DOCSLIB.ORG

The Caldy Society the CALDY Newsletter Autumn 2019 SOCIETY

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
The Caldy Society the CALDY Newsletter Autumn 2019 SOCIETY The Caldy Society THE CALDY Newsletter Autumn 2019 SOCIETY Open Gardens 2020 Dates Tour of Britain visits Caldy Autumn Events Conservation & Planning Updates Follow us on FACEBOOK Visit our website for Search for “CaldyVillage” up to date news: www.caldysociety.org Follow us on TWITTER @CaldyVillage THE CALDY Committee Caroline Evans (Chairman) 07816 237 532 [email protected] Donald Lamont (Treasurer & Membership) 625 8122 [email protected] Eve Sorrell (Secretary) 625 0244 [email protected] Jacqui Walsby Tickle 625 6953 [email protected] SOCIETY Julie Kirwan 07771 733 334 [email protected] Nick Lean (Planning) 625 1549 [email protected] David Lawrence (Website) 625 2484 [email protected] Penny Hall (Minutes) [email protected] The Planning Sub Committee Nick Lean 625 1549 Roger White 625 6800 David James 625 6846 Elwyn Edwards The Tree & Planting Sub Committee Marg Kalil 625 5961 Judy Wilcox [email protected] Richard Williams 625 1445 Jacqui Walsby Tickle 625 6953 Rachel Summers 625 7604 John Casson 07885 716 224 Jean Taylor 625 5653 Subscriptions [email protected] Caldy Society AGM Looking to future events, next spring’s AGM will be held at Caldy Golf Club. Look out for emails for further information. If we don’t have your email address please get in touch with any of the committee members or if you would prefer a quick phone call to update you with events again contact us. Summer Notes from the Chairman This last year has been a busy one for the Society, with our usual involvement in Planning Applications and green belt issues. Although we take expert advice and support petitions by local residents about Planning issues, we are not always successful in our efforts to protect the character of the Village. Perhaps the new Leader of Wirral Borough Council may take a fresh approach. I recently attended a Planning Committee meeting, on behalf of the petitioners opposing the development at Roselands. It was an interesting experience, observing the wide variety of developments across the Wirral with which the Councillors have to deal. Turning next to Green Belt issues, we are in active communication with the WGSA (Wirral Green Spaces Alliance), an umbrella organisation for several different residents groups and other parties interested in protecting the Green Belt across Wirral. It has been felt in the past that the Council did not pay sufficient attention to the concern and suggestions of the many experienced professionals within this group. As I understand it, quite often no acknowledgement was given to communications from WGSA, never mind a considered reply. However, I believe a more positive relationship is developing, as the Council still has not published its (much delayed) Local Plan. While the Committee has not seen any changes in Personnel since my last update, Mr David Lawrence, who has been our liaison with WGSA, has had to step down from that role and we are urgently seeking someone to take his place. Once again, we shall be offering several social events in the Autumn (see notes in this Newsletter) which I hope you will enjoy. Any suggestions for other future events would be welcomed. The Society would be interested to know whether members would welcome emails from time to time about local break-ins. We do not wish to overwhelm our Members with emails but we do want to keep you all informed. Please let the Committee know your views on this, or any other subject we can help with. Have a very pleasant summer in our lovely village. Caroline Evans Caldy Open Gardens 2020 Our next Caldy Open Gardens will be on Sunday 24 May 2020 from 1pm- 5.30pm We already have about 14 gardens opening, four of which are brand new. For the first time, there will also be a Children’s Fairy Garden with face painting, and the live owls will be back. Tea and home-made cakes will be on offer, plus BBQ food, ice cream and other goodies to eat and drink. Yet again, there will be an extensive plant sales site, plus a select group of Wirral Artisans will be showcasing and selling their work. It’s a date for the diary not to be missed, with all proceeds going to a local charity For more information contact us at [email protected] Carols on the Green Is it too soon to mention the C word? Well, sorry to offend but our Carols on the Green this Christmas will be on Sunday 15 December. This is our free annual event so join us for mulled wine, hot chocolate, mince pies and sausage rolls. Carols will be 6pm on the Green, then weather permitting, more Carols around the tree and onto the Church Hall for refreshments. Don’t forget