Readercon Panels
Jun. 27th, 2013 03:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rinueI'm a panelist at Readercon this year, as I understand it mainly due to my offer to give an econ lecture. (Because although you wouldn't know it from my stories, worldbuilding is my thing and I can geek out on it harder than just about anybody. Which is exactly the reason I keep most of it invisible in my writing.) I will only be in Burlington on Thursday and Saturday, because other life stuff has me busy on Friday and Sunday. Here is where to catch me if you're planning to attend.
Thursday July 11
8:00 PM
Have You Seen Me?: The Absent Children of Urban Fantasy
Toni L. P. Kelner, Shira Lipkin (leader), Natalie Luhrs, Veronica Schanoes, Romie Stott
Real cities are full of children; urban fantasy cities (Bordertown and Sesame Street excepted) appear to be populated almost entirely by adults. In a series of blog posts on the nature of urban fantasy, Kip Manley, working off of Farah Mendlesohn's Rhetorics of Fantasy, posited that urban fantasy tends toward "immersive fantasies [hinging] on a rhetoric of ironic mimesis, taking for granted the wonders that distance its world from ours," and leading to a cynicism towards magic. Are children absent from urban fantasy because their innate inclination toward wonder and play would detract from that cynicism? What place might there be for children in this genre, and what are the reasons behind their exclusion?
9:00 PM
Apocalypse Then
Leah Bobet, Maureen F. McHugh, James Morrow, Romie Stott (moderator), Sabrina Vourvoulias
In a 2012 interview published in the Boston Review, Junot Díaz told Paula Moya, "I always say if people [in the Dominican Republic] know about anything they know about the end of the world. We are after all the eschaton that divided the Old World from the New." In this sense many worlds have ended, with a bang or a whimper. What can authors of post-apocalyptic stories learn from past apocalypses like the 1994 Rwandan genocide or the fall of Imperial Rome, and why are there so few works that present real-world events in this light?
Saturday July 13
11:00 AM
A New Mythology of the Civil War
Dennis Danvers, Mikki Kendall (leader), Scott Lynch, Romie Stott, Howard Waldrop
In a 2012 piece for the Atlantic, Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote that the Lost Cause mythology of the American Civil War has settled so deeply in U.S. culture and historical understanding that it penetrates even our science fiction. (He was speaking of John Carter of Mars but might have been referring to many other works of SF.) "What we now need," he wrote, "is new stories, and new narratives, that not only refuse to revel in historical escapism, but also resist the lure of blaxploitation. People like James McPherson and Benjamin Quarles have gifted us with a new history. What we need now, is a new mythology." Who, if anyone, is undertaking the building of these new myths? And what are they reckoning with along the way?
1:00 PM
Economic Systems Past, Present, and Future
Romie Stott
What were the responsibilities of a medieval serf, and did they result in an efficient use of land? Could the EU or African Union provide a blueprint for a federation of planets? Romie Stott will offer an overview of economic systems past, present, and theoretical, touching on gold standards, mercantilism, oligopolies, usury laws, non-Soviet communism, competitive advantage, and how tax policy can motivate altruistic behavior or create a black market. If you've ever wondered why diamonds cost more than water and whether that would change with replicators, this is the place for you.
3:00 PM
Mythic Poetry Group Reading
Mike Allen, Leah Bobet, C.S.E. Cooney, Gemma Files, Gwynne Garfinkle, Andrea Hairston, Samantha Henderson, Nicole Kornher-Stace, Rose Lemberg, Shira Lipkin, Alex Dally MacFarlane, Dominik Parisien, Caitlyn Paxson, Julia Rios, Romie Stott, Sonya Taaffe, JoSelle Vanderhooft
Over the past decade, speculative poetry has increasingly turned toward the mythic in subject matter, with venues such as Strange Horizons, Goblin Fruit, Mythic Delirium, Stone Telling, Cabinet des Fées, Jabberwocky, and the now-defunct Journal of the Mythic Arts showcasing a new generation of poets who’ve redefined what this type of writing can do. This reading will feature new and classic works from speculative poetry’s trend-setters.
