Escape Velocity 2017

Good SF is more than just entertainment, and the ever-increasing amount of critical attention it is receiving suggests that people have stopped viewing it as "mere" genre fiction. Addressing the legacy of Darko Suvin and his articulation of cognitive estrangement, panelists will discuss the state of modern science fiction criticism and the areas of inquiry most relevant to the serious study of the genre.

In the wake of the inauguration day Women’s March and chilling book-to-screen adaptations such as Hulu’s new retelling of Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, science fiction narratives exploring gender, both within the constraints of the traditional gender binary and in the postmodern mode of gender as performance, are in high demand. This discussion will explore unique (and not-so-unique) representations of gender throughout science and speculative fiction literatures, and ultimately debate the extent of the progress that contemporary authors have made in the direction of gender equality in science fiction.