Prof. Istvan Csicsery-Ronay Jr. to Discuss 'Alien Earth' at Carnegie Mellon U

November 1, 2011

November 1, 2011, Greencastle, Ind. — Istvan Csicsery-Ronay Jr., professor of English at DePauw University, will present a lecture at Carnegie Mellon University on Tuesday, November 15. Dr. Csicsery-Ronay, a leading authority on science fiction, will discuss "Alien Earth: Science Fiction, Posthumanism, and The Planet."

An abstract of the professor's presentation notes, "The international popularity of science fiction has made it one of the main vehicles of the social imagination of our hyper-modernizing, globalizing age. More than an artistic genre, it has become a way of thinking about things, in which contemporary concerns are projected into the future and into alien worlds ... Science fiction artists were among the first to imagine the planet as a single thing, and humanity as a species being. Through the practice of 'world reduction,' science fiction has produced an enormous variety of inhabited planets and simplified versions of our planet. Things may have reached a critical tipping point in our own age. Recent science fiction is engaged with posthumanist thought, which questions everything previous generations considered natural, including humanity and the earth itself."

Learn more about the event by clicking here.

Csicsery-Ronay is co-editor (with Arthur B. Evans, Laurel H. Turk Professor of Modern Languages) of The Wesleyan Anthology of Science Fiction and the academic journal Science Fiction Studies, which is published at DePauw. Rain Taxi  has referred to the professor, who authored the book The Seven Beauties of Science Fiction, as "one of the most thoughtful and subtle academic critics of science fiction." Csicsery-Ronay also co-edited Robot Ghosts and Wired Dreams: Japanese Science Fiction from Origins to Anime.

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