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- Convenor:
-
Ezri Carlebach
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- Format:
- Roundtable
- Sessions:
- Tuesday 7 June, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
Science fiction – SF to fans, sci-fi to critics - is the cultural form most often associated with imagined futures. Under the broader banner of speculative fiction, SF sits alongside concepts such as foresight, anticipation and envisioning, which have grown in prominence since the middle of the last century as methodologies within strategic studies, policy and academia.
Long Abstract:
SF writers and their readers have long been concerned with two main questions: what might technology enable us to do in the future? And what impact will it have on human life and society? From Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus (1818) to Kai-fu Lee and Chen Qiufan’s AI 2041: Ten Visions for our Future (2021), interest in such questions has never been greater or more widespread.
There is a thread connecting specifically anthropological engagement with these, and related questions. It runs through contributions to C.K. Ogden’s landmark To-Day and To-Morrow series (1923-31), Margaret Mead’s ‘anticipatory’ anthropology (collected in The World Ahead: An Anthropologist Anticipates the Future, 2005), efforts to tackle the ethnocentrism dominating futures thinking by, among others, Magoroh Maruyama (Cultures of the Future, 1978) and the recent work of the EASA Futures Anthropology Network (Anthropologies and Futures: Researching Emerging and Uncertain Worlds, 2017).
This workshop borrows its title from Max Saunders’ study of Ogden’s eclectic series, which blurred the already fading boundaries between imaginative writing and science and technology in the experience of modernity. The discussion will begin by asking what role anthropology plays, both in the critical analysis of imagined futures and in contributing to them. Who knows where it will go from there?
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Tuesday 7 June, 2022, -Paper short abstract:
Max Saunders is Interdisciplinary Professor of Modern Literature and Culture at the University of Birmingham. He was Director of the Arts and Humanities Research Institute at King’s College London.
Paper long abstract:
He studied at the universities of Cambridge and Harvard, and was a Fellow of Selwyn College, Cambridge. He is the author of Ford Madox Ford: A Dual Life (OUP, 1996); Self Impression: Life-Writing, Autobiografiction, and the Forms of Modern Literature (OUP, 2010); and Imagined Futures: Writing, Science, and Modernity in the To-Day and To-Morrow Book Series, 1923-31 (OUP, 2019).
Paper short abstract:
Anne Charnock's writing career began in journalism. Her reports appeared in New Scientist, The Guardian and the International Herald Tribune. She has written four near-future novels with recurrent themes of climate catastrophe and human reproductive technologies.
Paper long abstract:
Anne’s novel Dreams Before the Start of Time won the Arthur C. Clarke Award in 2018.
Her novella, The Enclave, won the BSFA short fiction award in the same year.
Her debut novel, A Calculated Life, was shortlisted for the Philip K. Dick Award and The Kitchies Award in 2014.
Anne studied at the University of East Anglia and The Manchester School of Art.
Paper short abstract:
I am a Senior Research Fellow in Science and Technology Studies at King’s College London, Department of Global Health & Social Medicine. I have extensive experience collaborating in multidisciplinary teams to facilitate responsible research and innovation practices in the development of future technologies.
Paper long abstract:
From 2014 to 2020 I worked in the Foresight Laboratory of the Ethics and Society group of the Human Brain Project, a Future and Emerging Technology flagship of the European Commission. Since 2020, I am also Responsible Research & Innovation Lead for the Centres for Doctoral Training in Smart Medical Imaging and in Safe & Trusted Artificial Intelligence at King’s College London. I originally trained as an engineer and worked for well over a decade in the tech industry. My social scientific research focuses on the sciences and technologies of brain and mind; interdisciplinary practices and collaborations; futures studies, notably the use of speculative science fiction for participatory foresight work. The latter is strongly fuelled by my non-professional taste for science fiction and fantasy.
Paper short abstract:
Stephen Oram writes near-future fiction. His collections have been praised by publications as diverse as The Morning Star and The Financial Times. He is published in many anthologies and has two published novels.
Paper long abstract:
He also works with scientists and technologists to explore possible futures through short stories, and has co-edited three anthologies along these lines. He is a writer for sci-fi prototypers SciFutures, a founding curator for near-future fiction at Virtual Futures and a regular contributor to BSFA’s Focus magazine. He is guest editing a forthcoming issue of BSFA’s Vector on speculative fiction in relation to prediction, innovation, and futures.