Disruptive Imaginations SFRA|GFF 2023

Disruptive Imaginations

Joint annual conference of the Science Fiction Research Association (SFRA) and the Society for Fantastic Research (GfF)

August 15-19, 2023, TU Dresden

With this conference we combine the annual meetings of the Science Fiction Research Association (SFRA) and the German Society for Fantasy Research (GfF). Given existing overlaps in the membership base, shared areas of interest and a common mission, we believe that a joint conference offers great potential for dynamic exchange, fruitful discussions and new perspectives and insights. The broad focus on SFF envisioned here allows for consideration of a wide range of genres and forms, including science fiction, fantasy, and horror.

Science fiction and fantasy (SFF) are capable of disrupting and interrupting established narratives and world designs. Whether in the form of hard science fiction, utopian speculation, high fantasy or supernatural horror, SFF is fundamentally anchored in notions of disruption - a tear in the fabric of reality, an alienation of the senses, a break with the known world or a crossing of boundaries. The conference theme "Disruptive Imaginations" invites us to engage with disruption as a multifaceted paradigm of SFF imagination. As a form of disruption or interruption, disruption means that familiar patterns of perception and order of life in the world are shaken and thus replaced by uncertainty and insecurity. Disruption can occur on a scale ranging from the micrological to the cosmic. On the precarious threshold between chaos and order, disruption holds the potential for transformative systemic change and can trigger a shift in hegemonic markers of the "impossible/impossible".

More information and program:

www.disruptiveimaginations.com

Conference Program

Call for Papers

Book of Abstracts

Keynotes:

David M. Higgins (Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University)
"Alt-History and Reactionary Worldbuilding"

Priscilla Layne (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)
"Utopias of Restorative Justice: Speculative Fiction, Gender and Violence in SchwardRund's Vizcaya and Sharon Dodua Otoo's Ada's Realm"

Lou Cornum (New York University)
"Lunar Landings: How to (Not) Approach the Moon"

Public events:

Contactics: Science Fiction in Performance (with Irina Gheorghe, Emma Waltraud Howes--curated by Alison Sperling), Technische Sammlungen Dresden, August 16, 20:00. details.
The Legacy of Science Fiction in the GDR (with Karlheinz Steinmüller, Elisabeth Schaber, Evan Torner, Erik Simon, Hardy Kettlitz--curated by Sonja Fritzsche), Deutsches Hygiene-Museum Dresden, August 17, 19:00. details
Progressive Fantastik: New Impulses for the Genre (with Patrizia Eckermann, James Sullivan, Judith C. Vogt--curated by Lars Schmeink), Deutsches Hygiene-Museum Dresden, August 18, 19:30. details

The Gesellschaft für Fantastikforschung e.V. is a scientific society that has set itself the task of promoting research into fantasy in art, literature and culture in German-speaking countries on a scientific basis and contributing to a deepening of scientific and cultural knowledge in these areas. To this end, the society publishes the journal Zeitschrift für Fantastikforschung (peer-reviewed and open access) and organizes a major annual conference once a year at different venues.

Founded in 1970, the Science Fiction Research Association is the oldest international professional association dedicated to the scientific study of science fiction and the fantastic in literature, film and art. The open-access journal SFRA Review is published four times a year and the SFRA meets annually for a conference at different venues.

Organizing team:
Julia Gatermann
Moritz Ingwersen