Brian Attebery Offers Public Lecture Series at Glasgow University

Dr. Brian Attebery, Professor of English, who is serving as Leverhulme Visiting Professor at Glasgow University during spring-summer 2019, recently completed a series of five public lectures for the Programme in Fantasy Literature at the University's School of Critical Studies. The lectures offered new perspectives on a range of topics in fantasy broadly defined: fantasy's meaning-making strategies, fantasy and the anthropocene, young adult utopias and dystopias, shared narrative patterns (parabolas) in science fiction, and versions of masculinity in fairy tale retellings by male writers. Detailed summaries of the lectures are available via the Glasgow students' Twitter feed, https://twitter.com/uofgfantasy?lang=en. Rob Maslen, director of the Programme, comments that Dr. Attebery’s lectures and participation are "preparing the ground for the construction of a growing edifice of fantasy studies on this side of the Atlantic, as he did at home. Attebery is a builder as well as an analyst of imaginative worlds, and he is in the process of transforming the academic landscape in Scotland and beyond.”


As a part of the Leverhulme grant that brought Attebery to Glasgow, he has also visited departments with fantasy and science fiction emphases at Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge University, the University of Dundee, Lancaster University, and the University of Edinburgh, lecturing and discussing projects with students and faculty.


During the second half of his visiting professorship Attebery will deliver three keynote addresses at international conferences in France and United Kingdom; participate in Eastercon, the annual British National Science Fiction Convention, where he'll conduct an interview session with writer Frances Hardinge; and visit at least one additional UK university, Liverpool, for a lecture and workshop. Attebery's ongoing grant responsibilities also include advising students on thesis projects and consulting with Glasgow faculty as they plan for the future. He comments, "It’s exciting to see this new support for academic work on fantasy/sf in the UK. I can see the beginnings of a scholarly network where there have only been lone researchers."


During his stay Attebery also continues his work with ISU English graduate students and his work as editor of the Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts. In the latter capacity, he recently returned to the U.S. for the conference of the International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts, which publishes the Journal.