Building Yesterday’s Future for Everyone: Academic Selections from the 2025 World Science Fiction Convention

The book presents selected papers from the Academic Track of the World Science Fiction Convention 2025. The academic part of the conference is held as an integral part of the one of the largest genre conventions in the world. In bringing academics, scientists, creatives and the most engaged of fans together, it provides a uniquely eclectic cross-section of the cutting-edge research associated with the genre and speculative fiction more broadly conceived, producing insights that transcend intellectual barriers and catalyse new approaches to engaging the genre of science fiction, and its impact upon society. In presenting some of the best of this eclectic research, the book shows how the study of the genre transcends academic boundaries. It also provides a snapshot of the extreme variety of the latest research into the genre. It is relevant to researchers and students in literature as well as reception theory, specifically to those with a particular interest in science fiction. It also extends to scholars in comparative literature, and to those studying the intersection of science and the arts more broadly.