REGISTER NOW FOR RIDDLEY40
You can now register for our free, online event to mark the 40th anniversary of Russell Hoban's Riddley Walker. The event takes place on 24 October, 11 am to 5 pm UK time. Guests include SFF patron Neil Gaiman. Please register here.
Published 10 October 2020
SFF IN THE NEWS
Foundation editor Paul March-Russell was recently in conversation with Gabrielle Malcolm at the Bradford on Avon Fiesta. Paul discussed the relevance of science fiction to contemporary society and culture, and illustrated the discussion with three books: Isaac Asimov's The Caves of Steel, Arkady and Boris Strugatskys' Roadside Picnic and Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower. You can watch the conversation here. SFF trustee John Clute will be discussing the work of Brian Aldiss at the Liverpool Literary Festival online on 10th October, while our Education Officer, Dave Clements, was recently interviewed about life on Venus.
Published 22 September 2020
40 YEARS OF RIDDLEY WALKER
Foundation editor, Paul March-Russell, is collaborating with Andrew M. Butler, Fiona Macdonald and Sonia Overall to present a 40th anniversary celebration of Russell Hoban's novel, Riddley Walker. The events, which will consist of talks, discussions, films and poetry, will be broadcast online on 24th October via the website. Full details here.
Published 7 August 2020
FOUNDATION ESSAY WINS SFRA AWARD
We send congratulations to Susan Ang, whose article on 'Triangulating the Dyad: Seen (Orciny) Unseen' (published in Foundation 132), has won this year's SFRA Award for Innovative Research. The judges' commendation and Susan's acceptance can be found here. For the full list of winners, go to the SFRA website.
Published 8 July 2020
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: DECOLONISING SCIENCE FICTION
In the wake of the worldwide protests after the killing of George Floyd, and the toppling of statues implicated in the legacy of the slave trade, we propose a special issue of Foundation on the topic of ‘decolonising science fiction’. As John Rieder and others have argued, the emergence of sf as a genre is embedded in colonial discourses of the late nineteenth century. The pursuit of new frontiers in outer space, within the Earth or under the oceans not only mirrored ‘the scramble for Africa’ but was also informed by the racialist and pseudo-scientific ideologies of the period. In more recent years, authors such as N.K. Jemisin, Jeannette Ng and Tade Thompson have sought to confront sf with the racist legacy of its origins. Afrofuturism, expressed popularly in films such as Black Panther and the music of Janelle Monáe, is only one of the ways in which artists of the African diaspora are reimagining sf. We argue, though, that the decolonisation of sf goes beyond Afrofuturism and necessitates other indigenous futurisms. At the same time, we also need to consider the work of white authors (Gwyneth Jones' White Queen, Geoff Ryman's Air or Lavie Tidhar's Central Station) who are engaged in critiquing the Anglo-American tradition. Lastly, the intersectionality of critical race studies necessitates that we also consider decolonisation not only in terms of race but also in the intersections with gender, sexuality, class and the (dis)abled body.
Topics may include (but are not limited to) the following:
· Race and racism in science fiction
· Critical race studies and the history of science fiction
· Institutional racism in awards, publishing, fandom and sf criticism
· Afrofuturism and indigenous futurisms
· Utopia and the ‘decolonisation of the mind’
· Hauntology and ‘lost futures’
· ‘Womanism’ and Fourth Wave Feminisms
· Intersectionality – race, gender, sexuality, class, disability
· Sf and border theory
· Teaching a decolonised science fiction curriculum
Submissions should be approximately 6000 words long and written in accordance with the style guide. This special issue will be published in August 2021; entries should arrive no later than Monday, 4th January 2021. Please send your article to the journal editor at
Published 22 June 2020
FOUNDATION EDITOR LAUNCHES NEW SCIENCE FICTION IMPRINT
Paul March-Russell and Una McCormack have launched a science fiction imprint, Gold SF, devoted to new feminist writing, to be published by Goldsmiths Press. The call for submissions is below:
Gold SF - Call for Submissions
Goldsmith’s Press is seeking to establish a dedicated imprint to publish feminist science fiction. We believe that sf and speculative fictions offer a mode of critical and utopian thinking ideally placed to address contemporary issues. We are therefore looking to commission novella and novel length work which answers to the times, dealing with subjects such as:
· Anti-rationalism and the rise of the alt-right
· The climate crisis and feminism in the Age of the Anthropocene
· Global movements of populations and refugees
· New visions of race, class, and queerness
· Expanding frontiers in gender and sexuality
· Decoloniality and indigenous knowledge traditions
· Pathways to resistance and rebellion
We are particularly keen to hear from new voices not traditionally represented by science fiction, literary fiction, and liberal feminism.
Enquiries to: Susan Kelly –
Editorial board: Anne Charnock, Elizabeth English, Joan Haran, Maureen Kincaid Speller, Una McCormack, Paul March-Russell, Robin Reid, Aishwarya Subramanian and Sheree Renee Thomas
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Published 17 April 2020
PETER NICHOLLS ESSAY PRIZE 2021
We are pleased to announce our next essay-writing competition. The award is open to all post-graduate research students and to all early career researchers (up to five years after the completion of your PhD) who have yet to find a full-time or tenured position. The prize is guaranteed publication in Foundation (summer 2021).
To be considered for the competition, please submit a 6000-word article on any topic, period, theme, author, film or other media within the field of science fiction and its academic study. The work should be original and not previously published. All submitted articles should comply with the style guide. Only one article per contributor is allowed to be submitted.
The deadline for submission is Friday, 4th December 2020. All competition entries, with a short (50 word) biography, should be sent to the journal editor at The entries will be judged by the editorial team and the winner will be announced in the spring 2021 issue of Foundation.
Published 11 March 2020