Annual Themes + Conferences

Every year, the LSFRC shapes its activities around a title theme. We intend it to be both expansive in its interpretation, yet defined enough to allow for a depth of meaningful ‘research’ that usually extends from the previous year’s body of programming. Research, to the LSFRC, consists of gathering together as a community of people interested in SF through arrangements of monthly reading groups, work-in-progress community sharing sessions and the annual conference.

The LSFRC hosts an annual conference during an autumn weekend that consistently draws international participants to celebrate our year’s programming and conceptual framing. Alongside presentations, discussion panels and keynote lectures, we increasingly aim to expand our definitions of what a conference is with workshops, visual arts, and more. We warmly invite all SF fans to join in attendance, while our programme is delivered by fans, scholars, activists and artists who all work with SF to varying degrees and from different perspectives.

Our first two conferences, “Organic Systems: Environments, Bodies and Cultures in Science Fiction” and “Sublime Cognition: Science Fiction and Metaphysics” took place before the LSFRC website was set up. However, we have been able to gather old conference reports and blog posts about these events, which you can find below alongside reports on subsequent events:

Organic Systems
Conference Report (CCL) by Sarah Lohmann
Conference Report (Vector) by Lucas Boulding
Conference Report (SFRA Review) by Amy Butt
Conference Report (Foundation) by Paul March-Russell
Blog Post by Francis Gene-Rowe

Sublime Cognition
Conference Programme
Conference Report (Vector) by Eli Lee
Conference Report (Foundation) by Paul March-Russell. In Foundation 131, to be available online sometime in 2021.
Blog Post by Francis Gene-Rowe

Productive Futures
Conference Report (Vector) by Jasmine Sharma
Blog Post by Jo L. Walton

Beyond Borders
Information related to this event can be found in this post.
Beyond Borders cfp
Blog post by Bruce Sterling
Conference Report (Fafnir)
SFRA Review Symposium
Blog post by Megen de Bruin-Molé
Conference Report (Foundation) by Graham Head. In Foundation 137, to be available online soon.

Activism & Resistance
Conference Call for Papers
Conference documents
Climate justice event
Queerness in SF event
SFRA Country Report by Francis Gene-Rowe
Grace Dillon’s Conference Keynote
SFRA Review symposiumSF & Extraction
Conference Call for Papers
Conference Documents
Strange Horizons Interview
Scrapbooking the Wasteland (Blog post by Megen de Bruin-Molé)

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