The BSFA Lecture

Every year at Eastercon, the BSFA arranges for a guest speaker from arts/humanities academia to give a lecture. Here is a list of the lectures that have been given since the series began in 2009.

• Dr Ariella Elema, “Nothing is Inevitable, or How to Hold a Trial by Combat”
• Dr Sarah Whitfield (University of Wolverhampton), “‘Who Tells Your Story?’ Revolutions|revelations in Hamilton: An American Musical”
• Dr Rachel Dickinson (Manchester Metropolitan University, Cheshire Campus), “Crafting the Future: Ruskin, Textiles and Visions of Futures Past”
• Dr Simon Trafford (Institute of Historical Research), “‘Runar munt þu finna’: why sing pop in dead languages?”
• Dr Sara-Patricia Wasson (Edinburgh Napier University), “Trade in flesh and tears: some science fictions of organ harvest”
• Dr Paula James (Open University), “Pygmalion’s Statue and her Synthetic Sisters: The Perfect Woman on Screen”
• Dr Louise Livesey (Ruskin College Oxford),“A Highly Political Act: speech, silence, hearing and sexual violence”
• Dr Marc Morris, “Regime Change in England, 1066”
• Dr Gideon Nisbet (University of Birmingham), “Prolegomena to a Steampunk Catullus: Classics and SF”
• Dr Nick Lowe (Royal Holloway, University of London), “2001 and the Narratology of Transcendence”
• Dr Shana Worthen (University of Arkansas at Little Rock), “Visualising Time in the Middle Ages”

The BSFA Lecture is intended as a companion to the George Hay Lecture, which is presented at the Eastercon by the Science Fiction Foundation. Where the Hay Lecture invites scientists, the BSFA Lecture invites academics from the arts and humanities, because we recognise that science fiction fans aren’t only interested in science. The lecturers are given a remit to speak “on a subject that is likely to be of interest to science fiction fans”—i.e. on whatever they want!