Conference Volume: Out Now!

The conference volume of our Undergraduate Conference, entitled Of Body Snatchers and Cyberpunks: Student Essays on American Science Fiction Film has now been published by the University of Göttingen Press (Universitätsverlag Göttingen). The volume, edited by Kathleen Loock and Sonja Georgi, collects twelve essays based on conference papers; the introductory essay outlines the theoretical, methodological, and didactic considerations that informed the planning and teaching processes of the course format and the conference. The collection also features an autobiographical essay by Eric S. Rabkin in which he reflects on his personal experiences and lifelong fascination with science fiction films.
Of Body Snatchers and Cyperpunks: Student Essays on American Science Fiction Film is available as softcover edition (ISBN 978-3-941875-91-3) and open access version.
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Article in Local Newspaper

An article about our Undergraduate has been published in our local newspaper Göttinger Tageblatt. To read the article click here.
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About the Undergraduate Conference

Since its beginnings, Science Fiction has served as an intellectual playground where pressing issues (such as scientific and technological progress, population growth, nuclear power, environmental protection, or genetic engineering) have been projected onto different time and space in order to warn about inherent dangers, offer solutions, or to simply speculate about and experiment with the future. With our focus on Science Fiction films, we have tried to investigate an essential element of American popular culture.

This Undergraduate Conference was designed for students from both the University of Siegen and the University of Göttingen to meet and present their research on American Science Fiction films from the 1950s to the present.

During the semester, we have watched, analyzed and discussed the following movies against the background of reigning attitudes toward social, political, cultural, and/or ecological developments in contemporaneous U.S. societies: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (Siegel, 1956), 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick, 1968), Soylent Green (Fleischer, 1973), Blade Runner (Scott, 1982), The Matrix (Wachowski Bros., 1999), and Minority Report (Spielberg, 2002).

Conference Program

Friday, July 3

5:00 p.m. Conference Opening

5:15-6:15 p.m.
Keynote Lecture by Prof. Eric S. Rabkin (University of Michigan), “American Science Fiction Film: No Final Frontiers”

The keynote speaker for our Undergraduate Conference is Eric Rabkin, Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of English Language and Literature at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. He studied at Stuyvesant H.S., Cornell University (A.B., 1967), and the University of Iowa (Ph.D., 1970), before he joined the Michigan faculty in 1970. His most important areas of specialization include fantasy and science fiction, graphic narrative, the quantitative study of culture, traditional literary criticism and theory, and academic computing. He has published books on The Fantastic in Literature (1976); Science Fiction: History, Science, Vision (with Robert Scholes, 1977); Mars: A Tour of the Human Imagination (2005); and Masterpieces of the Imaginative Mind (audio/video lecture series, 2007).

6:30-7:30 p.m.
Panel 1: Understanding the Impact of Change
Chair: Andreas Hey (Göttingen)

• Lars Schiemann (Göttingen), “Space Technology Makes Us Lonely: Human Communication and Social Life in Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey”
• Gina Ziebell (Göttingen), “’Do You Believe in Fate, Neo?’: Constructing Identity in The Matrix”
• Benjamin Ulonska (Siegen), “The Corporeality of Alien-Invaded Humans: The Horror Motif in Don Siegel’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Its Remakes”

7:45 p.m. Reception

Saturday, July 4

9:00-10:30 a.m.
Panel 2: The Look and Sound of Science Fiction Film: Audio, Visuals, and Special Effects
Chair: René John Kerkdyk (Göttingen)

• Jörn Piontek (Göttingen), "’There was a world once, you punk’: Visual Subversion in Fleischer's Soylent Green”
• Fabian Grumbrecht (Göttingen): “’What Are You Doing Dave?’: The Confrontation of Dave Bowman and HAL 9000 in Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey”
• Daniel Badeda (Göttingen): “Postindustrial Decay vs. Technological Advance: The L.A. Cityscape in Ridley Scott´s Blade Runner (1982) as an Allegory for a Dystopian Future”
• Dennis Edelmann (Göttingen): “Like Alice in Wonderland: Special Effects in the Wachowski Brothers’ The Matrix”

Coffee Break

10:45-12:15 p.m.
Panel 3: Exploring the Boundaries of the Human Experiences
Chair: Florian Döring (Göttingen)

• Hannes Dinse (Göttingen), “Alien Invasion or Mental Illness? Dr. Bennell and How He Started to See the Aliens”
• Yamina Ketteler (Siegen), “Tracing the Origami Unicorn: In Search of the Sixth Replicant in Ridley Scott's Blade Runner”
• Tanja Hamkens (Göttingen), “’More Human than Human’: Memory, Emotion, and Identity in Ridley Scott's Blade Runner”
• Dennis Paetz (Göttingen), “Paradox at Its Best: Minority Report”
  

Lunch

1:45-3:30 p.m.
Panel 4: Contesting Spaces: Social and Political Commentaries in Science Fiction Films
Chair: Steffen Krumwiede (Göttingen)

