Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 14, No. 253.
Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
<http://www.princeton.edu/~mccarty/humanist/>
<http://www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/>
Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2000 07:24:54 +0100
From: "Eric S. Rabkin" <esrabkin@umich.edu>
Subject: Re: 14.0236 AI, SciFi and the academic world
Mark Nielsen asks if any members of HUMANIST were at the World Science
Fiction Convention in Chicago. I was, along with three of the student
researchers from our Genre Evolution Project, reporting in the "academic
track" on the methods we've been developing, and some of the results to
date, in testing the hypothesis that cultural materials evolve as complex
adaptive systems using the American science fiction short story of the 20th
century as our current test corpus. (For any who may want a glimpse,
please see http://www.umich.edu/~genreevo.)
My impression is that there was more talking about the failure of fans and
academics to communicate than there was real failure to communicate. In
fact, people were open, diverse, and generous in their conversation. The
convention attracts pure fans--some of whom use these "cons" as a mainstay
of their social lives and may not even read much, but some of whom are
voracious readers with encyclopedic knowledge--as well as professional
writers, editors, critics, agents, and academics. There are many people
who warrant multiple designations so the mix is vibrant. In the public
panels--both academic track and otherwise--as well as the corridor
conversation, I think that this gathering often incites catalogic and
anecdotal discourse ("oh, that's like this other book I read, thing I saw,
conversation I had...") in greater proportion than, say, MLA, where the
balance toward analytic discourse is weighter (and sometimes more
ponderous). But a convention (not called a conference in this case) is at
least as much for sparking imagination and acquaintance as it is for
fostering collaborative thinking. Lots of fans took notes on what to read
or view next; lots of professionals (I'm thinking of one TV script writer
in particularwho moderated a non-ademic track panel on why TV SF is so
often so bad) had insights of great value and insight that few academics
would have come upon on their own.
And then of course there are the many, wide-open of parties attended by
people with Vulcan ears.
I recommend it.
--
Eric S. Rabkin 734-764-2553 (Office)
Dept of English 734-764-6330 (Dept)
Univ of Michigan 734-763-3128 (Fax)
Ann Arbor MI 48109-1003 esrabkin@umich.edu
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~esrabkin/
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