your torches! Blue Plaque Unveiled A Blue Plaque commemorating the renowned Wirral born science fiction author, William Olaf Stapledon, was unveiled at Simons Bridge, Caldy on the Wirral Way on Friday 10 May 2019. Wirral’s Mayor, Cllr Geoffrey Watt, performed the official unveiling and some family memories were shared with the audience by Olaf’s two grandsons. Olaf had bought part of a field in Caldy in the 1950’s and built a house for his family called Simon’s Field and is adjacent to Simons Bridge. The Stapledon name was suggested to Conservation Areas Wirral (CAW) by Justin McDonald, local actor and film maker, who had achieved the exclusive rights last year to create a short film based upon Olaf’s spellbinding story “A Modern Magician”. The film has been shot entirely on location in Merseyside and it is hoped to arrange a screening later in the year although it is already being shown at Festivals in America. (Check out Elevator Productions for more information) This article is reproduced from the CAW website, with kind permission. This is the 7th Blue Plaque commissioned by CAW. Help & Thanks This is my last newsletter as I will be leaving Caldy Society Committee due to other commitments. So we are looking for people to help in the Committee and all that happens in the village. I would particularly like to thank my fellow colleagues and a huge vote of thanks to Jon Tarrant of Jon Tarrant Creative Services for the magic he does in turning my notes into a lovely and readable newsletter. Eve Sorrell Tour Of Britain Visits Caldy On Wednesday 11 September Stage will offer great views! 5 of the Tour of Britain cycle race The Church Hall will be open for comes to Wirral it will start and finish refreshments and toilets, and we in Birkenhead Park. hope you will come along to enjoy the It will pass along Caldy Road and spectacle. through West Kirby in the early We will try to put any local road afternoon. As it will be going right closures on our email as soon as we past Caldy Church, the bends there have them. Fish and Chips Quiz Night on the night as we will form teams. Friday October 11 at 7pm for a 7.30 Tickets £15 include quiz, fish and pm start. chips, and welcome glass of wine. If you have any dietary requirements Last October we had a very full please let us know we can provide Church Hall to enjoy a great fun Gluten free fish and chips or a night for our fish and chips quiz. Our vegetarian alternative. wonderful quiz masters Chris Tann and Jon Stitcher have “volunteered” Tickets are £15 from Eve Sorrell 14 to do it all again this year. Pikes Hey Road Caldy CH48 1PB or book on line at caldysociety.org Come along as a team or take pot luck Caldy Community Gardening Caldy residents come together, with a spot of ‘Community Gardening’ every now and then, trying to make a little difference in the Village. Our recent big achievement was in persuading Vodaphone to donate daffodil bulbs for us to plant at the top of Melloncroft Drive, to replace those they churned up when they erected their mast. These were planted by the Caldy Society volunteers last autumn and what a magnificent display we were treated to this spring. However, Caldy roundabout was a different matter. After the wonderful display of daffodils in the spring, we were then treated to a wonderful display of weeds. The Council had forgotten to weed it. We are currently in discussions with the Council in the hope of making Caldy roundabout look a lot smarter in the future. The Council have very recently cut down the dead silver birch which we requested and have sent their landscape architect to advise us on which plants will best tolerate such poor, dry, soil. We have had a working party to tidy up various bits of land round the Village which we feel would benefit from some TLC, such as on the corner of Links Hey Road and Croft Drive East, and Barton Hey Drive. Can you help on our ‘Community Action Days’? The sessions are only for about an hour, and we tackle one of these communal areas. Are you able to join us to help keep Caldy looking so very lovely? Or do you have any suggestions as to what other things we could do to improve the Village? Please do contact Judy Wilcox /Rachel Summers/Marg Kalil, Caldy Society Tree and Planting Group, or any of the Caldy Society Committee, if you are able to help, or have any ideas. Contact details appear in this Newsletter. Conservation & Planning Trees The Government had plans to force local Councils to consult residents before trees are cut down; if 50% of residents object to such cutting down, a public consultation must be held.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Olaf Stapledon by Gavin Chappell
