| Science-fiction author, journalist, technology activist, and Boing Boing co-editor Cory Doctorow presents this year's Richard W. Gunn Memorial Lecture: "The Coming War on General Purpose Computing: When: Where: Cost: This is Doctorow's third visit to KU: first in 1999 when his story "Craphound" (his first published story) was a finalist for the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award, and next in 2009 when his novel Little Brother won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award. Don't miss hearing one of the most interesting thinkers of our time talk about some of our most-relevant issues! Sponsored by the Center for the Study of Science Fiction and the KU Department of English. |  |
Bio:
Cory Doctorow is a science fiction author, activist, journalist, and technology activist. He is the co-editor of the popular weblog Boing Boing, and a contributor to The Guardian, the New York Times, Publishers Weekly, Wired, and many other newspapers, magazines, and websites. He was formerly Director of European Affairs for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a non-profit civil-liberties group that defends freedom in technology law, policy, standards, and treaties. He holds an honorary doctorate in computer science from the Open University (UK), where he is a Visiting Senior Lecturer; in 2007, he served as the Fulbright Chair at the Annenberg Center for Public Diplomacy at the University of Southern California.
He co-founded the open-source peer-to-peer software company OpenCola, sold to OpenText, Inc in 2003, and presently serves on the boards and advisory boards of the Participatory Culture Foundation, the Clarion Foundation, The Glenn Gould Foundation, and the Chabot Space & Science Center's SpaceTime project.
In 2007, Entertainment Weekly called him, "The William Gibson of his generation." He was also named one of Forbes Magazine's 2007/8/9/10 Web Celebrities, and one of the World Economic Forum's Young Global Leaders for 2007.
Born in Toronto, Canada, he now lives in London.
The Lecture Series:
The Gunn Lecture, endowed by Dr. Richard W. Gunn, James Gunn's brother, has featured several science-fiction scholars. Although it has also sponsored speakers on Shakespeare and Ralph Ellison, it often brings distinguished science-fiction scholars to the campus beginning with scholar Fredric Jameson, William A. Lane Professor at Duke University; and continuing with Bill Brown, Edgar Carson Waller Professor at the University of Chicago; China Miéville, British author of what has become known as the New Weird; and Nöel Sturgeon, Theodore Sturgeon's daughter and trustee of his literary estate, Professor of Critical Cultures, Gender, and Race Studies at Washington State University, and juror on the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award. The Center also recently co-sponsored a visit from Michael Chabon, prize-winning author and editor.
Promotional materials:
KU Calendar news item here.
SFWA news item here.
Facebook event page here.
Google+ event page here.
Yelp event page here.
Posters in .pdf format (other formats on the News page):
If you are unfamiliar with Doctorow's work and would like to get acquainted with it, here's a short reader (from the CSSF "Science, Technology, & Society" course) - all available free online:
Short story, “I, Robot.”
Short-short story, “Printcrime.”
Chapter 4 from the Campbell Award-winning novel, Little Brother.
Want to read more Doctorow stories? Novels? See the recommended reading, below.
Essay, “I Can't Let You Do That, Dave: What it means to design our computers and devices to disobey us.”
Essay, “Disorganised but effective: The most profound social revolutions in human history have arisen whenever a technology comes along that lowers transaction costs for everyone.”
Essay, “Internet copyright law has to have public support if it's going to work.”
Essay, “A Vocabulary for Speaking about the Future.”
Want to read more Doctorow articles and essays? Here's some more recommended reading to become familiar with his work:
- Doctorow's just-released novel, Homeland, (sequel to Little Brother), is already available for free download here.
- The novel, Little Brother, is available for free download in several formats here or plain HTML here. Doctorow also provides some great teaching materials for the book here. Won the Campbell Award.
- The very recent novel, Pirate Cinema, is available for free download here.
- The story, “Craphound,” his first short-story publication and a finalist for the Sturgeon Award.
- Go here for free downloads of some of his most-popular short stories.
- Go here for free downloads of the graphic-novelization of six of his most-popular short stories in .epub or .pdf formats for the book, Cory Doctorow's Futuristic Tales Of The Here And Now.
- Discussion about “Where Characters Come from,” published in Locus.
- Essay, “With a Little Help: Cory Doctorow kicks off a unique publishing experiment - and a monthly PW column” (full archive of his PW series here).
- Essay, “Just because something has value doesn't mean it has a price: If every last shred of incidental online value is given a price tag, we'll never harvest the full fruits of our ingenuity.”
- Go here for links to many more of Doctorow's online articles.
Best,
Chris
