My Worldcon Schedule

Worldcon is nearly upon us, and I will be attending this year's convention in Dublin.  With the final program now published, here are the events I'll be participating in.  If you're planning to attend, I hope to see you at some of these, or just around.

(UPDATE: There has been a change to my schedule. I am off the national identity panel on Sunday, and on a panel on the work of Jordan Peele around the same time.)

  • Narrative and the Dollar: Understanding Contemporary TV
    17 Aug 2019, Saturday 12:00 - 12:50, Liffey Hall-2 (CCD)

    TV has always been at the mercy of commercial imperatives. On network TV, the "best" episodes air during "sweeps" weeks, and plot structured around ad breaks. On streaming services, shows experiment with new structures, but with mixed results. How should viewers adjust their expectations? What is "good TV" today? Will "TV novels" come to dominate? Is there still a role for the anthology show?

    Mr Adam Whitehead, Abigail Nussbaum, Dr Douglas Van Belle (Victoria University of Wellington), Mr Greg Chivers (HarperVoyager / Discovery Channel) (M), Michael Cassutt

  • Protest and resistance in fiction and reality
    17 Aug 2019, Saturday 17:30 - 18:20, Stratocaster BC (Point Square Dublin)

    The last decade has repeatedly demonstrated the central role of protest in politics. From the Women's March in DC to the Arab Spring, protests have played a vital role in shaping the political conversation. How does SF reflect this reality? Is there room for protest in heroic fiction, or do these types of stories only leave space for violent resistance?

    Abigail Nussbaum, Mary Anne Mohanraj (Speculative Literature Foundation / University of Illinois at Chicago), Ranylt Richildis (Lackington's Magazine) (M), Paolo Bacigalupi, Veronica Roth

  • How national identity is portrayed in SFF
    18 Aug 2019, Sunday 14:00 - 14:50, ECOCEM Room (CCD)

    Speculative fiction can offer authors a space, removed from reality, to consider questions of national identity. How do nations respond to disasters? Does the author use cultural stereotypes as a shorthand for national identity and where have these come from? The panel will discuss the ways SFF provides a window into how nations view themselves and others and what that means in a broader context.

    Abigail Nussbaum (M), T. R. Napper, Anna Gryaznova LL.M. (National University of Science and Technology MISiS (Moscow, Russia)), Dr Bradford Lyau (Globosocks LLC)

  • Get us out of the Twilight Zone: the work of Jordan Peele
    18 Aug 2019, Sunday 13:30 - 14:20, Point Square - Stratocaster BC

    With two extraordinary films and a reimagined Twilight Zone under his belt, Jordan Peele has made a huge impact as a weird/horror visionary over the last few years. This panel will discuss Peele’s work: what it says, how it works, and why it matters.

    Chris M. Barkley (M), Dr. Andrew M. Butler (Canterbury Christ Church University), Dr Wanda Kurtçu (California State University, Hayward), Abigail Nussbaum

  • Holy forking shirtballs: The Good Place panel
    19 Aug 2019, Monday 13:00 - 13:50, Wicklow Hall 2B (CCD)

    Over three constantly inventive seasons, The Good Place has established itself as one of the best – if not the best – telefantasy shows airing right now. In this panel, fans will discuss what it does so well, the implications of the revelations at the end of season three, and hopes for the future – both narratively and philosophically.

    Alex Acks, Mr Ash Charlton (ACE TRAINING), Abigail Nussbaum (M), Jeffery Reynolds, Ginjer Buchanan (Penguin Random House)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The 2023 Hugo Awards: Somehow, It Got Worse

The last month has been a busy one in Hugo and Worldcon fandom. After the shock of the much-belated 2023 nominating stats, and their revelation of serious irregularities in the compilation of the award's ballot, there was a great ferment of conversation and action. Mainstream publications have caught wind of the scandal and publicized it far and wide . Turnover in the few permanent committees that oversee the Hugo trademark and intellectual property has been high . The poor folks at the upcoming Glasgow Worldcon have been scrambling to respond to the evolving situation and to distance themselves from the previous committee—including, most recently, making a laconic announcement that they would refuse any of Chengdu's passalong funds, the budgetary surplus that is traditionally bequeathed from one Worldcon to the next. And stats nerds—of which this community is, unsurprisingly, blessed with a surfeit—have been furiously crunching the nominations numbers and EPH calculations...
Read more

The 2023 Hugo Awards: Now With an Asterisk

It's been a while since we've had one of these dramas. On Saturday, the nominating stats for the 2023 Hugo awards, which were announced in Chengdu, China in October 2023, were released to the public . There was a great deal of anticipation for these numbers, in no small part because of their much-delayed release. Though the WSFS constitution permits Hugo administrators to wait as long as 90 days before releasing the voting and nominating stats, most Hugo teams have them ready to go within minutes of the ceremony's conclusion. Chengdu, in contrast, waited the full allotted period, and even went a little bit over (the voting stats were released separately in December). Once the stats were released, it quickly became clear why the Chengdu Hugo team were hesitant to make them public. There are any number of irregularities and questionable choices in this document that suggest everything from erratic voter behavior, to incompetent collation and calculation of the nomination rank...
Read more

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

The first thing that must be said about this movie is that it should not work. It's a prequel to one of the most mind-blowing, groundbreaking, and just plain revolutionary action movies of the 21st century—and prequels are a bad idea in most cases, but all the more so when the character they revolve around has already given you their entire backstory in their original introduction, which is also the final, culminating act of their character arc. (To put it another way, if you had asked me, nine years ago, which character I thought offered more fertile ground for prequel storytelling, Imperator Furiosa or Han Solo, I would have picked Han without a moment's hesitation, and I don't even like Han that much.) And it's a follow-up to a movie whose chief virtue lies in its conciseness—in being a single, drawn-out, pulse-pounding, increasingly deranged car chase. Which means you can either try to repeat that accomplishment, which will inevitably feel a bit old hat; or you can ...
Read more