    Olaf Stapledon By Gavin Chappell In his day, Olaf Stapledon was a science fiction writer whose only real contemporary rival was his friend HG Wells. He went on to inspire writers such as Arthur C Clarke and the inventor Freeman Dyson. He was also a respected Wirral resident who left us a stretch of woodland named after him, and a house in Caldy that he built himself. Stapledon was born on 10 May 1886, in Wallasey. He was named William Olaf, but everyone always called him Olaf. Despite spending much of his early years in Port Said, he lived in Wirral for the best part of his life. Even when he became a successful literary figure, Stapledon remained in Wirral, living at first in West Kirby, before building his own house in Caldy. As a science fiction writer, he is highly influential, if perhaps not the most accessible. His two greatest works, Last and First Men , and Star Maker , describe vast epochs of future history or immense expanses of space. Civilisations rise and fall, and the individual is insignificant in the face of infinity. Although individual characters are often blotted out by the vast scope of his imagination, Stapledon’s own somewhat provincial life informs them – including his years in Wirral. Despite the wildness of his imagination, he always drew on personal experience for his inspiration. Mere paragraphs in both works have been taken as the inspiration for entire science fiction works by other writers and indeed inventors. Freeman Dyson invented the Dyson Sphere after being inspired by Star Maker .
    [Show full text]
  • Last and First Men
    Last and First Men William Olaf Stapledon Published: 1930 Categorie(s): Fiction, Science Fiction Source: http://gutenberg.net.au About Stapledon: He was born in Seacombe, Wallasey, on the Wirral peninsula near Liverpool, the only son of William Clibbert Stapledon and Emmeline Miller. The first six years of his life were spent with his parents at Port Said. He was educated at Abbotsholme School and Balliol College, Oxford, where he acquired a BA in Modern History in 1909 and a Master's degree in 1913[citation needed]. After a brief stint as a teacher at Manchester Grammar School, he worked in shipping offices in Liverpool and Port Said from 1910 to 1913. During World War I he served with the Friends' Ambulance Unit in France and Belgium from July 1915 to January 1919. On 16 July 1919 he married Agnes Zena Miller (1894-1984), an Australian cousin whom he had first met in 1903, and who maintained a correspondence with him throughout the war from her home in Sydney. They had a daughter, Mary Sydney Stapledon (1920-), and a son, John David Stapledon (1923-). In 1920 they moved to West Kirby, and in 1925 Stapledon was awarded a PhD in philosophy from the University of Liverpool. He wrote A Modern Theory of Ethics, which was published in 1929. However he soon turned to fiction to present his ideas to a wider public. Last and First Men was very successful and prompted him to become a full-time writer. He wrote a sequel, and followed it up with many more books on subjects associated with what is now called Transhumanism.
    [Show full text]
  • Discovering Gnostic Tropes in Olaf Stapledon's Star Maker
    Knowledge and Cosmos: Discovering Gnostic Tropes in Olaf Stapledon’s Star Maker Tara Smith Introduction In his 1937 novel Star Maker,1 Olaf Stapledon (1886-1950) draws on the gnostic concepts of dualism, gnosis and mythology to make sense of the spiritual and physical plight of humanity. Star Maker can be seen as reflective of Stapledon’s own quest for knowledge in and about the cosmos, and this is a quest heavily signposted with the markers of Gnosticism. Instead of reflecting the typical Christian theology of his peers, Stapledon draws on gnostic theodicy to make sense of his very real apathy and fear regarding the modern world between two World Wars. Using Birger Pearson’s typology of Gnosticism,2 this article will explore the Gnostic world that is presented in Star Maker. Stapledon’s work expresses a sense of conflict and spiritual exploration that breaks the confines of Gnosticism’s historical context, revealing a shared proclivity still relevant in the twentieth century. The novel depicts an unnamed protagonist’s astral travel, spatial and temporal, toward his ultimate meeting with the Star Maker. He joins his mind with the many alien minds he encounters, and together as a cosmic mind they explore the furthest reaches of space, meeting all manner of life forms, including sentient stars, planets, and nebulae. First, I present a brief overview of the historical and biographical context of Olaf Stapledon, and how this impacted on his writing. Second, I will briefly discuss the limitations associated with using Gnostic terminology, and explain its particular use within this article.
