Workshop on Robots in Science Fiction

When: October 26, 2023; 14:00-16:00 (CEST) 

Where: HYBRID EVENT 

Physical: University of Southern Denmark, Campusvej 55, 5230 Odense; DIAS Seminar room 

ZOOM: htps://syddanskuni.zoom.us/j/67518128424?from=addon

No need to register. Just come by or join the zoom link on day of event. 

Program

14:00 -14:10 Opening Kathrin Maurer (Leader of Center for Culture and Technology, Professor Humani􀆟es and Technology) 

14:10-14:30 Rune Graulund (Associate Professor, SDU) 

The Humans Are Dead: A Century of Robot Imaginaries in Literature, Film, Television and Games 

The talk will give a survey of robot and AI imaginaries in literature, film, television and games over the last one hundred years. While primarily an overview, the talk will also give some thought to different categories of “robot affect”, including Robot Antagonism (both against and from robots), the AI-pocalypse (Westworld, The Terminator, The Matrix), the robot as friend and companion (Klara and the Sun, Machines Like Us) and the robot as racialized, classist, and/or gendered other (Blade Runner, Humans, Detroit 2077, The Windup Girl, Metropolis). 

Bio: Rune Graulund is Associate Professor in American Studies and Culture at SDU and has published about the Gothic, the Anthropocene, and science fic􀆟on (Dark Scenes from Damaged Earth: The Gothic Anthropocene, University of Minnesota Press, 2022). 

14:30-14:50 Kate Foster (Phd, King’s College London) 

Biological Clocks and Women’s Rights: Cyborg and Sa􀆟re in ‘Radium Age’ Fic􀆟on 

In E. V. Odle’s The Clockwork Man (1923), a village cricket match is gate-crashed by a stranger who turns out to be a clockwork man from the year 8,000. Fed up with the violence and sexism of men, women of the future have insisted that all men receive a clock implant in their skull to regulate their behavior. In this paper, I will explore how Odle uses the cyborg figure as a vehicle for social commentary on key debates of the 1920s, including women’s rights, produc􀆟vity, and Einstein’s rela􀆟vity. 

Bio: Kate Foster is an early career researcher whose research focuses on the intersec􀆟on of human bodies and technology in early-twen􀆟eth-century France, German and Britain. Following the interdisciplinary conference ‘Automa􀆟on & Automa􀆟sm/s’ held in London in January 2023, Kate is currently developing an edited volume en􀆟tled ‘Cultures of Automa􀆟on.’ 

14:50-15:10 Erik Granly Jensen (Associate Professor, SDU) 

Pacifist Imaginaries. Paul Scheerbart’s Lesabéndio (1913) 

In his 1913 sci-fi novel Lesabéndio. An Astroid-Novel, Paul Scheerbart (1863-1915) presents a utopian vision of emancipatory, technological infrastructures. In the paper presentation I will discuss this technological lifeworld within the framework of Scheerbart’s overall pacifist writings. 

Bio: Erik Granly Jensen is an associate professor at the University of Southern Denmark, Department of Culture and Language. Recent publications deal with the notion of infrastructural thinking in Walter Benjamin, Paul Scheerbart and Jules Verne. 

15:10 - 16:00 Discussion 

Looking forward to seeing you! 

Kathrin Maurer 

The event is sponsored by The Velux Foundations, The Independent Research Fund Denmark, and the Center for Culture and Technology at SDU.