Chris Pak
Last Updated: 28th October 2024
Digital Projects Co-Ordinator for the Medical Humanities Blog
Lecturer in Contemporary Writing and Digital Cultures, Swansea University
Imagining Biophilic Design: Telling Stories About the Future of Sustainable Architecture (Feb 2024–Feb 2025).
Towards a Biophilic Nation: Transdisciplinary Interventions in Design, Education and Policy (25th–26th June 2024).
Modelling Between Digital and Humanities: Thinking in Practice
(October 2017—April 2018).
'People', 'Products', 'Pests' and 'Pets': The Discursive Representation of Animals (October 2013—January 2016).
Education
PhD (University of Liverpool)
PGCert HE (Swansea University)
MA Science Fiction Studies (University of Liverpool)
BA English Literature and Language (University of Liverpool)
Awards and Scholarships
British Science Association's Jacob Brownowski Prize for Science and the Arts (2020)
The Science Fiction Research Association Mary Kay Bray Award (2013)
AHRC travel bursary for Silent Spring workshop (x2 2013)
Foundation: The International Review of Science Fiction Essay Prize (2011)
John Lennon Memorial Scholarship
Allott Graduate Scholarship
The University of Liverpool Studentship
SFRA 2014 Travel Grant
ASLE-UKI Postgraduate Conference Award 2012
School of English Graduate Conference Fund (Travel Grant 2009, 2011, 2011, 2012)
James Cross Prize (2005)
Elizabeth James University Undergraduate Scholarship (2004)
Memberships
Affiliate member of the Olaf Stapledon Centre for Speculative Futures, The University of Liverpool (2018–Current)
Honorary Fellow, The University of Liverpool (2018–2021)
Member of the Science Fiction Research Association (SFRA)
Member of the Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment, UK and Ireland (ASLE–UKI)
Honorary member of HELION
Terraforming: Ecopolitical Transformations and Environmentalism in Science Fiction
My book was published by Liverpool University Press in June 2016. It grew out of archival research I conducted at The Science Fiction Foundation Collection, based at The University of Liverpool's Special Collections and Archives.
It examines how the motif of terraforming was transformed in science fiction since the beginning of the 20th century, and shows how it allows us to critically engage with issues related to geoengineering, ecology, climate change and environmentalism.
Head here for a synopsis of the book and for reviews.
Videos of the Talks:
“‘A Kind of Continuous Conceptual Drunkenness’? Terraforming and Analogy in Science Fiction.” The Final Frontier: Mythologies of Outer Space, Calgary Institute of the Humanities (2022).
“‘A Symbiotic Culture, Earth and Mars’: The Imagination of Mars in Science Fiction.” DePaul Humanities Centre, DePaul University, Chicago (17th October 2016). [talk begins at 38:28)
with Alison Sealey. ‘Representing Animals in Scientific Journals: A Corpus Linguistic Approach’. Arts and Science Festival, University of Birmingham, 2014.
‘Science and Nature in Science Fiction’, Emergent Critical Environments: Where Next for Ecology and the Humanites?, ASLE-UKI Postgraduate Conference, Queen Mary, University of London, September 2011.