    [Show full text]
  • Weeks 1, 2, 3, 4 Time Travel HG Wells the Time Machine (Chapter 1)
    Philosophical Ideas in Science Fiction 261— Syllabus Lecturer: SidneyFelder,e-mail: [email protected] Rutgers The State University of NewJersey, Fall 2018, Tue & Thurs 2:50-4:10 Office Hours: By Appointment Generally speaking, science fiction, or,more broadly,speculative fiction of anykind, can be utilized as a vehi- cle of philosophical exploration in twodistinct but interconnected ways. First, its natural accommodation of beings and circumstances of a hitherto unencountered kind permits the postulation of settings and events in which familiar ideas and attitudes can be tested and the limits of their applicability determined. Second, in a manner analogous to mathematics, it can be used to explore what the bounds of coherent speculation are. Weeks 1, 2, 3, 4 Time Travel H.G. Wells The Time Machine (chapter 1) Robert A. Heinlein By His Bootstraps Donald C. Williams The Myth of Passage Michael Dummett Causal Loops C.J.S. ClarkeTime in General Relativity Brian Gerstein Troud’sPlan Weeks 4, 5, 6 Artificial Intelligence Isaac Asimov I, Robot (‘Reason’, ‘Runaround’) Olaf Stapledon Last And First Men (ch.XI, sections 1 and 2) Alan Turing Computing Machinery and Intelligence John Searle Minds, Brains and Programs Samuel Butler Erewhon (Darwin Among the Machines chs. 23-25) Weeks 6, 7, 8 The Problem of Other Minds Lewis Padgett Private Eye Adam Smith The Theory of Moral Sentiments (Part I Section 1 Chapters 1-4) Edward Bellamy To Whom This May Come Ludwig Wittgenstein Philosophical Investigations (sections 239-436) Hilary Putnam Minds and Machines Weeks 8, 9 Probability and Confirmation Robert M. Coates The Law AntonyFerry,R.C.
    [Show full text]
  • The British Interplanetary Society and Cultures of Outer Space, 1930
    The British Interplanetary Society and Cultures of Outer Space, 1930 - 1970 Oliver Dunnett, BA(Hons), MA Thesis submitted to the University of Nottingham for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy July 2011 Abstract This thesis explores the institutional and cultural development of the British Interplanetary Society (BIS) and its influence in wider cultures of ‘British outer space’ in the mid-twentieth century. The Society was founded in 1933 in Liverpool by P E Cleator, and having attracted a small group of enthusiastic members before the outbreak of the Second World War, successfully re-grouped after the conflict and grew to become one of the most influential of all the space flight societies by the 1960s. The thesis starts by examining the ways in which the discipline of geography has recently started to re-engage with outer space as a field of enquiry, and suggests that geopolitical and cultural approaches to studying outer space would be a productive academic pursuit. The empirical chapters start by looking at the institutional cultures of the BIS, and explore the relationship between the Society and the production of interplanetary knowledge. The Society’s global connections and internationalist stance are also brought into focus, with contrasting accounts identified before and after the war raising questions about the geopolitics of British outer space. The empirical chapters go on to study how the BIS became connected to the wider world of popular culture in Britain, examining imaginative and amateur representations and performances. This section includes analyses of certain science fiction texts, including the selected novels of Olaf Stapledon, Arthur C Clarke and C S Lewis, and also considers Frank Hampson’s Dan Dare space adventure comics and the long-running television series The Sky at Night, whilst maintaining an empirical connection to the BIS throughout.
