Sf Now
In August 2014, sf scholars from around the world came together for a two-day session of workshops and panels with the intention of exploring the state of contemporary sf and its relationships to the current historical conjuncture. Sf Now is a further fruit of that exploration. It offers a mapping of the contemporary field—not exhaustive, of course, but a rich sample of the variety and vigor of the intellectual work that sf can inspire. Sf is, surely, the genre of the moment. Its power and conceptual usefulness lies in the fact that it has, since its inception, always been the genre of the moment; being “of the moment” is both what sf is and what it does best. As has been said before, sf is good to think with, good to think through. And this collection of sf scholarship represents genuine thinking—about, against, and beyond the particular historical moment in which we find ourselves. It is an unabashedly political collection. The insights contained within these pages are insights about the here and now, and how it is shaped by our projections of the there and then, whether far future, alternate present, or counterfactual past. And just as important as what is illuminated is that which remains in the dark; the failures and atavisms of these pieces, and of the works they explore, combine with their bright cognitions to delineate the chiaroscuro of the human social, political, and cultural imagination.