Social Fiction Conference Schedule
Welcome to Social Fiction Conference 2024!
The conference welcomes all UCSC students, staff, faculty, community, and guests.
Follow SFC updates on Crown’s Instagram: @ucsccrowncollege
Check out bit.ly/sfc2024 for more Social Fiction Conference fun and Geek Week activities!
Saturday, February 24, 2024
Check In
9:30AM – 11 AM at the Crown Courtyard
Register for SFC and start the conference with complimentary breakfast snacks, SFC stickers, SFC swag, Crown Programs stickers, and review the full SFC schedule.
Social Fiction Escapes into the Real World
10AM – 11AM in Crown Classroom 203 | Led by Peter Rothman
What happens when social fiction escapes into the real world? Stories are powerful and can influence people in the real world for good or evil. From the Yippies levitating the Pentagon to Qanon, I will discuss how a prank and fictional story escaped and became a real world religion and political movement.
Social Fiction Conference Keynote: Imagination is Power!
11AM – 12PM in Crown & Merrill Dining Hall | Led by Chris Hables Gray
Imagination is power! Killer Princes, the military AI called Gospel, and why we can still hope for a better world.
We can understand a great deal about how social fictions become social realities by looking at some important examples: 1) Saudi Arabian killer-prince Mohammed bin Salman’s love of cyberpunk; 2) The Israeli AI targeting system named “Gospel” now in use in Gaza; and 3) The role of bleeding edge global technologies in fostering new political forms such as prefiguration, useful for governing AI as well as fostering peace in the Middle East.
Lunch
12 PM – 1 PM at Crown & Merrill Dining Hall
Boba & complementary lunch provided to the first 100 students who attend the first two sessions!
Come by to grab some boba, enjoy lunch, and check out the SFC schedule for the remaining sessions.
You, Me, & ChatGPT
1PM – 2PM in Crown Classroom 203 | Led by Cheyenne Laue
AI is everywhere, for better and worse. Trained on the data of our human experiences, technologies like ChatGPT pose significant questions that we are currently struggling to answer. Many of these questions involve education and the role that AI should play in classrooms and curricula. Should students use AI to write essays or exams? Should professors use AI to grade student work or draft rubrics? Perhaps more critically, what do we humans gain or lose by integrating these technological sidekicks into our daily lives?
With issues such as privacy, creativity, and ethics in mind, I invite the audience to query ChatGPT and allow the AI to choose the topic for my talk. Working with the audience and the AI together, I hope to provoke discussion on the nature of human/ technology relationships and ask participants to consider possible futures when we invite ChatGPT to join us in our academic conversations.
Imagination is Power! Keynote Speech Debrief
2PM – 3PM in the Crown Fireside Lounge
Keynote speaker, Chris Hables Gray, and the documentary team will host a debrief conversation, where students, the UCSC community, and guests are invited to ask questions about the presentation and discuss documentary filmmaking.
Registration required; click the link here to register before the session!
An Experiment with an Air Pump
2PM – 4PM in the Cultural Center at Merrill | Directed by Carolina G. Riaño
“An Experiment With An Air Pump”, play by Shelagh Stephenson tells the captivating story of two families, living in the same house in Newcastle upon Tyne but separated by two hundred years. The play begins in the bustling era of 1799, a time when the Enlightenment’s revolutionary ideas were shaking up society. We meet Joseph Fenwick, a scientist deeply influenced by these radical changes, who finds himself entangled in moral dilemmas and family strife. His experiments, reflective of the era’s controversial practices like body dissection and snatching for science, set off a storm of debate over ethics, ambition, and the thirst for knowledge, no matter the cost.
Jump to 1999, and we’re in the same house with Ellen, a geneticist on the brink of major breakthroughs with the Human Genome Project, and her husband, Tom, who teaches literature. The questions of ethics and science that plagued Fenwick’s time are still very much alive, now complicated by the potential of genetic engineering and a chilling find in their home—bones that whisper tales from the past and force Ellen and Tom to confront the moral implications of their work and the shadows of history.
