Three academic talks:
Emad El-Din Aysha: Sufi Science Fiction
Sufism has been deployed many times in genre works, not least SF. Sufism however is lacking in Arabic and Islamic science fiction. The situation is changing as Arab SF authors, old and young, brave this fledging subgenre. The downside is commercialization and commodification of Sufism and Islam.
Ahmad Al-Mahdi: Law, Economics and Arabic Science Fiction
World-building involves translation. There is futurespeak but also the way a world is introduced via motifs and tropes the audience can recognize, a process of familiarization analogues to translation. Linguistic translation of a work of science fiction involves another layer, a shift from one cultural-historical set of experiences to another.
Simone Pettine: The Birth of Science Fiction in Italy
This paper will discuss the first sf novel published in Italy, by Dino Buzzati in 1960: Il grande ritratto. Using the strategies of textual criticism, the proposal therefore aims to make a point of the influences that led to the drafting of Il grande ritratto of Dino Buzzati, as well as the themes that it left as a starting point for posterity.