Joana Russ, C. L. Moore, Judith Merrill, James Tiptree Junior, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Ursula K. Le Guin... As part of a project called “The Future is Female!” Georgia Tech professor Lisa Yaszek has been tracking down the best stories by female American pioneers of science fiction. With a special interest in race, science, gender and technology, as well as finding new voices, Yaszek has now published the result: 25 stories spanning the beginnings of the genre to the 1970s in two annotated volumes, published in three parts in Spanish by Almadía as Mundos alternos [Alternate Worlds] Retrofuturismos [Retrofuturisms] and Futuros distópicos [Dystopian Futures]. The series now complete (the final Spanish-language volume was released this summer), Yaszek will drop by the 42 Festival to chat with Teresa López Pellisa, an expert in the origins of the genre, and address the questions of how our present-day world resembles the future imagined by these pioneers, how science fiction has evolved since its early days, and the degree to which feminism has been preserved or lost by female authors then and now. A can’t-miss session for a project that fully embodies the spirit of the 42 Festival.

Guest:

Lisa Yaszek

Moderator:

Teresa López Pellisa

*Simultaneous interpreting into Spanish available