Weird Fictions Research Group invites you to a workshop by
Nicholas C. Laudadio
(University of North Carolina Wilmington)

Oscillations: On Electronic Music and Science Fiction

This event is a part of the Weird Music series organized by the Weird Fictions Research Group members and their invited guests.

Wednesday, May 18, 2022
at 5:30 p.m.

You can get 2 OZN points for participating in this event.
Check how to collect OZN points online here.

Where?

This lecture will be streamed online. To attend, click the button below or enter https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86482351364 into your browser, and join the meeting.

What?

In this presentation, I will be considering a relatively straightforward question–what is science fiction music and what makes it science fictional in the first place? The focus of the discussion will center largely on postwar popular music in English, establishing a very basic taxonomy of the subgenre while also addressing some of the broader questions such a discursive confluence might suggest. In addition to paying particular attention to music and musicians who contribute to the world of sf music, I will also take into account the role that the various technologies of musical production and reproduction have played in constructing the ‘sound of the future’ with the musical machinery of the present moment.

Who?

Nicholas C. Laudadio is an associate professor of English at the University of North Carolina Wilmington where he teaches classes in critical/cultural theory, science fiction/horror, and pop music/culture studies. He has published in Science Fiction Studies, Extrapolation, Science Fiction Film and Television, Foundation, Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts, and Journal of Popular Music Studies. He co-edited the Handbook of Disaster Pedagogy for Higher Education (Rowman and Littlefield, 2022) and is currently finishing The In Sound from Way Out: Electronic Music and Science Fiction and co-authoring Way-Out Music for Way-Out Kids: Experimental Children’s Music with Meghan M. Sweeney.

American Studies Colloquium Series

December 19: Between The Mundane and the Heroic: Vietnamese Presence in State Socialist Poland

December 16, 2024

We are delighted to invite you to the fifth lecture of the American Studies Colloquium Series in the 2024/2025 Fall semester! This talk will examine the depictions of the (North) Vietnamese as freedom fighters within the context of the state socialist public sphere and the everyday life of Vietnamese students in Poland across generations. From idealized wartime reportages to mixed-race couples, the Vietnamese presence was marked by a multifaceted experience of adaptation, challenges, opportunities, and dynamic, interactive bonds with Polish society. This history continues to exert a profound influence on the contemporary Vietnamese diaspora and Polish-Vietnamese relationships.

Year 2024/2025

December 18: The Trump Transition – What is New and What is Not

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Leadership Research Groupis inviting all those who would like to put the Trump transition to a presidential scholarship context and better understand the Trump transition decisions, the prospects for the future in domestic and foreign policy areas they bring, and the impact that Trump leadership may have on the political scene in Washington to a talk followed by a Q&A session by Professor Stephen Farnsworth.

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During the workshop “We Want Change NOW! The Feminist Manifesto in Theory and Practice”, Aleksandra Julia Malinowska, a doctoral candidate at the University of Warsaw,will delve into the history of feminist manifestos and their pivotal role in the women’s movement in the United States. We’ll explore how activists of the second wave of feminism used grassroots publications to raise awareness, voice the demands of emerging women’s groups, and build communication networks between organizations spread across the country. Together, we’ll analyze the literary techniques that make the manifesto genre a powerful tool for inspiring activist mobilization beyond the pages of the text.

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December 12: Technological Imaginaries and the Universal Ambitions of Silicon Valley

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Drawing on her new book, Appropriate, Negotiate, Challenge: Activist imaginaries and the politics of digital technologies (University of California Press), in this talk Ferrari shows how these discourses, which she calls “technological imaginaries”, shape how we experience digital technologies. She discusses how, for the past 30 years, Silicon Valley tech actors have produced and popularized a specific way of thinking about digital technologies, which has become mainstream. This dominant technological imaginary brings together technocratic aspirations and populist justifications. While arising out of the peculiarities of Silicon Valley and of the American 1990s, this dominant imaginary has posited its universality by presenting its tenets as if they were global, unbiased, and equally suitable for everyone, everywhere. She argues that to really curb the socio-political influence of Big Tech companies we also need to understand, critique, and resist the power of their technological imaginary.

News

ASC Library has received funding from the Social Responsibility of Science

December 12, 2024

ASC Library has received funding from the Social Responsibility of Science (SON) program — “Support for Scientific Libraries,” implemented by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education.