    [Show full text]
  • Death Into Life
    Death into Life William Olaf Stapledon Published: 1946 Categorie(s): Fiction, Science Fiction, War & Military Source: http://gutenberg.net.au About Stapledon: He was born in Seacombe, Wallasey, on the Wirral peninsula near Liverpool, the only son of William Clibbert Stapledon and Emmeline Miller. The first six years of his life were spent with his parents at Port Said. He was educated at Abbotsholme School and Balliol College, Oxford, where he acquired a BA in Modern History in 1909 and a Master's degree in 1913[citation needed]. After a brief stint as a teacher at Manchester Grammar School, he worked in shipping offices in Liverpool and Port Said from 1910 to 1913. During World War I he served with the Friends' Ambulance Unit in France and Belgium from July 1915 to January 1919. On 16 July 1919 he married Agnes Zena Miller (1894-1984), an Australian cousin whom he had first met in 1903, and who maintained a correspondence with him throughout the war from her home in Sydney. They had a daughter, Mary Sydney Stapledon (1920-), and a son, John David Stapledon (1923-). In 1920 they moved to West Kirby, and in 1925 Stapledon was awarded a PhD in philosophy from the University of Liverpool. He wrote A Modern Theory of Ethics, which was published in 1929. However he soon turned to fiction to present his ideas to a wider public. Last and First Men was very successful and prompted him to become a full-time writer. He wrote a sequel, and followed it up with many more books on subjects associated with what is now called Transhumanism.
    [Show full text]
  • Chapter 1: Introduction
    Notes Chapter 1: Introduction 1. F. Bacon (n.d.) ‘The New Atlantis’, in H. Morley (ed.), Ideal Commonwealths, 10th edn (London: Routledge, and New York: Dutton), p. 202. Subsequent page references in the text are to this edition. 2. G. Claeys (2011) Searching for Utopia: The History of an Idea (London: Thames & Hudson), p. 151. 3. M.I. Finley (1967) ‘Utopianism Ancient and Modern’, in K.H. Wolff and B. Moore, Jr (eds), The Critical Spirit: Essays in Honor of Herbert Marcuse (Boston, MA: Beacon Press), p. 13. 4. K. Kumar (1991) Utopianism (Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1991), pp. 54, 59. 5. A. Huxley (1971) Brave New Worldd (London: Folio Society), p. 154. Subsequent page references in the text are to this edition. 6. Kumar (1991), p. 55. 7. See E. Hansot (1974) Perfection and Progress: Two Modes of Utopian Thought (Cambridge, MA and London: MIT Press), p. 100. 8. See B. Goodwin and K. Taylor (1982) The Politics of Utopia: A Study in Theory and Practice (London: Hutchinson), p. 63. 9. It is sometimes claimed that the whole social structure of Plato’s Republicc is based on a ‘noble lie’. For a brief commentary, see Plato (1987) The Republic, trans. D. Lee, 2nd edn (London: Penguin), p. 177. 10. On politics in News from Nowhere, see R. Levitas (2013) Utopia as Method: The Imaginary Reconstitution of Societyy (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan), p. 111. 11. Kumar (1991), p. 55. 12. Goodwin and Taylor (1982), p. 63. 13. L.T. Sargent (2010) Utopianism: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press), p.
