CRSF is about bringing together the most cu

First held in 2011, CRSF is an annual postgraduate conference designed to promote the research of speculative fictions including, but not limited to, science fiction, fantasy and horror.

Our aim is to showcase some of the latest developments in this dynamic and evolving field, by providing a platform for the presentation of current research by postgraduates. The conference will also encourage the discussion of this research and the construction of crucial networks with fellow researchers.

Watch this space for upcoming CRSF news.

Tuesday 7 June 2016

2016 Conference Schedule

CRSF 2016 is being held at the University of Liverpool on Monday 27th June, the planned schedule is as follows:

9:00-9:30: Registration and Refreshments

9:30-10:30: Keynote Lecture #1: Dr Caroline Edwards,
"But there is still such beauty”: Post-Apocalyptic Fiction and Eco-Eschatological Time in the 21st-Century

10:30 -12:00: First Round of Panels
1.1: Press START to Play
- Andrew Ferguson - Clipping Out of Bounds: Reading House of Leaves Through Portal
- Britanny Kuhn - Awaiting Title
- Ivaylo Shmilev - Oppression, Warfare and Transcultural Memory in the Complex Post- Apocalyptic Environments of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Game Series

1.2: Horrific Narratives
- Travis Gasque - The New Cosmic Horror: A Genre Molded by Tabletop Roleplaying Games and Postmodern Horror
- Matthew McCall - “My manez mynde to maddyng malte”: Tracing Horror in the Middle English Pearl
- Selena Middleton - Climate Collapse and the Uncontained Body in James Tiptree Jr.’s A Momentary Taste of Being

1.3: You’re Only Young Once
- Lan Ma - Censorship and Resistance: Information Control in Japanese Dystopian Young Adult Fiction in the 21st Century
- Alison Baker - Protocols for the education of young witches and wizards
- Arunima Dey - The Grotesque in the Harry Potter Series

12:00 -13:00: Second Round of Panels
2.1: Beasts and Bestiaries
- Rob O’Connor - ‘The History of All Hitherto-Existing Societies is the History of Monsters:’ The Bestiary and the Depiction of Monsters as Social Commentary
- Sandra Mänty - Representation and function of animals in the world of Harry Potter

2.2: The Greater Good
- Maxine Gee - “If something stinks put a lid on it, don’t see it”: Self-censorship and the brave new world of Psycho Pass
- Jonathan Ferguson - Crimes Against The Greater Good are Victimless Crimes?

2.3: Character Studies
- Beata Gubacsi - Monstrous Transformations: Becoming posthuman through art in Vandermeer’s Ambergris novels
- Matteo Barbagallo - Do we have a deal? Petyr Baelish, Varys, Rumpelstiltskin and their role as Doppelganger

13:00 -13:45: Lunch Break

13:45 -14:45: Keynote Lecture #2: Dr Patricia Wheeler
"She can’t love you, she’s just a machine": Metal-fevered Boys and their Passion for New Eves

14:45 -16:15: Third Round of Panels
3.1: Revenge of the Film
- Pablo Gómez Muñoz - Greening Apocalypse: Eco-Conscious Disaster in Twenty-First Century Science Fiction Cinema
- Josephine Swarbrick - Monstrous Men and Masculine Monsters: Gender and the Cyborg in Paul Verhoeven’s Robocop (1987) and José Padilha’s Robocop (2014)
- David Contreras - Gothic Surrealism in Mexican Cyberpunk Short Film: The Borderlands Strike Back

3.2: Theoretically Speaking
- Jo Lindsay Walton - The Dystopian Glimpse
- Artem Zubov - Science fiction studies and genre theory
- Pascal Lemaire - Fans of history first, fans of S-F more distantly ? Alternate History as a form of History’s fan fiction

3.3: Tell Me a Tale
- Kanta Dihal - Science and Religion in Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time and Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials
- Rina Jean Baroukh - "Your Light Has Come" : Fantasy and Reality in Shimon Adaf’s Sunburnt faces
- Laura-Marie von Czarnowsky - Re-Defining the Bildungsroman: Traumatic Journeys as a Trend in Contemporary Fantasy Fiction

16:15 -16:30: Refreshment Break

16:30 -18:00: Fourth Round of Panels
4.1: Perceptions of the Female Self
- Sonya Dyer - aPOCalypso: Janelle Monae and (Science) Fictional Black Feminisms
- Sarah Lohmann - “Solar Loyalties”: The Utopian Ethics of Posthumanism in Naomi Mitchison’s Memoirs of a Spacewoman
- Mylène Branco - The Construction of the Female Self in L.P. Hartley’s Facial Justice

4.2: Alternate Beings
- Tom Kewin - ‘A Society of Screens’: The State of Digital Surveillance and the Repercussions for the Humanist Subject
- Mattia Petricola - From mesmeric trance to living avatars: Rethinking consciousness and death after Mr Valdemar

4.3: Dystopian Time, Resurgent Space
- Gabrielle Bunn - Future Ruins: The intersection of nature and culture in the post-apocalyptic landscape of J. G. Ballard’s The Drowned World (1962)
- Hollie Johnson - Anarchy, Nostalgia, and Resistance: The Role of Nature in We, Brave New World, Nineteen Eighty-Four
- Thomas Connolly - “There was a thing called Heaven”: The end of time in Huxley’s Brave New World

18.00 -19.00: Post-Conference Wine Reception and Official Conference Group Photo

You can download a PDF of the schedule here.