CALL FOR PAPERS: The 2018 World Science Fiction Convention (worldcon76.org) is looking for undergraduate students, graduate students or post-doctoral scholars to participate in a poster competition on Saturday, Aug. 18. Here is an opportunity to share your research with an audience that is very interested in science, engineering and technology.

The convention will be at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center on August 16-20, 2018.

There will be a $100 prize for the poster that best communicates science to the general public. More info on the website at: http://www.worldcon76.org/program/student-papers

Just announced!

Participants in the Academic Track will have a chance at winning a “Best Academic Track Paper” cash prize from The Heinlein Society.  This $250 prize will be awarded based on the presentations as given at Worldcon 76.  Given this new opportunity, we will extend the submission deadline to March 1st.

Science fiction always plays a part in recreating our world and directing civilization's progress. While much SF takes place in a hypothetical "future," the entire body of speculative literature influences and interacts with our world—suggesting potentialities, solutions, organizational methods, alternative cultures, and paths to follow or avoid. In that spirit, the 76th World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon) in San José, California has chosen "Make the Future" for its overarching theme.

The Academic Track Committee welcomes proposals for scholarly presentations, especially those that study content tied to our "Make the Future" convention theme, such as the following examples:

• Any and all utopian or futurist novels, short stories, comic books, or other media
• Classic SF works that changed the direction of their era
• Dystopian novels, comic books, and other media that portray catastrophic scenarios to prevent them from happening in reality (1984, The Handmaid's Tale, The Water Knife, Bitch Planet, etc.)
• SF groups as progressive communities ("slan shacks," writers' colonies, online communities, etc.)
• Ties between SF literature and socio-political movements
• Ties between maker culture and science fiction, including DIY art and music, steampunk, deiselpunk, and any other design aesthetics 
• Major movements in the SF genre's history