<div dir="ltr"><div><div style="font-family:"trebuchet ms",sans-serif;color:rgb(7,55,99)" class="gmail_default">Dear students, </div><div style="font-family:"trebuchet ms",sans-serif;color:rgb(7,55,99)" class="gmail_default"><br></div><div style="font-family:"trebuchet ms",sans-serif;color:rgb(7,55,99)" class="gmail_default">Below please see the CFP for SFAM 2025. My apologies for circulating this late. I thought it had already been sent out to you. I'll offer UCR grad students an extension on the deadline to May 24, 2025 due to this late circulation.</div><div style="font-family:"trebuchet ms",sans-serif;color:rgb(7,55,99)" class="gmail_default"><br></div><div style="font-family:"trebuchet ms",sans-serif;color:rgb(7,55,99)" class="gmail_default">thanks,</div><div style="font-family:"trebuchet ms",sans-serif;color:rgb(7,55,99)" class="gmail_default">Sherryl</div><div style="font-family:"trebuchet ms",sans-serif;color:rgb(7,55,99)" class="gmail_default"><br></div><div style="font-family:"trebuchet ms",sans-serif;color:rgb(7,55,99)" class="gmail_default"><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:16.866667px;font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0);text-align:center"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12pt;line-height:18.4px;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">Speculative Fiction Across Media 2025<span class="gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:16.866667px;font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0);text-align:center"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12pt;line-height:18.4px;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">Artificial Intelligence: Fantasies, Realities, Futures</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:16.866667px;font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0);text-align:center"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12pt;line-height:18.4px;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">September 25-27, 2025</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:16.866667px;font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0);text-align:center"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12pt;line-height:18.4px;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">Courtyard Marriott Monterey Park, Los Angeles</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:16.866667px;font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12pt;line-height:18.4px;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">The second annual Speculative Fiction Across Media Conference will explore AI narratives in speculative media, from the foreboding, through the mundane, to the celebratory. We will explore how speculative media shapes our anticipations of a world in which we live with and use AI and consider the degree to which certain sf tropes—such as Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics—have found their way into research and design conversations.<span class="gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:16.866667px;font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12pt;line-height:18.4px;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">The conference will feature special guests<span class="gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt 0.5in;line-height:16.866667px;font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12pt;line-height:18.4px;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">Brit<span class="gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span>Marling:<span class="gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span lang="EN" style="font-family:"Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;background-image:none;background-position:0% 0%;background-size:auto;background-repeat:repeat;background-origin:padding-box;background-clip:border-box">writer, director, actor and producer, who wrote and starred in multiple sf media works, including the critically acclaimed series<span class="gmail-apple-converted-space"> </span></span><i style="caret-color: rgb(7, 55, 99);"><span lang="EN" style="font-family:"Trebuchet MS",sans-serif">The OA<span class="gmail-apple-converted-space"> </span></span></i><span lang="EN" style="font-family:"Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;background-image:none;background-position:0% 0%;background-size:auto;background-repeat:repeat;background-origin:padding-box;background-clip:border-box"><span style="caret-color: rgb(7, 55, 99);">and the limited series<span class="gmail-apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span><i style="caret-color: rgb(7, 55, 99);"><span lang="EN" style="font-family:"Trebuchet MS",sans-serif">A Murder at the End of the World</span></i><span lang="EN" style="font-family:"Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;background-image:none;background-position:0% 0%;background-size:auto;background-repeat:repeat;background-origin:padding-box;background-clip:border-box"><span style="caret-color: rgb(7, 55, 99);">, which addresses issues of AI and political culture</span><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12pt;line-height:18.4px;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt 0.5in;line-height:16.866667px;font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12pt;line-height:18.4px;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">Ted Chiang: author of multiple award-winning works, including<span class="gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span><i>The Lifecycle of Software Objects</i><span class="gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span>(2011), and sought-after commentator in venues such as<span class="gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span><i>The New<span class="gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span></i>Yorker regarding AI discourse and the implications of AI tools.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:16.866667px;font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12pt;line-height:18.4px;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">Engaging both historical and present-day examples, our conference will convene to consider sf examples of AI throughout the genre’s history as well as the ways in which real-world AI research draws from sf tropes. We are interested in papers that consider images of disembodied AI, those addressing robots and similar artificial beings, and papers that interrogate how the emergence of generative AI, large-language learning models, and algorithmic tools change the fabric of our social lives, our employment, and our modes of artistic production. We invite papers on a wide range of media and topics and encourage submissions that consider the intersections of AI and speculative imaginaries from multiple disciplinary and methodological perspectives.<span class="gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:16.866667px;font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12pt;line-height:18.4px;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">Proposals of 250-300 words should be sent as PDF attachments to Sherryl Vint (</span><span lang="EN"><a href="mailto:sherryl.vint@gmail.com"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:18.4px;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">sherryl.vint@gmail.com</span></a></span><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12pt;line-height:18.4px;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">) by<span class="gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span><b>May 16, 2025.</b><span class="gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span>Proposals for individual papers, pre-constituted paper panels, and roundtable discussion panels are all welcome. Please ensure the names and contact details for each proposed participant are included in the proposal.