I'm posting this for any AboutSF supporters who are doing scholarship in American SF. American Literature will be hosting a special issue soon. See the Call for Papers below for all info:

American Literature (Duke University Press)
Special Issue on SF, Fantasy, and Myth
http://www.duke.edu/~gc24/americanliterature.html

DEADLINE: 31 May 2010

More than one commentator has mentioned that science fiction as a form is where theological narrative went after Paradise Lost, and this is undoubtedly true…The form is often used as a way of acting out the consequences of a theological doctrine….Extraterrestrials have taken the place of angels, demons, fairies and saints, though it must be said that this last group is now making a comeback.
—Margaret Atwood, “Why We Need Science Fiction”

Fantasy is the impossible made probable. Science fiction is the improbable made possible.
—Rod Serling

In this work I am attempting to create a new mythology for the space age. I feel that the old mythologies are definitely broken down and not adequate at the present time.
—William Burroughs (on the Nova trilogy)


From revolutions in communications technology and transportation to encounters with space travelers and aliens, from leaps in human evolution to new dimensions of existence, from creation stories of the past to speculations about the future, science fiction, fantasy, and myth have variously captured the far reaches of the human imagination, making the familiar strange and the strange inevitable. From the vantage point of the twenty-first century, it is fascinating to watch the rapid innovations in science and technology overtake their fictional anticipation and to return to our most speculative and fantastical literature to see how perceptively it anticipated the social and geopolitical transformations—and challenges—these innovations would inspire. We can, moreover, look through these fictions and recognize in them a prolonged engagement not just with the transient social anxieties of their individual moments, but also with the timeless drama of human contact with the divine, the transcendent, the otherworldly, and the sublime.

This special issue brings together these genres with their divergent but intersecting histories and asks why they might be particularly relevant to study in the contemporary moment. While science fiction has garnered increasing attention in recent years in the academy (and increasing recognition in mainstream publications), the status of fantasy is even more controversial—and the line between them itself a subject of debate. Myth, by contrast, has long been a source of scholarly fascination, although the term typically emerges in the study of American literatures in its pejorative sense. Yet, myth plays a seminal role in the genres of science fiction and fantasy, so much so that science fiction and fantasy can arguably exceed the category of genre to contribute to what William Burroughs calls “a new mythology for the space age.” The issue seeks to move past the definitional debates—beyond, for example, determining the distinction between science fiction and fantasy or the precise definition of myth—to explore broadly the relationship of these genres and modes (individually or in combination) to American literatures and cultures. How, for example, might a focus on science fiction, fantasy, and/or myth change our understanding of literary history? Of literary engagements with scientific and technological innovations as well as with the most pressing political concerns of the moment? How might we use these literary forms to understand genre as a historical repository? The role of mythology in modern culture? What social and geopolitical conditions might produce a genre or mode—or perhaps a critical category that newly classifies certain literary conventions as genres? What themes or questions surface when we read more canonical works through the lens of science fiction, fantasy or myth? Conversely, what happens to these categories when we take seriously, as scholars such as H. Bruce Franklin have done, their early appearance in American literary history? This issue will explore the insights that emerge when we consider the various imaginative engagements that characterize science fiction, fantasy, and myth as central concerns of American literary history and cultural production.

Special issue editors: Priscilla Wald and Gerry Canavan. Submissions of 11,000 words or less (including endnotes) should be submitted electronically at www.editorialmanager.com/al/default.asp by 31 May 2010. When choosing a submission type, select “Special Issue.” Please contact us at 919-684-3948 or am-lit@duke.edu if you need assistance with the submission process. Please direct other questions to Priscilla Wald (pwald@duke.edu) or Gerry Canavan (gerry.canavan@duke.edu).

I owe several thank you's to volunteers who've helped AboutSF in the past few weeks.

Thanks to Thomas Del Greco, Matthew Candelaria, and Mike Mathews for their help bug testing the soon-to-be-released AboutSF Drupal site.

Also, thanks to Samantha Bishop-Simmons, who created our latest Heinlein reader's guide and may do a few more.

Finally, many thanks to Jeff Welch who filmed China Miéville's lecture at KU a few weeks ago. We hope to edit this and post some key sections on our site's Videos section. (What a great speech it was, too!)

Please join me in thanking these hard-working volunteers.