7:00 PM
Worldbuilding by Worldseeing
John Crowley (leader), Sarah Smith, Romie Stott, Harold Vedeler
Kipling's Kim, Mayhew's London Labour and the London Poor, Dickens's "sketches" ... who is writing about the present day this way, and what can worldbuilders learn from these Victorian-era worldseers? All these observers were at some remove; how does observation differ when one is part of the culture one is observing?
Thursday July 11
8:00 PM
Have You Seen Me?: The Absent Children of Urban Fantasy
Toni L. P. Kelner, Shira Lipkin (leader), Natalie Luhrs, Veronica Schanoes, Romie Stott
Real cities are full of children; urban fantasy cities (Bordertown and Sesame Street excepted) appear to be populated almost entirely by adults. In a series of blog posts on the nature of urban fantasy, Kip Manley, working off of Farah Mendlesohn's Rhetorics of Fantasy, posited that urban fantasy tends toward "immersive fantasies [hinging] on a rhetoric of ironic mimesis, taking for granted the wonders that distance its world from ours," and leading to a cynicism towards magic. Are children absent from urban fantasy because their innate inclination toward wonder and play would detract from that cynicism? What place might there be for children in this genre, and what are the reasons behind their exclusion?
9:00 PM
Apocalypse Then
Leah Bobet, Maureen F. McHugh, James Morrow, Romie Stott (moderator), Sabrina Vourvoulias
In a 2012 interview published in the Boston Review, Junot Díaz told Paula Moya, "I always say if people [in the Dominican Republic] know about anything they know about the end of the world. We are after all the eschaton that divided the Old World from the New." In this sense many worlds have ended, with a bang or a whimper. What can authors of post-apocalyptic stories learn from past apocalypses like the 1994 Rwandan genocide or the fall of Imperial Rome, and why are there so few works that present real-world events in this light?
Saturday July 13
11:00 AM
A New Mythology of the Civil War
Dennis Danvers, Mikki Kendall (leader), Scott Lynch, Romie Stott, Howard Waldrop
In a 2012 piece for the Atlantic, Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote that the Lost Cause mythology of the American Civil War has settled so deeply in U.S. culture and historical understanding that it penetrates even our science fiction. (He was speaking of John Carter of Mars but might have been referring to many other works of SF.) "What we now need," he wrote, "is new stories, and new narratives, that not only refuse to revel in historical escapism, but also resist the lure of blaxploitation. People like James McPherson and Benjamin Quarles have gifted us with a new history. What we need now, is a new mythology." Who, if anyone, is undertaking the building of these new myths? And what are they reckoning with along the way?
1:00 PM
Economic Systems Past, Present, and Future
Romie Stott
What were the responsibilities of a medieval serf, and did they result in an efficient use of land? Could the EU or African Union provide a blueprint for a federation of planets? Romie Stott will offer an overview of economic systems past, present, and theoretical, touching on gold standards, mercantilism, oligopolies, usury laws, non-Soviet communism, competitive advantage, and how tax policy can motivate altruistic behavior or create a black market. If you've ever wondered why diamonds cost more than water and whether that would change with replicators, this is the place for you.
3:00 PM
Mythic Poetry Group Reading
Mike Allen, Leah Bobet, C.S.E. Cooney, Gemma Files, Gwynne Garfinkle, Andrea Hairston, Samantha Henderson, Nicole Kornher-Stace, Rose Lemberg, Shira Lipkin, Alex Dally MacFarlane, Dominik Parisien, Caitlyn Paxson, Julia Rios, Romie Stott, Sonya Taaffe, JoSelle Vanderhooft
Over the past decade, speculative poetry has increasingly turned toward the mythic in subject matter, with venues such as Strange Horizons, Goblin Fruit, Mythic Delirium, Stone Telling, Cabinet des Fées, Jabberwocky, and the now-defunct Journal of the Mythic Arts showcasing a new generation of poets who’ve redefined what this type of writing can do. This reading will feature new and classic works from speculative poetry’s trend-setters.
7:00 PM
Worldbuilding by Worldseeing
John Crowley (leader), Sarah Smith, Romie Stott, Harold Vedeler
Kipling's Kim, Mayhew's London Labour and the London Poor, Dickens's "sketches" ... who is writing about the present day this way, and what can worldbuilders learn from these Victorian-era worldseers? All these observers were at some remove; how does observation differ when one is part of the culture one is observing?
