Helion International Conference: Utopia, Science Fiction, and Their Significant Others in the 21st C

I've been invited to present at the annual Helion International Conference, held this year at Timișoara, Romania, from May 8-10, 2015. This is particularly exciting because of the growth of study in speculative fictions in Romania that researchers such as Cătălin Badea-Gheracostea and Mariano Martín Rodríguez are propelling. This conference is also held in association with Romania's Helion magazine <http://helionsf.eu/prima-conferinta-internationala-helion/>.

Of course, another reason for my excitement is that I've never been to Romania before, and it looks an absolutely stunning city.

The title of my paper is “This Country Called Sustainability”: Utopianism and Climate Change. It's an extension of a paper I'm currently working on for an edited collection of essays edited by John Parham, Adeline Johns-Putra and Louise Squire. What's different about this paper is that I'll be tackling the issue of utopia head-on, reflecting on Francis Bacon's New Atlantis, its implications for environmentalism and the practice of science. It will connect my thinking about sustainability and climate change to utopian scholarship. Let's hope it goes as well as my imagination tells me it will!