Science fiction and fantasy (and horror) conferences galore

It's pretty frequent that I wish I had a couple extra versions of myself. It would be great for productivity.  And that way I might not have to miss so many excellent cons (conferences and conventions both). The coming eight months or so are full of science-fictional and fantastical conferencing and convening opportunities, and somehow I have to choose only a few to actually attend...

2012

FAN EXPO: Aug 23-26
I'm pleased to say I'll be heading out to this Toronto extravaganza for the first time in a few years, though I'll only get to experience a sliver of what's going on. As usual, it's the science fiction expo and the Festival of Fear that are the main draws for me.

SLSA (Society for Literature, Science and the Arts): Sep 27-30
Where literature and the arts meet science you inevitably find science fiction and SLSA always seems to have stimulating sf panels. This year the overarching theme is the nonhuman. I was slotted to attend, and wish I could, but a trip to Milwaukee at the end of September just isn't in my power.

NEPCA: Oct 26-27
This regional branch of the Popular Culture Association features a few science fiction & fantasy panels on its programming schedule, one of which will include a paper by me. This year the conference takes place at Saint John Fisher College in Rochester.

WORLD FANTASY CONVENTION: Nov 1-4
I've never been, but this year the con comes to Toronto, so I'm sorely tempted (though membership comes at a steep price). Announced guests include John Clute and Gary K. Wolfe, whose scholarship I admire, and authors like Charles de Lint, Tanya Huff, Patricia Briggs, and Mercedes Lackey.

2013

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE for the FANTASTIC in the ARTS – Fantastic Adaptations, Transformations, and Audiences: Mar 20-24

I've been to ICFA twice and had a great experience both times. This year promises to be even livelier than usual with Neil Gaiman featuring among the top-listed guests, along with author Kij Johnson and scholar Constance Penley. Does this fall after March break in 2013? In the past I've found myself making the return trip to Orlando in the midst of vacationing families. The hotel is in the middle of nowhere, but there's a good Asian restaurant and the pool is nice. If you want to participate you have until the end of October to put together a persuasive proposal.

Conference of the Popular and American Culture Association (PCA/ACA): Mar 27-30 

The Science Fiction & Fantasy and Horror areas of this huge conference are active and engaging, and well worth checking out (although not the only panels of interest, of course). This year folks are gathering in Washington, DC, for the main event. The SF/F section has set a Nov 30 deadline for proposals.

SFRA/EATON Science Fiction Conference: Apr 11-14

I haven't been to the conferences of either organization, although they sound like fascinating collections of people and ideas. This coming year people can check them both off in one shot. Proposals for this California conference are due on September 14, so time is running out.

Popular Culture Association of Canada (PCAC): May 9-11

Our call for presenters isn't out yet, and we don't have an official science fiction, fantasy or horror section, but these genres tend to feature fairly prominently in the programming schedule. Stay tuned for more info about next year's conference, the last slotted for Niagara Falls (at least in the immediate future).

WisCon 37: May 24-27
Billed as the "world's leading feminist science fiction convention," WisCon is featuring Joan Slonczewski and Jo Walton as Guests of Honor this year. This is another enticing event I have yet to check out.

And this isn't even all of them! 

(sigh)

music & science (and moonspell)

If you recall, a few posts ago I brought up a connection between metal and phyics - specifically through Somn from Forest Stream, who is both musician and physicist.

Well, here's another parallel: I just clued in that the latest Epica album, Design Your Universe, is "directly influenced from quantum physics" (to quote the promo blip). To be honest, I'm not quite sure how yet. It doesn't sound anymore quantum than their other records (what does quantum even sound like?), but a neat idea nonetheless.

One more timely connection between music and science:

Quantifying Goethe, by the Penderecki Quartet at Waterloo's Quantum to Cosmos Festival.

And, in case you were wondering, Moonspell completely rocked the Mod Club in Toronto Tuesday night. Great and extremely intimate set all the way from Wolfheart to Night Eternal. It amazes me how that band manages to sound as ferocious as they ever did without losing the subtleties or falling into dated nostalgia. Too bad it's been such a busy concert week, keeping some people away who might otherwise have shown up. (for the record, I'm not a jot sorry I chose Moonspell over Satyricon)

metal and physics

When prepping for my interview with Russian doom metal band Forest Stream I discovered that vocalist Somn is a physicist. I couldn't resist asking him about potential links between his music and his physics.

keew: You were working on your physics PhD while trying to write and record Tears of Mortal Solitude... Do you keep your academic and musical lives completely separate or do they overlap in some ways? Is there a relationship between your love of a certain kind of music and your interest in physics?

Sonm: Yes, call me Dr. Sonm please, I deserve that! Actually I should have started with these officials from the very first question! ROFL. I think that music and science are of the same origin, so to speak. Both are knowledge and emotional experience. In both cases you discover and make research. I made the cover art for the front page of my thesis showing the interference between music and science, which has resulted in some deep-blue light intensity distribution as a symbol of new discoveries and failures as well. Both are dares and falls, excitements and disappointments. Both are some artificial entities, yet our knowledge of them is a purely philosophical question.

My life while doing my Ph.D. was… It wasn’t easy, honestly, yet my memories of that time fill me with pleasant warmth and sometime bring tears to my eyes. Once, when I got back to Russia for my summer vacation, I had a dream: I wake up in my bed in Russia and discover that I am late for work in Holland! Damn, I got nervous, but was encouraging myself at the same time: “Come on! The flight to Amsterdam takes only 3.5 hours plus the time difference. So if I take the back stairs, nobody’s gonna notice I am late!”. A month later, in reality, I discovered that I’ve lost this “abroad” feeling once and for all. So, I wasn’t really trying to write music. And actually I never do. It comes to my mind in a form of some celestial choirs, which makes me shiver and causes fear of not hearing that again. That time it was the same; I was just playing it, trying to repeat. Therefore, I think I was not able to separate my academic and musical lives due to the fact that… evil dreams and evil waking were blended into a long tunnel of misery, with hope growing ever fainter behind (c), although overall it was okay and even entertaining from time to time. So it goes.

Forest Stream's latest record, The Crown of Winter (Candlelight), came out this past August. You can find the rest of the interview at hellbound.ca.

never mind modified vegetables: genetic engineering gone really wrong

An article in New Scientist reports that researchers are investigating ways to produce pain-free animals to reduce or eliminate animal suffering in factory farms. Reducing animal suffering I'm on board with, but there are some seriously screwed up aspects of this kind of research.

For one thing, the main proponent of this idea (who is featured in the article), a philosopher (and neuroethicist?) from Washington University, bases his proposal on some very skewed ground. He's quoted as follows:

"If we can't do away with factory farming, we should at least take steps to minimise the amount of suffering that is caused . . . I'm offering a solution where you could still eat meat but avoid animal suffering."

1. Why can't we do away with factory farming? Giving up on the idea is a sure way to guarantee it will never happen.
2. Sure, let's make it easier for people to ignore their relationship with the food they consume. We need a better understanding of what we're eating, not a hand blocking that kind of knowledge and responsibility from our minds.

Besides, the problem isn't that animals in factory farms feel pain. The problem is that our attitudes toward animals and view of them as resources makes it acceptable, even desirable, to put them in factory farms in the first place. Eliminating or reducing the animals' perception of pain does nothing to improve their conditions or encourage a more highly developed understanding of our interdependent relationships with animals. It just makes us feel better about engaging in use and abuse. And as page two of the article points out, there are additional problems with industrial agriculture, such as the environmental damage such practices cause.