and the Broken Earth Trilogy as a Posthuman Map for Survival and Resistance”
- Rachel Schwaller, "God is Change: Using Religion in Parable to Engage and Decolonize our Classrooms"
3:30 – 5 pm, Hall Center
State of SF Roundtable
- Philip Drake (chair), L. L. McKinney, Silvia Park, and Bogi Takács
5:30 – 7 pm, Hall Center
Sturgeon Award presentation & reception
- Reception at 5:30; program at 6
In person, with Crowdcast option: https://www.crowdcast.io/c/sturgeon - Opening remarks, Theodore Sturgeon Collection, Elspeth Healey, Spencer Special Collections Curator
- Introduction and Award Presentation, Noël Sturgeon, Trustee, Theodore Sturgeon Literary Trust
- Reading, Samantha Mills, 2023 Sturgeon Award Winner
Crowdcast recording coming soon
Friday 9/22
(all in-person)
9-10 am, Hall Center
Panel: Affect, power, community
Moderator: Zack Smith
- Bogi Takács Perelmutter, "Transcendent Sharing - Early Counter-Imaginaries of Gendered Magical Power in American Speculation”
- RB Lemberg Perelmutter, “Representations of queer neurodivergent communities in Ada Hoffmann’s The Fallen and Andi Buchanan’s The Sanctuary”
- A.D. Boynton, II, “‘Damn, Yall Feel That?’: Sensitivity at the End of the World”
10:15 – 10:45 am, Hall Center
Creative reading
Introduction: Katie Conrad
- Maria Melendez Kelson, “The Parable of Nati (short story)"
10:55 am – 12 pm, Hall Center
Roundtable: Hispanic Speculative Fiction
Moderator: Emily Ryan
- Miguel González-Abellás, “Cloning as a Nightmare: Representations of Clones in Paraguayan Sci-Fi Novels”
- Sean Gullickson, “Escaping España: Spanish Climate Fiction Searches for the Space between Today and Tomorrow" Sean Gullickson,
- Zachary Glassett, "“Roots, Chains, and Invisible Threads: Milpa as Representative of Capitalist Exploitation and Anti-capitalist Resistance in Sleep Dealer”
- Miguel Ángel Albújar-Escuerdo, “From garden to farm, exploitative suggestions of techno bros in two of Liliana Colanzi´s sci-fi short stories"
LUNCH (Hall Center, catered for registrants) 12-1 pm
12:30 – 1:30 pm, Hall Center
Panel: SFF, Disability, and Justice
Moderator: Phil Drake
- Rachel Andreini, “Technology, the Body, and Disability: A Posthuman Response to Marie Corelli’s A Romance of Two Worlds”
- Margarita Nuñez-Arroyo, “Disability Justice in Helena Viramontes’s Under the Feet of Jesus”
- Emily Aguilar, “Against Criminality: Storytelling as Abolitionist Practice in Midnight Robber”
1:40 – 2:40 pm, Hall Center
Teaching SF Roundtable
Moderator: Giselle Anatol
- Silvia Park, RB Lemberg Perelmutter, Ani Kokobobo, Christian Holt, Jasmine Holthaus, and Phil Drake.
3 – 4:30 pm, Spencer Museum of Art
Closing Reception
KU Common Work of Art
Remarks by Joey Orr
6:30 pm, Woodruff Aud., KS Student Union
Movie, “The Host” (dir. Bong Joon Ho, 2006), followed by trivia and panel discussion
Free! Co-sponsored by SciFlix, KU Edwards