Expanding ‘Science Fiction’ in the Nineteenth Century
Centre for Nineteenth-Century Studies International (CNCSI)
26 April 2024
Join the Centre for Nineteenth-Century Studies International (CNCSI) on April 26 2024 for a day-long workshop of eclectic and interdisciplinary papers from guest speakers themed around Science Fiction in the Nineteenth Century.
This workshop brings together exciting voices from a range of interdisciplinary fields to explore and expand our understandings of ‘science fiction’ in the nineteenth century across the globe. What we today call ‘Sci-Fi’ is a genre very much of the nineteenth century, canonically understood to have emerged in its earliest forms with texts like Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818), and reaching broad popular appeal by the fin-de-siècle through publications from H. G. Wells onwards. This workshop adopts a provocatively broad definition of the term ‘Sci-Fi’ to explore the existence beyond literary fiction of creative, speculative, and fantastical engagement with new technologies and scientific practices. Our Sci-Fi ‘texts’ will be considered broadly, ranging from imaginative explorations of non-human others in fiction, to engagement with nineteenth-century scientific thought and technologies in Victorian ‘high-art’ painting. We shall see how, across the globe, fantasies and fears about these technologies, and the limits and possibilities of scientific enquiry and expansion, can be traced across areas as diverse as theatre and the visual arts, mainstream science writing, and imaginative speculative fiction.
Programme Summary: View a summary of the programme here.
Registration: Register here.
Programme: Download the full programme and abstracts here.