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Call for papers - Centre for Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies conference

3 August 2005

'Imagining the future: Utopia, dystopia and science fiction', presented by Fredric Jameson (Distinguished Professor of Comparative Literature, Duke University).

When: 6 - 7 December 2005
Where: Monash University, Clayton campus

In the 20th century earlier utopian traditions were progressively displaced by supposedly more 'scientific' understandings of progress, whether liberal, Fabian or Marxist. But in the 1960s utopian politics re-emerged in and around the 'new social movements'. As with earlier utopianisms, these found significant expression in literature, philosophy and science fiction.

In a 1982 essay for Science Fiction Studies, Fredric Jameson famously defined the problem of 'Progress v. Utopia' through the question 'Can we imagine the future?' timed to coincide with the long-awaited publication of 'Archaeologies of the Future', Jameson's full-length monograph on the subject. This conference will return to the question of whether and how we can imagine the future and whether or not such imaginings remain open to the unforeseeable.

The conference invites papers that will address these questions via the themes of utopia, dystopia and science fiction.

Abstracts (approximately 100 - 150 words) should be sent by 30 September via email utopias@arts.monash.edu.au.

Further information is available at www.arts.monash.edu.au/lcl/conferences/utopias/.