Crafted with care by Shelagh Stephenson, this play isn’t just a story about science; it’s a deep dive into the conflicts that arise when the drive for discovery bumps up against the boundaries of ethics. With a backdrop that spans from the excitement of the Enlightenment to the cutting-edge debates of the modern era, Stephenson invites us to ponder the true cost of progress, the status of women in science, and the responsibilities we carry in our quest for knowledge. Inspired by the striking imagery of Joseph Wright’s painting and the vivid scenes of the 18th century, “An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump ” offers a reflective look at the human spirit, our insatiable curiosity, and the ethical compass that must guide us as we venture into the unknown.
Free and open to all UCSC students, staff, faculty, and guests!
Crown Student Senate: Science Fair
5PM – 7PM in the Crown & Merrill Dining Hall
Come relive your childhood at SFC by making slime, lava lamps, and battery-powered cars. Until supplies last.
In collaboration for Social Fiction Conference, brought to you by Crown Student Senate.
An Experiment with an Air Pump
7PM – 9PM in the Cultural Center at Merrill | Directed by Carolina G. Riaño
“An Experiment With An Air Pump”, play by Shelagh Stephenson tells the captivating story of two families, living in the same house in Newcastle upon Tyne but separated by two hundred years. The play begins in the bustling era of 1799, a time when the Enlightenment’s revolutionary ideas were shaking up society. We meet Joseph Fenwick, a scientist deeply influenced by these radical changes, who finds himself entangled in moral dilemmas and family strife. His experiments, reflective of the era’s controversial practices like body dissection and snatching for science, set off a storm of debate over ethics, ambition, and the thirst for knowledge, no matter the cost.
Jump to 1999, and we’re in the same house with Ellen, a geneticist on the brink of major breakthroughs with the Human Genome Project, and her husband, Tom, who teaches literature. The questions of ethics and science that plagued Fenwick’s time are still very much alive, now complicated by the potential of genetic engineering and a chilling find in their home—bones that whisper tales from the past and force Ellen and Tom to confront the moral implications of their work and the shadows of history.
Crafted with care by Shelagh Stephenson, this play isn’t just a story about science; it’s a deep dive into the conflicts that arise when the drive for discovery bumps up against the boundaries of ethics. With a backdrop that spans from the excitement of the Enlightenment to the cutting-edge debates of the modern era, Stephenson invites us to ponder the true cost of progress, the status of women in science, and the responsibilities we carry in our quest for knowledge. Inspired by the striking imagery of Joseph Wright’s painting and the vivid scenes of the 18th century, “An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump ” offers a reflective look at the human spirit, our insatiable curiosity, and the ethical compass that must guide us as we venture into the unknown.
Free and open to all UCSC students, staff, faculty, and guests!
Sunday, February 25, 2024
An Experiment with an Air Pump
*4PM – 6PM in the Cultural Center at Merrill | Directed by Carolina G. Riaño
An Experiment With An Air Pump, play by Shelagh Stephenson tells the captivating story of two families, living in the same house in Newcastle upon Tyne but separated by two hundred years. The play begins in the bustling era of 1799, a time when the Enlightenment’s revolutionary ideas were shaking up society. We meet Joseph Fenwick, a scientist deeply influenced by these radical changes, who finds himself entangled in moral dilemmas and family strife. His experiments, reflective of the era’s controversial practices like body dissection and snatching for science, set off a storm of debate over ethics, ambition, and the thirst for knowledge, no matter the cost.
Jump to 1999, and we’re in the same house with Ellen, a geneticist on the brink of major breakthroughs with the Human Genome Project, and her husband, Tom, who teaches literature. The questions of ethics and science that plagued Fenwick’s time are still very much alive, now complicated by the potential of genetic engineering and a chilling find in their home—bones that whisper tales from the past and force Ellen and Tom to confront the moral implications of their work and the shadows of history.
Crafted with care by Shelagh Stephenson, this play isn’t just a story about science; it’s a deep dive into the conflicts that arise when the drive for discovery bumps up against the boundaries of ethics. With a backdrop that spans from the excitement of the Enlightenment to the cutting-edge debates of the modern era, Stephenson invites us to ponder the true cost of progress, the status of women in science, and the responsibilities we carry in our quest for knowledge. Inspired by the striking imagery of Joseph Wright’s painting and the vivid scenes of the 18th century, “An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump ” offers a reflective look at the human spirit, our insatiable curiosity, and the ethical compass that must guide us as we venture into the unknown.
Free and open to all UCSC students, staff, faculty, and guests!
*Time has changed due to an unforeseen planned power outage on campus.*
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