an upcoming lecture on Chinese science fiction, copied below, that might be of interest to our STS community.
In addition to this talk, there will be an additional seminar for grad students. Any grad students who join Prof. Song's seminar on 1/13 (10am-12noon: "Representations of the Invisible: Posthuman China") are welcome to come to lunch with him afterwards. In that case - or with any questions about the event below - please contact Professor Chris Rea directly: christopher.rea@ubc.ca.
Mars over America: The New Wave of Chinese Science Fiction
(Hosted by the UBC Modern Chinese Culture Seminar)
Speakers: Professor Mingwei Song
Type: Public Lecture
Time and Date: 3:00 pm – 5:00 pm, Wednesday, January 11th
Location: Fairmont Social Lounge, St. John’s College, UBC
Sponsors: the CCK Foundation Inter-University Centre for Sinology, St. John’s College at UBC, the UBC Centre for Chinese Research, and UBC Asian Studies.
About the Event:
The contemporary new wave of Chinese science fiction presents a subversive vision of China’s pursuit of power and wealth, a dystopian counterpart to the government-promoted “Chinese dream.” This lecture explores the cutting-edge literary experiments that characterize the new wave, which evoke sensations ranging from the uncanny to the sublime, from the corporeal to the virtual, and from the post-human to the transcendent. Professor Mingwei Song will discuss important Chinese science fiction novels such as Mars over America (Han Song, 2000), The Three-Body Problem (Liu Cixin, 2006) and The Waste Tide (Chen Qiufan, 2013).
About the Speaker:
Mingwei Song is an associate professor of Chinese literature at Wellesley College. In 2016, he was an Elizabeth and J. Richardson Dilworth Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study. His research interests include modern Chinese literature, cinema studies, youth culture, and science fiction. He is the author of numerous books and research articles, including Young China: National Rejuvenation and the Bildungsroman, 1900-1959 (Harvard, 2015), and Criticism and Imagination: Collected Literary Critical Essays (Fudan, 2013).
