Dear Colleagues,

Thank you very much for supporting the formation of the LLC Ming and Qing Chinese forum. Because of your participation, the forum was approved and opened this past November.

Please join us for our first organizational meeting this week at the conference in Austin, led by our Chair, Professor Tina Lu.

Hope to see you all at the…[Read more]

The Speculative Fiction Forum’s own Gerry Canavan, Assistant Prof. of 20th and 21st Century Literature at Marquette University, was a guest on the NPR show “On Point” on Friday Dec. 18th to discuss science fiction and film.  Check it out:

http://www.npr.org/podcasts/510053/on-point-with-tom-ashbrook

Enter ASU’s Climate Fiction Short Story Contest

First prize: $1,000
Judged by science fiction legend Kim Stanley Robinson
Submit your story!
Climate change is a creeping calamity, ever-present but so gradual and pervasive that it can be tough to grasp. Climate fiction, an emerging subgenre of speculative storytelling, can help us imagine human…[Read more]

EXTENDED DEADLINE
Octavia E. Butler: Celebrating Letters, Life, and Legacy – February 26-28, 2016 – Spelman College
February 24, 2016 will mark the tenth anniversary of the passing of Octavia E. Butler. To commemorate her contributions to the world of letters, the Octavia E. Butler Society solicits papers for a special conference to be hosted by…[Read more]

Members of the Literature and Science Forum:

Hello!

In October, the Commons Wire will return with a new section, Member Report. If you have recently published a book or an article, won a fellowship or award, accepted a new position, or received a promotion, please let us know by e-mail or by private message (to @terrainvagues) by Septemb…[Read more]

Hello all,

This forum has almost 750 members, so I would like to invite you all to introduce yourselves! And if it is not too painful to think about the fall semester yet, I’d encourage you to use the group as a locus of information exchange and syllabus brainstorming. If you’d like to share your syllabus while retaining copyright, you can…[Read more]

The HIV/AIDS epidemic has impacted human life in ways that no other disease has in human history.   The reasons for this impact are numerous and discouraging.  The virus is spread through the intimate contact that defines itself.  There is no cure for it.  There is no vaccine.  In fact, even the thought of human trials to test the efficacy of va…[Read more]

Heavens Above: Envisioning Religion in Science Fiction (MLA 2016 in Austin, TX, 7-10 January)
Alien religions, post-secular numinous experience, evolutionary religious developments, neo-religious epiphanies–science fiction rarely leaves religion behind as it leaps to the stars. Papers addressing teleologies of transcendence, apocalyptic religious…[Read more]

CFP: Special session proposal for the 2016 Modern Language Association convention in Austin, TX.

“Circulating Notions of TB”

Conference papers invited that examine the representation of patients’ experiences with tuberculosis in imaginative, digital, and other texts.

How do these narratives, metaphors, or images intersect with–or even activ…[Read more]