• Florian Gesang (Göttingen), “’If you're not a cop, you're little people’: Police and Corporation in Ridley Scott's Blade Runner (1982)”
• Alexander Müller (Göttingen), “It Used to be a Man's World: Manhood and Masculinity in Don Siegel's Invasion of the Body Snatchers”
• Philipp Stückrath (Göttingen), “’What keeps us safe also keeps us free’: State Control vs. Personal Liberty in Spielberg’s Minority Report”
  

Coffee Break

3:45-5:15 p.m.
Panel 5: Probing the Genre: Themes, Motifs, and Symbols I
Chair: Johannes Hartmann (Göttingen)

• Solveig Burfeind (Göttingen), “Becky Discroll: femme fatale?”
• Heike Schöpperle (Göttingen), “Modern Film Noir: The Female Characters in Blade Runner”
• Franziska Förster (Göttingen), “The Matrix: The Oracle’s Messages and Their Influences on Neo”
• Anne Britten (Göttingen), “Come and Watch the Rain With Me: Water in Minority Report”
  

Coffee Break

5:30-7:00 p.m.
Panel 6: Probing the Genre: Themes, Motifs, and Symbols II
Chair: René John Kerkdyk (Göttingen)

• Johannes Hartmann (Göttingen), “’I'm really not at liberty to discuss this’: The Character of Dr. Heywood Floyd in Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey”
• Stefanie Schwarz (Göttingen): “’Can you see?’: The Importance of Vision and the Eye Motif In Steven Spielberg’s Minority Report”
• Iris Schäfer/Dennis Kogel (Siegen): “The Doppelgänger Motif in Science Fiction: The Mirror Universe of Star Trek”
  

7:30 p.m. Conference Dinner

Sunday, July 5

9:30-11:00 a.m.
Panel 7: Contemplating Science and Technology: Religious and Philosophical Dimensions
Chair: Daniel Badeda (Göttingen)

• Martin Gerecht (Göttingen), “’Going Home’: The Meaning of Death in Richard Fleischer's Soylent Green”
• Moritz Emmelmann (Göttingen), “Religion in Soylent Green“
• Benjamin Bandelow (Göttingen), “God is in the TV: Religion in The Matrix”
• Dinah Reetz (Siegen), “The Fallacy of Precognition: Determination and Free Choice in Stephen Spielberg’s Minority Report”
  

Coffee Break

11:15-12:00 p.m. Final Discussion

Conference Venue:
Tagungszentrum Historische Sternwarte
Geismar Landstraße 11
37073 Göttingen
Germany

Organizers:
Kathleen Loock, M.A.
Seminar für Englische Philologie
American Studies
E-Mail: Kathleen.Loock@phil.uni-goettingen.de

Sonja Georgi, M.A.
Fachbereich Sprach-, Literatur- und Medienwissenschaften
E-Mail: georgi@anglistik.uni-siegen.de

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Remarks on the Occasion of the Undergraduate Conference

This is the speech Ms. Schulze from the U.S. Consulate General Hamburg had prepared for the opening of our Undergraduate Conference:

"Dear Ms. Loock,

Dear Professor Rabkin,
Dear students and faculty of the University of Göttingen and the University of Siegen,

On behalf of the U.S. Consulate General in Hamburg I would like to congratulate you on having put together such an impressive conference on a fascinating topic. We are very happy that we were able to support your scholarly exploration of an important genre of American movies as well as the political, social, ecological and cultural background of American society they reflect on. Moving pictures were not an American invention; however, they have nonetheless been the preeminent American contribution to world entertainment. Going to the movies it still by far the most popular family activity in the United States – movie theaters continue to draw more people than all theme parks and major U.S. sports combined. In fact, there are more than 40,000 screens in the U.S. (including 718 drive-in screens) and in 2008, the number of films produced in the U.S. rose to 610.

As far as the genre you focused on is concerned, the award-winning website Filmsite.org, provides a great summary of the incredible diversity of this genre: “Sci-fi films are often quasi-scientific, visionary and imaginative - complete with heroes, aliens, distant planets, impossible quests, improbable settings, fantastic places, great dark and shadowy villains, futuristic technology, unknown and unknowable forces, and extraordinary monsters , either created by mad scientists or by nuclear havoc.” In sum, you picked a great subject with no final frontiers. Let me close with a quote from the 1956 movie “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” when Dr. Dan Kaufmann (played by Larry Gates), comments on the benefits of being taken over by aliens.
“Desire, ambition, faith – without them life is so simple.”
Thank for your attention and have a great and productive conference."

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A Word of Thanks

The organizers would like to thank the U.S. Consulate General Hamburg for their generous support of our conference. We also want to thank the committee for the allocation of tuition fees (Studienkommission) of the Philosophical Faculty (University of Göttingen) for their funding.
Our special thanks go to Prof. Eric S. Rabkin. Not only did he come all the way from Ann Arbor, Michigan (USA) to join us in Göttingen, as an expert in the field of science fiction studies he enriched our conference with his wonderful keynote lecture and his great wealth of knowledge.
Of course, we also want to thank the students who participated in this conference and made it a successful event. Without you there would have been no conference. Thank you very much for your time and effort!

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