AboutSF received a generous donation from Denvention 3, the 66th World Science Fiction Convention. Our "Teaching Science Fiction: A Portable Workshop" program went over successfully at Denvention last year, and the Denvention staff thought we were a worthy cause.

Many thanks to Mem Morman and the wonderful Denvention 3 staff who approved our proposal for the workshop and who presented us with the gift! Every donation helps continue our mission.

Only two weeks until "Teaching SF: A Portable Workshop" at this year's Worldon in Montreal! - Nate

I have the full schedule for the AboutSF's teaching workshop at Worldcon in Montréal. It's posted below. Please help spread the word. Admission is free for the workshop. Interested parties can sign up by emailing aboutsfworkshop@gmail.com. - Nate

AboutSF's Teaching Speculative Fiction: A Portable Workshop
Anticipation, the 67th World Science Fiction Convention, Montréal, Québec
Thursday, August 6, 2009 at Worldcon - at the Palais des congrès de Montréal
Two Tracks of Programming - Presentations in English and French Running Concurrently

Schedule of English-Language Events (Francophone track listed below)

9:00 – 10:00 - Empower Your Students: Teach Them Science Fiction, Too – Keynote
Award-winning science fiction author and science educator, Julie E. Czerneda, begins the educator program with a frank discussion of how the creativity and reasoned speculation of science fiction are essential tools for scientific literacy and full citizenship in the future your students will inherit.

10:00 – 12:00 Science Fiction and Scientific Literacy – mini workshop
Assess scientific literacy (yours and your students) and learn how to put science fiction to work in your science classroom to develop key components in this hands-on workshop with Donna Young, Lead Educator for the NASA Chandra X-Ray Center EPO Office, and award-winning SF and astronomical illustrator, Jean-Pierre Normand. Materials for classroom use will be provided.

½ hour break to pick up lunch

• Les Jardins food court (level 7), with its variety of fast food selections (deli, salad bar, pizza, prepared dishes), offers fast and efficient service at affordable prices. An adjacent outdoor terrace is open during the summer.

12:30 – 13:30 Brown bag lunch
Join Julie Czerneda for a romp through SF films as she shows examples of “Science, Scientists, and Other Bizarre Notions.” Warning: there will be laughter as well as some surprises.

13:30 – 14:00 – Introducing AboutSF – Presentation
AboutSF provides the foundation for the Anticipation workshop. A special DVD/CD with over a hundred files goes home with workshop members as a resource. David-Glenn Anderson is the tour guide.

14:00 – 16:00 – Stretching the mind while thinking outside the box – mini workshops/presentations
Cathy Palmer-Lister, Lynn E Cohen-Koehler, Lindalee Stuckey, Maaja Wentz, Sharon Rawlins, Eric Choi, and Susan Fichtelberg explore reading, writing and everything else within a classroom. A question may be asked: You have read H. G. Wells Invisible Man. Would you like to be invisible? Why? Why not? A smorgasbord of books, movies, arts, social science and other subject will be covered.

16:00 – 17:00 – Final words -- Open discussion and evaluation
Graduates without Anticipation membership may purchase a $25 special membership to attend Anticipation. Tour the art show, browse the dealer’s room or attend after 5 pm programming.

Schedule of French-Language Events

L'enseignement et la science-fiction : un atelier exploratoire
Anticipation, le 67e congrès mondial de science-fiction, Montréal, Québec
le jeudi 6 août 2009 au Palais des congrès de Montréal


10h30 – 11h30 - La place de la science-fiction à l'école – Table ronde Georges Henri Cloutier, Julie Czerneda, Jean Pettigrew, Daniel Sernine
La SF mérite-t-elle une plus grande place à l'école au Québec? Dans quelle mesure pourrait-elle faciliter l'accès à la lecture pour les garçons, ou l'apprentissage des sciences? Est-il possible de l'enseigner dans le cadre des programmes actuels? Peut-elle enrichir l'enseignement d'autres sujets? Le projet "About SF" peut-il être transposé au Québec ou au Canada francophone? Ou le travail a-t-il déjà été fait?

11h30 – 12h - La science-fiction au secondaire – Présentation Éric Gauthier
Comment parle-t-on de la science-fiction au secondaire? Un auteur expérimenté explique comment on retient l'attention des écoliers du secondaire en les introduisant aux concepts fondamentaux du conte, de la narration et de la science-fiction.

pause d'une demi-heure pour aller chercher à manger

12h30 – 13h30 - Repas – Films (facultatifs; en anglais)
Dans l'autre salle, Julie Czerneda présente une série de films de SF afin d'illustrer la représentation de la science, des scientifiques et autres bizarreries incomprises de Hollywood.

