December 6–8, 2018 University of Graz, Austria www.worlding-sf.com WORLDING BUILDING, INHABITING, AND UNDERSTANDING SF UNIVERSES SF IMPRINT Publisher: University of Graz | American Studies Graz Editorial Staff: Michael Fuchs Responsible for the Content: Respective Authors Artwork & Layout: Timna Simonson © 2018 WORLDING SF less) coherent and cohesive world. lonial subtexts of canonical texts Spivak unco- Everything is (in) a world. In the aforementioned essay “The Origin of vered and the feminist sf of Ursula K. Le Guin, the Work of Art,” Heidegger stresses that “[w] Joanna Russ, and Octavia Butler to afrofuturism “To be a work [of art] means: to set up a world,” orld is not a mere collection of the things […] that and visions of the future in which Earth liberates Martin Heidegger remarked in his 1950 essay are present at hand. Neither is world a merely itself from human dominance. “The Origin of the Work of Art.” Some four de- imaginary framework.” “Worlds world,” he con- In about 100 presentations by scholars from cades later, Carl Malmgren suggested that “the cludes, meaning that we are subject to worlding more than 25 countries, the conference “Worl- generic distinctiveness of sf lies not in its story “as long as the paths of birth and death […] keep ding SF: Building, Inhabiting, and Understanding but in its world.” Both Malmgren and Heidegger us transported into being” (italics in original). Ga- Science Fiction Universes” seeks to explore have a point—fiction, and more specifically sci- yatri Spivak has “vulgariz[ed …]” Heidegger’s no- world-building, processes and practices of being ence fiction, is more interested in creating plau- tion of “worlding,” suggesting that the “worlding” in fictional worlds (both from the characters’ and sible worlds than telling convincing stories. In- of any text carries ideological baggage—political readers’/viewers’/players’/fans’ points of view), deed, Istvan Csicsery-Ronay has more recently messages that simultaneously naturalize spe- and the seemingly naturalized subtextual mes- remarked that world-building “determine[s] the cific ideas and seek to erase themselves. As a sages these fantastic visions communicate (or relationships in the narrative, even when the ac- result, building worlds seems to necessitate the sometimes even self-consciously address). tion is full of dramatic movement.” Accordingly, creation of hierarchies, which lead to processes everything is (happening) in a world; a (more or of oppression and marginalization—from the co- PROGRAM OVERVIEW DECEMBER 6, 2018 DECEMBER 7, 2018 DECEMBER 8, 2018 11 a.m.: Opening Ceremony 9.15–11.15 a.m.: Panels C1–C4 9–11 a.m.: Panels F1–F5 12–1.30 p.m.: Keynote Mark Bould 11.15–11.45 a.m.: Break 11–11.30 a.m.: Break 1.30–2.30 p.m.: Warm Buffet 11.45 a.m.–1.15 p.m.: Panels D1–D5 11.30 a.m.–1 p.m.: Keynote 3–4.30 p.m.: Panels A1–A4 1.15–3 p.m.: Break Gerry Canavan 4.30–5.30 p.m.: Break 3–4.30 p.m.: Panels E1–E4 1–1.30 p.m.: Break 5.30–7 p.m.: Panels B1–B4 4.30–5 p.m.: Break 1.30–3 p.m.: Special Presentation 7.30 p.m.: Reception 5–6.30 p.m.: Keynote Austrian Space Forum Cheryl Morgan 3–3.30 p.m.: Break 7 p.m.: Film Screening 3.30–5 p.m.: Panels G1–G5 5.15 p.m.: Conference Closing 6 p.m.: Farewell Dinner PANELS A A1: FRANCHISING (SR34.D2) A2: WORLDBUILDING BEYOND A3: PERFORMING WORLDS A4: COHERENCE AND DE- STORYTELLING (SR34.K1) (SR24.K2) COHERENCE (SR24.K3) Chair: Paweł Frelik Chair: Sarah Gawronski Chair: Peter Goggin Chair: Damian Podlesny Dan Hassler-Forest Christina M. Heinen Sanja Vodovnik Mladen Jakovljevic & Milan M. “Transmedia Worldbuilding and In- “Music of Black Holes and Sounds “Have AI—Will Perform” Cirkovic dustrial Convergence in the Age of from Space: LIGO Sonification and “De/Coherence in Philip K. Dick’s Global Capitalism” Their Creative Side Effects” Karin Lingnau Ubik and The Man in the High Cas- “Science Fiction and (Ecological) tle” Stephen Joyce Jonathan Shipley Reality: The Use of Game Engines “Rights Regimes and Franchise “World Building: The Devils is in the as an Artistic Tool in the Construc- Manuela Neuwirth Guardians” Details” tion of Extrapolated Realities” “Beam me into Being? Star Trek’s Nova of (Dis)Appearance and/as Jonatan Jalle Steller Maximiliano Jiménez Erin Horáková the Existence and Essence of a Co- “Building a Common Universe: Nar- “‘Gratify the desires of the people “IV, IV $, V” hesive Multiverse” rative, Commercial, and Ideologi- who visit your world’: Immersion cal Strategies in the Marvel Cine- and Fictionality in Westworld” Michel Diester matic Universe” “World Transaction in Black Mir- ror” PANELS B B1: STAR TREK I: DISCOVERY B2: URSULA K. LEGUIN B3: SF FROM THE FORMER B4: SEX AND GENDER (SR34.D2) (SR34.K1) EASTERN BLOC I (SR24.K2) (SR24.K3) Chair: Sabrina Mittermeier Chair: Francis Gene-Row Chair: Karolina Lebek Chair: Sylvia Spruck Wrigley Jennifer Volkmer Magdalena Hangel Anna Warso Sarah Gawronski “Building the Building Blocks of To- “The Construction of Sexualized “Worlding Resistance: The Wom- “‘There are always two sides, aren’t day: How Zeitgeist Influences Star Violence and Its Representation in an‘s Place and the Oppressive there?’ The Lines That Divide Us” Trek’s Vision(s) of the Future” the Work of Ursula K. LeGuin” State” Jennifer Brown Mareike Spychala Elizabeth Shipley Damian Podlesny: “Queering Human and Alien Cul- “Mother of the Fatherland: Gender, “Worlding Gender in Ursula K. Le- “Politics and Science Fiction: The tures in the Wayfarer Universe” Sexuality, and the Mirror Universe Guin and Ann Leckie” Political Worlds of Stanislaw Lew in TOS and DSC” and Philip K. Dick” Christian Ludwig Amy Butt “‘What are little boys made of?’ Sabrina Mittermeier “As Plain as Spilt Salt: The City as Representations of Sex and Gen- “Captain’s Log: Experiencing Star Social Structure in The Dispos- der Beyond the Binary in the Star Trek’s Universe from the Captains’ sessed” Trek Universe and Their Potential Point of View” for the EFL Classroom” PANELS C C1: MOVEMENT IS KEY C2: WORDS AND WORLDS C3: BETWEEN SCARCITY AND C4: ROGUES ONE (SR34.K3) (SR34.K1) (SR34.D2) ABUNDANCE I (SR34.04) Chair: Jennifer Brown Chair: Sean Guynes-Vishniac Chair: Cheryl Morgan Chair: Elisabeth Schneider Paweł Frelik Agnes Aminot Erin Horáková Wojciech Klepuszewski “Lost in Space: Vast Game Worlds “Words of After: Rebuilding the “The Future, Wouldn‘t That Be “Boojly, Bandy, and Red Biddy: The and Spatial Science Fictions” World through Language and His- Nice?” Future of Drink in Kingsley Amis’ tory” Fiction” (Skype) Dietmar Meinel Pascal Lemaire “Running a Neoliberal World: Nadiia Vilkhovchenko “Steampunking Rome: Economics Iana Gagarina Movement in Space and Corporate “The Semantic Peculiarities of Spe- and Technology in Alternate Histo- “Worlding Food: The Familiar and Dystopia in Mirror‘s Edge Catalyst” cial Vocabulary Used in Science ry—The Case of the Roman Empire” the Strange” Fiction” Ria Narai Aurelie Villers Janin Tscheschel “Boldly Going: Traveling to Fictional Jerry Määttää “How the World of Alastair Reyn- “A World Within Us: Denis Ville- Worlds” “Minimalist Worldbuilding and SF olds’ Revelation Space Is Being neuve’s Arrival Opens an Outer Poetry: The Neologisms, Names, Built: Revealing What the Story Space of New Experience” Paweł Pyrka and Allusions of Harry Martinson‘s Does Not Say” “Critical Rules: Worldbuilding, Aniara” Sarah K. Stanley Character Immersion, and Sto- Lars Schmeink “Building the Multiverse in Paris rytelling that Matters in Tabletop Katherine Bishop “A Future of Extremism: Cyber- and Berlin, 1920–2500” Roleplaying Games in the Digital “Liminal Letters: Corresponding punk’s Commodification of Bodies” Age” Worlds” PANELS D D1: ROGUES TWO (SR34.D2) D2: BEYOND PETRO- D3: SF FROM THE FORMER D4: SF BECOMES REAL(ITY) MODERNITY I (SR34.K1) EASTERN BLOC II (SR34.04) (SR34.K3) Chair: Leimar Garcia-Siino Chair: Graeme Macdonald Chair: Sylvia Spruck Wrigley Chair: Paul Graham Raven Mojca Krevel Rhys Williams Natalia Chumarova Rhodri Davies “The Periphery of the Future; or, “Making Worlds for the End of the “Ivan Efremov’s Fictional World “Hard Science Fiction Faith: SF the Future of Periphery: William World” as an Example of the Soviet in Postwar New Religious Move- Gibson’s The Peripheral” Science-Fictional Imagination” ments” Amy Butt (Skype) Roxanne Chartrand & Pascale “The Fabric of the City: Scarcity Miranda Iossifidis Thériault and Sustainability” Chris Hall “Uses of SF: Everyday Readers, “Beyond Fiction: Performing the “Tarkovsky’s Solaris: Settling the Ambiguous Hopefulness, and Envi- Videoludic Cyberqueer Identity” Francis Gene-Rowe Otherworldly Self” ronmental Justice” “Just How Can We Tell Alternatives Norbert Gyuris to Petroreality? Kaladesh: An In- Artem Zubov Julia Grillmayr “Semiotic Concepts of Gravity: structive Failure” “Constructing the Cultural Imag- “Science/Fiction—the Most Prolific Simulation vs. Representation in inary: Factory Workers Reading Oxymoron: Contemporary SF Liter- Upside Down” Science Fiction in Late Imperial ature and Scenario Writing” Russia” PANELS D PANELS E D5: INDIGENOUS E1: GREENING SF (SR34.K3) E2: UTOPIAN WORLDS E3: IMAGINING NON-BINARY COSMOLOGIES (SR34.K2) (SR34.04) FUTURES (SR34.K2) Chair: Kristina Baudemann Chair: Paweł Frelik Chair: Sean Guynes-Vishniac Chair: Simon Whybrew John Rieder Beata Gubacsi Iren Boyarkina Indiana Seresin “The War of the Worlds in Albert “Anxieties of Annihilation and “The New Worlds in the Science “Intimacy, Light, and Worldbuild- Wendt’s Adventures of Vela” HumAnimal Futures in Jeff Vander- Fiction Novels of