<span class="gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:16.866667px;font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12pt;line-height:18.4px;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">Possible topics include, but are not limited to:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0in 0.5in;line-height:115%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12pt;line-height:115%;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">●<span style="font-size:7pt;line-height:normal;font-family:"Times New Roman";font-size-adjust:none;font-kerning:auto;font-variant-alternates:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-feature-settings:normal">        <span class="gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12pt;line-height:18.4px;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">The legacy of significant AI figures on popular culture, such as Isaac Asimov’s robots, Philip K. Dick’s androids, cyberpunk’s AI networks, or military AI systems such as Skynet</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0in 0.5in;line-height:115%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12pt;line-height:115%;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">●<span style="font-size:7pt;line-height:normal;font-family:"Times New Roman";font-size-adjust:none;font-kerning:auto;font-variant-alternates:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-feature-settings:normal">        <span class="gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12pt;line-height:18.4px;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">AI and robots as figurations of gender, race and class hierarchies, whether as sympathetic depictions of exploitation or as emblems of threat to humanity</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0in 0.5in;line-height:115%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12pt;line-height:115%;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">●<span style="font-size:7pt;line-height:normal;font-family:"Times New Roman";font-size-adjust:none;font-kerning:auto;font-variant-alternates:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-feature-settings:normal">        <span class="gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12pt;line-height:18.4px;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">Alternative perspectives on AI technologies and the ethics of design in work by Indigenous, Latinx, feminist, nonbinary, Black and other creators <span class="gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0in 0.5in;line-height:115%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12pt;line-height:115%;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">●<span style="font-size:7pt;line-height:normal;font-family:"Times New Roman";font-size-adjust:none;font-kerning:auto;font-variant-alternates:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-feature-settings:normal">        <span class="gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12pt;line-height:18.4px;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">The politics of Silicon Valley and other corporate AI imaginaries globally and their influence on contemporary culture<span class="gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0in 0.5in;line-height:115%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12pt;line-height:115%;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">●<span style="font-size:7pt;line-height:normal;font-family:"Times New Roman";font-size-adjust:none;font-kerning:auto;font-variant-alternates:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-feature-settings:normal">        <span class="gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12pt;line-height:18.4px;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">Works of sf that critique practices of AI in contemporary culture, from algorithmic data processing, to gig-economy labour and pricing, to AI-produced creative works, and more</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0in 0.5in;line-height:115%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12pt;line-height:115%;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">●<span style="font-size:7pt;line-height:normal;font-family:"Times New Roman";font-size-adjust:none;font-kerning:auto;font-variant-alternates:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-feature-settings:normal">        <span class="gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12pt;line-height:18.4px;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">Historical analyses addressing how and why our imaginary of AI has changed over time both within and beyond genre sf</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0in 0.5in;line-height:115%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12pt;line-height:115%;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">●<span style="font-size:7pt;line-height:normal;font-family:"Times New Roman";font-size-adjust:none;font-kerning:auto;font-variant-alternates:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-feature-settings:normal">        <span class="gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12pt;line-height:18.4px;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">Theoretical interrogations of how representations of AI intersect with posthumanism, disability studies, studies of media ecologies, and more</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt 0.5in;line-height:115%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12pt;line-height:115%;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">●<span style="font-size:7pt;line-height:normal;font-family:"Times New Roman";font-size-adjust:none;font-kerning:auto;font-variant-alternates:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-feature-settings:normal">        <span class="gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12pt;line-height:18.4px;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">Analyses of works of art produced in whole or part by AI systems</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:16.866667px;font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12pt;line-height:18.4px;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">For more details on the venue and the guests, please see our website at<span class="gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span lang="EN"><a href="https://sfamla.org/speculative-fiction-across-media-2025/"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:18.4px;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">https://sfamla.org/speculative-fiction-across-media-2025/</span></a></span><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12pt;line-height:18.4px;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">.<span class="gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:16.866667px;font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12pt;line-height:18.4px;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:16.866667px;font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12pt;line-height:18.4px;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:16.866667px;font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12pt;line-height:18.4px;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:16.866667px;font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12pt;line-height:18.4px;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:16.866667px;font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12pt;line-height:18.4px;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif"> </span></p></div><br clear="all"></div><div><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><font face="trebuchet ms, sans-serif">Sherryl Vint (she/her)</font><div><font face="trebuchet ms, sans-serif">Professor, Departments of English and of Media & Cultural Studies</font></div><div><br></div><div><div style="color:rgb(34,34,34)"><font size="1" face="arial narrow, sans-serif"><i>We at UCR would like to respectfully acknowledge and recognize our </i><i>responsibility to the original and current caretakers of this land, water, </i><i>and air: the Cahuilla, Tongva, Luiseño, and Serrano peoples and all of </i><i>their ancestors and descendants, past, present, and future. Today this </i><i>meeting place is home to many Indigenous peoples from all over the world, </i><i>including UCR faculty, students, and staff, and we are grateful to have the </i><i>opportunity to live and work on these homelands.</i></font></div></div><div><font face="trebuchet ms, sans-serif"></font></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>