Worlds Of Speculative Fiction Lecture Series Renewed

Over the course of 2016, I've been providing a monthly lecture and discussion series, hosted by the Brookfield Public Library, focused on - and called - Worlds of Speculative Fiction: Philosophical Themes.  I proposed the idea originally as a way for me to get to engage in a bit of "guilty pleasure" reading, going back to classic science fiction and fantasy works I had enjoyed in my childhood, teens, or college years, and seeing what might be said from a philosophical perspective about the narrative worlds these authors had created.

We're now getting ready for the last installment of the series, focused on George R.R. Martin's voluminous and yet-unfinished Song of Ice and Fire, which will take place Thursday, December 8, 7:00 PM, and wrap up the series for the year.  I'm happy to report, however, that we've been renewed for another year of the series - 12 more monthly lecture and discussion sessions!

Here's the list of the 12 authors and literary universes slated for 2017:

• January – Phillip Jose Farmer’s Riverworld 
• February – Madeleine L’Engle’s Time Quintet
• March – Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Galaxy
• April – Anne McCaffrey, World of Pern
• May – Orson Scott Card’s Enderverse
• June – Ian Banks’ Culture Series
• July – Octavia Butler’s Xenogenesis Trilogy.
• August – H.P Lovecraft’s Universe of the Elder Gods
• September – William Gibson’s Sprawl Trilogy
• October – C. L. Moore’s Fantastic Worlds
• November – L. Sprague de Camp’s Worlds of the Compleat Enchanter
• December - Jorge Luis Borges’ Philosophical Universes

If you've missed any of the previous eleven sessions, and you'd like to watch the videorecordings, you're in luck - here's where you can find all the videos (I'm uploading the eleventh video as I write this).

So far, we've covered J.R.R. Tolkein, Mervyn Peake, C.S. Lewis, A.E. Van Vogt, Isaac Asimov, Frank Herbert, Ursula K. Leguin, Roger Zelazny, Michael Moorcock, and Philip K. Dick.  I'm hoping to do a bit of writing on each of these here in Orexis Dianoētikē in the coming year as well!