    [Show full text]
  • Animal Non-Belongingness in a Dichotomized Environment Siriusmente Preocupados: La No Pertenencia Animal En Un Entorno Dicotomizado
    PANGEAS. Revista Interdisciplinar de Ecocrítica ISSN: 2695-5040 Núm. 3, Julio 2021, pp. 69-78 DOI: https://doi.org/10.14198/PANGEAS.18848 Siriusly Concerned: Animal Non-Belongingness in a Dichotomized Environment Siriusmente preocupados: la no pertenencia animal en un entorno dicotomizado JESÚS FERNÁNDEZ-CARO1 Como citar este artículo: Fernández-Caro, J. (2021). Siriusly Concerned: Animal Non-Belongingness in a Dichotomized Environment, Pangeas. Revista Interdisciplinar de Ecocrítica (núm. 3) 69-78. https:// doi.org/10.14198/PANGEAS.18848 Abstract This article approaches Sirius (1944), by Olaf Stapledon, from a perspective that brings together literary animal studies and ecocriticism. The eponymous main character of this science fiction novel is a genetically-modified dog who struggles between the human and the animal realms, being unable to belong to either urban or natural spaces. I argue this work of fiction carries out an exercise of blurring boundaries, thus proposing alternatives for harmful binaries such as human- animal, city-nature, or divine-mundane. Each of these binaries is explored in three trips of the many this character experiences throughout the novel. This allows the main character to reflect on his peculiar, unique species as the singularity he is. Sirius claims it is only empathy that can help in such a task; both human and nonhuman animals are then able to rejoice in biological, cultural, and spiritual differences. Sirius’s trips are analyzed in order to look closely at (1) the dog’s reflections on humankind while being in London, (2) his becoming a wolf, dog, and human at the same time in the woods, and (3) music as the ideal tool to articulate one’s spirituality based on a reconnection with an almost lost biodiversity.
    [Show full text]
  • Download Star Maker, Olaf Stapledon, Penguin Books, Limited
    Star Maker, Olaf Stapledon, Penguin Books, Limited, 1988, 0140101527, 9780140101522, . DOWNLOAD HERE An Olaf Stapledon Reader , Olaf Stapledon, 1997, Biography & Autobiography, 314 pages. Olaf Stapledon (1886-1950) - philosopher, novelist, educator, and social activist - had an imagination unlike that of any other author. Along with H. G. Wells he is remembered .... Analog Science Fact/science Fiction , John Wood Campbell, 1960, Fiction, . Across the sea of stars an omnibus containing the complete novels of Childhood's end and Earthlight and eighteen short stories, Arthur Charles Clarke, 1959, Fiction, 584 pages. Darkness and the Light , Olaf Stapledon, 2008, Fiction, 192 pages. Stapledon projects two separate futures for humanity, depending not on the outcome of World War II but on the failure or success of a future "Tibetan Renaissance" to influence .... Faster Than Light An Original Anthology about Interstellar Travel, Jack Dann, George Zebrowski, 1976, Fiction, 321 pages. The Visual encyclopedia of science fiction , Brian Ash, Nov 1, 1977, Fiction, 352 pages. Includes information on science-fiction writers, illustrators, and publishers, developments in comics, movies, radio, and television, and the psychology and philosophy of the genre. Galactic dreamers science fiction as visionary literature, Robert Silverberg, Jun 12, 1977, Fiction, 275 pages. Eight stories by Blish, Aldiss, Ballard, and others explore the visionary, mystical, and psychedelic dimensions of science fiction. To the end of time the best of Olaf Stepledon, Olaf Stapledon, 1953, , 775 pages. Away and beyond , Alfred Elton Van Vogt, 1952, Fiction, 309 pages. Cryoburn , Lois McMaster Bujold, Oct 19, 2010, Fiction, 352 pages. Dispatched to investigate an immortality company's attempt to expand into the Barrayaran Empire, troubleshooter Miles discovers a generational conflict over resources before ...