13h30 – 15h - La science-fiction au primaire – Présentation Philippe Collin, Michèle Laframboise
Comment parle-t-on de la science-fiction au primaire? Deux intervenants aguerris discutent de leurs méthodes pour présenter la science-fiction aux plus jeunes en fournissant quelques exemples.

15h – 16h - Les auteurs à l'école – Table ronde Jean-Pierre Guillet, Danielle Martinigol, Francine Pelletier
Comment les auteurs font-ils, en une heure, pour présenter à la fois la science-fiction et leurs ouvrages? La science-fiction est-elle bien accueillie à l'école?

16h – 17h – Conclusions -- Discussion générale et bilan

Les participants à l'atelier qui ne sont pas inscrits à Anticipation ont droit à un rabais de 25$ sur toute inscription (pour une journée, pour la fin de semaine ou pour les cinq jours). Visitez l'exposition de tableaux, magasinez dans la salle de ventes ou assistez aux tables rondes. Restez le jeudi ou passez toute la fin de semain.

Tags: worldcon science fiction teaching

During the first week of June, AboutSF moved to a new server in Lawrence, KS. Thanks to Ben Trafford for assisting in the database backup and to Eric Kerner for volunteering his new server and his programming expertise.

The site should look the same; it's just being brought to you from a new location.

More changes are coming. We don't have FTP service for the next week, so no updates will be made to the site for the time being. Until then, I'll post essential updates (about the Worldcon Teaching Portable Workshop, for example) to this LiveJournal page and elsewhere. - Nate from AboutSF

Anticipation, the 67th World SF Convention, has added a link to their site for AboutSF's Teaching Science Fiction: A Portable Workshop. There is still space available for the day-long teacher training on Thursday, August 6th.

Take a look at http://anticipationsf.ca/English/SFWorkshop.

- Nate from AboutSF

AboutSF is looking for volunteers who can help us transfer our existing PHP code into a Drupal format. Volunteers need to be familiar with FTP and able to read and edit HTML code. Knowledge of PHP and Drupal is a plus but not required.

We need this work done after our server conversion on June 30th. If you are qualified and available in early July, contact Nathaniel Williams, AboutSF Coordinator, at natew59@ku.edu. He will be contacting volunteers with more information during the first few days of July.

In the last two weeks, I've added a few new items to AboutSF.

1) There are three new sample SF courses under our Course Outlines page--a sample high school curriculum, a 19th-century science fiction class, and a sophomore-level college course.

2) We have a new Volunteers Needed page. If you'd like to help create content for AboutSF, visit the site. We've already filled one position. If you have a non-profit project directly related to science fiction and education, let us know. We may be able to post it on the site.

3) I've also added a Videos section to the site. This area contains all the SF educational videos and interviews (Isaac Asimov, Forrest Ackerman, et. al.) that we've posted on YouTube over the past year.

There's more to come, too. - Nate

In April, AboutSF welcomed Lisa Yaszek, President of Science Fiction Research Association, to our advisory board. We look forward to her input as AboutSF continues to promote SF in education. SFRA was one of AboutSF's three initial supporters, and we appreciate their continued support.

Lisa's new book, Galactic Suburbia: Recovering Women's Science Fiction, comes highly recommended. For more info about it, see http://osupress.blogspot.com/2007/12/yaszek-galactic-suburbia.html.

AboutSF is sending out our fund-raising letters this week. These letters go out to our founding donors and partners. Now seemed a good time to mention some of our recent fund-raising activities on the blog.

We've once again been selected as the recipient of proceeds from the charity auction at ConQuesT in Kansas City on memorial weekend 2009. Thanks go out to our friends at ConQuesT. If you're in the KC area and love SF, don't miss this wonderful convention.

The novels course created by AboutSF volunteers for KU Continuing Education also resulted in some additional funds. The course-creation payment was donated to AboutSF.

Also, this week we heard back from the National Book Foundation "Innovations in Reading" Prize. Sadly, we were not one of the winners of their grant this year. There were over 100 applicants for roughly 5 spots. Still, it was worth the time to try. AboutSF especially thanks David Brin and Adam Frisch for their letters of support to the award committee.

- Nate