I’ve been involved with the AboutSF program for about two years now, the description for which is in the notes for the panel above. This panel was an interesting and far ranging one about methods, processes and theories of education in the fantasy and science fiction fields, and David-Glenn Anderson (also the coordinator), Tim Griffin, Violette Malan, Chris Mirell and I covered a lot of ground with a lot of thoughtful questions to answer (and it was nice to have longer than an hour to talk about this stuff, for a change!).
Category: Media
Brandon Sanderson–Q and A with Fantasy Fiction Course at St. John’s University, March 2012
I’d love to take total credit for this one, but in some ways this opportunity sort of fell in my lap. I met Brandon Sanderson, New York Times bestselling fantasy author and one of the ones I most admire in our field, at Worldcon in 2011, hoping to get him to agree to an interview for my podcast Speculate!; during the course of our conversation, he not only agreed to do that but volunteered to do a video session with my fantasy fiction students the following semester. We ended up studying his brand new novel The Alloy of Law, and as promised Brandon spoke with my class from his home in Utah for nearly an hour, fielding questions from my students and me. As expected, my students loved the experience, and (though I admit to being a bit biased) they asked a lot of great questions…so it worked out well for all concerned. The video quality isn’t amazing, but I think it’s clear enough to give you a sense of the session.
Bryan Thao Worra–Presentation to Creative Writing Course at St. John’s University, February 2012
The concluding presentation to my creative writing course from professionals in other creative disciplines was done by Bryan Thao Worra, whom I first met at a small conference in Minnesota called Fantasy Matters. Bryan is the first Laotian American poet to receive a Fellowship in Literature from the National Endowment for the Arts, and if you have a chance to read his work you’ll understand why–it’s interesting, creative, and often startling in its insight and reach. Here Bryan explains some of the differences in the way most people see the world as compared to how a poet is trained to see it.
Norman Cates–Presentation to Creative Writing Course at St. John’s University, February 2012
I first met Norman Cates at Worldcon in 2011 when I was moderating a panel on the impact of the Lord of the Rings films. Since Norm works for WETA Digital and had his first paying job in effects and prosthetic design with these films (those elf ears are all his!), his inclusion on the […]
Continue reading →Panel Appearance at Worldcon, August 17, 2011–Stretching the Mind While Thinking Outside the Box
This is a panel I was on at Worldcon 2011 in Reno, about innovative ways teachers at all levels can integrate science fiction into their courses. This was part of the AboutSF program, which is a great outreach program out of the University of Kansas and a joint project of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and the Science Fiction Research Association. I had been asked to participate in the program a couple of years ago, but schedules didn’t match up until this Worldcon; I was pleased to be able to do it this year with people like Maurine Starkey, Margaret McGaffey Fisk, Stephen Potts and Gary Wolfe. We talked about a number of things related to the teaching of science fiction and fantasy, and I got a few ideas myself from some of the panelists’ suggestions here.
Panel Appearance at Ad Astra, April 9, 2010–The Joy(s) of Teaching Speculative Fiction
This is a panel I was on at Ad Astra 2010 in Toronto, about issues concerning the teaching of courses in speculative fiction. I’ve been teaching such a course since just about the time I first got to St. John’s, and so I was looking forward to finding out what other professors (in this case, Mike Johnstone and Bob Boyczuk) were doing in their classes. We had a small turnout (hey, I’m not sure I would be incredibly excited to attend a panel at 10 p.m. on a Friday night either!), but this was an informative panel, and we all (apparently) had a good time. (Keep in mind that although the audio quality was pretty good, there is still a spike or two in volume despite my best attempts to smooth them out.)
Paper Presentation at the SAMLA Conference–November 11, 2007
This is a presentation I did at the SAMLA Conference in Atlanta on liminal space in Ben Jonson’s PRINCE HENRY’S BARRIERS–some of this material ended up in my academic book LIMINAL SPACE AND THE COURT MASQUE, published by Clemson University Press in the same year.
Paper Presentation at Virginia Woolf Conference–June 12, 2007
This is a presentation I did on sympathy in MRS. DALLOWAY at a conference in Ohio–which gave me the chance not only to talk about Virginia Woolf, but to see the home of the Miami Redhawks up close. And you thought Miami was an exclusive Florida creation!
Paper Presentation at Tenth Nordic Conference for English Studies–May 25, 2007
This was a presentation I did on V.S. Naipaul’s A HOUSE FOR MR. BISWAS at a conference in Bergen, Norway. Not shown is the academic who asked me whether or not Naipaul was really “British enough” to be taken seriously as a critic of British imperialism. The mind boggles sometimes…