    [Show full text]
  • Olaf Stapledon, Star Maker, and Totality Gerry Canavan Marquette University, [email protected]
    Marquette University e-Publications@Marquette English Faculty Research and Publications English, Department of 7-1-2016 "A Dread Mystery, Compelling Adoration": Olaf Stapledon, Star Maker, and Totality Gerry Canavan Marquette University, [email protected] Published version. Science Fiction Studies, Vol. 43, No. 2 (July 2016): 310-330. DOI. © 2016 DePauw University. Used with permission. 310 SCIENCE FICTION STUDIES, VOLUME 43 (2016) Gerry Canavan “A Dread Mystery, Compelling Adoration”: Olaf Stapledon, Star Maker, and Totality “And yet I worshipped!”—Olaf Stapledon, Star Maker 256 Science-fictional efforts to model history in terms graspable by the human mind often become hyperbolized as attempts to narrate the full billion-year history of the entire cosmos—in the process reducing the history of the human species, and even the history of the Earth itself, to a small and unremarkable moment, a footnote to a footnote. Few texts have taken up this paradoxical tug-of-war between humanistic significance and anti-humanistic insignificance with more enthusiasm than Olaf Stapledon’s Star Maker (1937), which seeks to schematize all possible systems for social organization that might ever exist in the universe precisely by imagining Homo sapiens as only one very marginal and very unhappy case in the larger cosmic order. Star Maker has long enjoyed well-deserved admiration for the incredible scope and scale of its cosmic imagination; the novel, undoubtedly, is transcendent, a dizzying achievement, and rightly beloved. But Star Maker’s unflinching
    [Show full text]
  • Impact Case Study (Ref3b) Page 1 Institution: University of Liverpool
    Impact case study (REF3b) Institution: University of Liverpool Unit of Assessment: 29 - English Language and Literature Title of case study: “Out of this World: Science Fiction But Not As You Know It”: British Library Exhibition 20 May-26 September 2011 1. Summary of the impact This study details the impact of the first British Library exhibition on science fiction, produced in partnership with the Discovery Channel. The exhibition attracted 114,878 visitors (target attendance was 100,000), far beyond any “core” readership, and featured over 200 books, films, recordings, manuscripts, magazines and objects. Exploring sometimes conflicting ideas of how science fiction developed over 2000 years, and what it does, the exhibition gave a cultural and historical context for science fiction as an international and historically rich form of speculative literature. It also generated new interest amongst diverse audiences - including in libraries, the media, and in schools - and transformed popular perceptions (of both core fans and literary disparagers) of science fiction as a genre, and the role of women in the genre. 2. Underpinning research The Department of English has a long-standing specialism in science fiction (Prof. David Seed; Mr. Andy Sawyer). The University of Liverpool is home to the UK’s major research library of science fiction (deposited 1993) and the largest English-language collection in Europe. Andy Sawyer is librarian of the Science Fiction Foundation Collection and has taught specialist science fiction modules within the Department of English from 2002-2012; he was director of the MA in Science Fiction Studies, established by Professor David Seed (1994). Sawyer has long established science fiction research interests/ publications and is particularly interested in how science fiction continually crystallises out of other speculative fields, such as the way the pastoral “otherworld” (a useful mode for satire and criticism in the 16th and 17th centuries) is echoed in the work of writers like Ursula K.
    [Show full text]
  • Hg Wells's the War of the Worlds As a Controlling Metaphor
    H. G. WELLS’S THE WAR OF THE WORLDS AS A CONTROLLING METAPHOR FOR THE TWENTIETH CENTURY Stephen Baxter This paper is based on a talk given to the H. G. Wells Society seminar on ‘Wells and Science and Philosophy’ at Imperial College, London, 28th September 2007. Introduction The continuing relevance of H. G. Wells’s 1898 novel The War of the Worlds is illustrated by Niall Ferguson’s The War of the World (2006).1 This is a history of the ‘age of hatred’ of the twentieth century, showing how the Second World War was the climax of decades of savage warfare which scarred the globe from the 1930s to the 1950s. And Ferguson takes his title, and indeed his controlling metaphor, from Wells’s novel, calling it ‘a work of singular prescience. In the century after the publication of his book, scenes like the ones Wells imagined became a reality in cities all over the world …’2 How did a book written at the end of the nineteenth century come to stand, in a book published in the twenty-first century, as a metaphor for the entire twentieth? The purpose of this essay is to trace Wells’s influence as exemplified through a century of reactions to this single work in non-fiction and in fiction, in restagings, reimaginings and fresh explorations of Wells’s novel, and in sub-genres deriving from it. These are mirrors that expose the themes of the work itself. My survey includes a fictional response by the older Wells to his own early work.
    [Show full text]