Friday, 15.09, 18h – 19h, Palatul Ștefania, Timișoara
Darko R. Suvin, scholar, critic and poet, born 1930 in Zagreb, Yugoslavia, is Professor Emeritus of McGill University and Fellow of The Royal Society of Canada. Was co-editor of Science-Fiction Studies, editor Literary Research/Recherche littéraire, visiting professor at 10 universities, has won various awards for scholarship and prizes for poetry, Award Fellow of Killam Foundation and Humboldt Foundation. Has published 35 book titles, edited 14 volumes, and written hundreds of articles on literature and dramaturgy, culture, utopian and science fiction, political epistemology and communism; also three volumes of poetry. Latest book titles are Communism, Poetry: Communicating Vessels, 2020; Parables of Freedom and Narrative Logics: Positions and Presuppositions in Science Fiction and Utopianism, 2 Vols., 2021; Disputing the Deluge: 21st Century Writings on Utopia, Narration, Horizons of Survival, 2022; Bijasmo nečija budućnost, 2022 [We Were Somebody’s Future, verse in Croatoserbian].
Darko Suvin is one of the most important critics of science fiction. His work on science fiction as a literature of cognitive estrangement was one of the first major academic engagements with the genre, and has proved both enduring and influential; he has received the SFRA Pilgrim Award for his contributions to SF scholarship, and dialogue with his ideas continues in the criticism of Frederic Jameson, Carl Freedman, Istvan Csicsery-Ronay Jr., and others. [Strange Horizons]
Vita and essays are accessible at darkosuvin.com; papers to read and download at independent.academia.edu