Campbell Conference

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Campbell Conference

Annual science fiction conference and awards event held each year - usually in Lawrence, Kansas. The Awards Banquet took place on Friday evening.

Held regularly from 1973-2019, put on hiatus during COVID lockdowns, and stayed on haitus after James Gunn's original SF Center was subsumed by a college department. Hosted at a special joint event in 2007 with SFRA, the Heinlein Centennial, the 2016 WorldCon, and at various Lawrence, KS, facilities including KU, the conference provided a setting for presenting science-fiction honors:

* From 197

9-2019, the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for the best science-fiction novel of the year.

* From 1987-2019, the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award for the best short science fiction of the year.

* From 1996 - 2004, the induction of honorees into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame. Winners of both awards took home Lucite trophies and had their names engraved on the permanent trophies that remain with the juries. We also held a signing and readings with attending authors. In the future, we will likely hold activities at ConQuesT facilities (Kansas City's longest-ruinning SF convention). This is the group that hosted the 2016 Campbell Conference, which served as the academic track for MidAmeriCon II: The 74th World Science Fiction Convention on August 17-21, 2016, in Kansas City, Missouri.

08/18/2019

Congratulations 🍾 to 2018 Sturgeon Award Winner Charlie Jane Andrews, and 2019 Sturgeon Award Winner Annalee Newitz, for winning the Best Podcast Hugo Award tonight!

06/25/2019

Today is your last chance to register (via email) for this year's Campbell and Sturgeon Awards banquet on Friday evening! To reserve your dinner seat, let Ruth know by this afternoon.

This year's theme is "Gender, Sexuality, Race, Class, Love, Empathy, and Style in Science Fiction: The Legacies of Theodore Sturgeon." Lots of special guests, including the inimitable Annalee Newitz!

Please note the special Conference rate for students (only twenty bucks plus the banquet cost - though you are more than welcome to attend the awards ceremony even if you're not eating). You can pay at the door.

More details, including the schedule and registration information, on the Conference page:
https://www.christopher-mckitterick.com/Sturgeon-Campbell/campbell-conference.htm

Please help spread the word!

This year's Conference will be a collaborative event with local SF organizations, where "Imaginative Reasoning" is the signature idea of our academic program director's mission statement.

02/25/2019

Congratulations to Kevin Willmott for winning the Academy Award for Writing (Adapted Screenplay) for "BlacKkKlansman"!

Campbell Conference attendees have regularly enjoyed screenings of Willmott's work, with Q&As to discuss such thought-provoking alternate-history films as The Battle for Bunker Hill, C.S.A: Confederate States of America, and Destination: Planet Negro!

Video from the Oscars:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTo3XYm33WU

NPR piece about Willmott's personal story that's in the script:
https://www.kcur.org/post/scene-kansas-filmmaker-kevin-willmotts-childhood-ended-blackkklansman

Congrats again to Kevin Willmott for bringing the Oscar gold home to KU!

Watch Spike Lee’s Oscar 2019 Acceptance Speech. He joins Charlie Wachtel, David Rabinowitz and Kevin Willmott to accept the Oscar for Writing (Adapted Screen...

05/22/2018

Time to start thinking about June's Campbell Conference - this year, the topic is "The Posthuman and Science Fiction," and we're looking forward to hearing a diversity of thoughts on the subject from a variety of scholars and writers... and you!

More special guests TB - stay tuned!

06/22/2017

Neat story about the Center's founder, James E. Gunn, with a video interview, too:

http://news.ku.edu/2017/05/26/sci-fi-master-still-exploring-new-methods-working

LAWRENCE — At 93, after nearly 70 years as an author, Science Fiction Grand Master James E. Gunn, professor emeritus of English, has finally had to make some concession to his age.

06/17/2017

The Campbell Awards banquet was wonderful!
Winners:
2017 Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award to Catherynne M. Valente, "The Future is Blue," Drowned Worlds, ed. Jonathan Strahan, Solaris Books, 2016.
2017 John W. Campbell Memorial Award to Lavie Tidhar, CENTRAL STATION, Tachyon Publications, 2016.

05/23/2017

LAWRENCE, KS – May 21, 2017
for immediate release

Finalists for this year's Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award for best short science fiction have been selected, announced Christopher McKitterick, Director of the Gunn Center for the Study of Science Fiction. The award will be presented during the Campbell Conference Awards Banquet on Friday, June 16, as part of the annual Campbell Conference.

Finalists for the 2017 Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award

Nina Allan, “The Art of Space Travel,” Tor.com, 27 July 2016.
Amal El-Mohtar, “Seasons of Glass and Iron,” The Starlit Wood: New Fairy Tales, eds. Dominik Parisien and Navah Wolfe, Saga Press, 2016.
Carolyn Ives Gilman, “Touring with the Alien,” Clarkesworld, April 2016.
Victor LaValle, The Ballad of Black Tom, Tor.com, February 2016.
Ian R. MacLeod, “The Visitor From Taured,” Asimov’s, September 2016.
Sam J. Miller, “Things with Beards,” Clarkesworld, June 2016.
Dominica Phetteplace, “Project Empathy,” Asimov's, March 2016.
Catherynne M. Valente, “The Future is Blue,” Drowned Worlds, ed. Jonathan Strahan, Solaris Books, 2016.
Kai Ashante Wilson, A Taste of Honey, Tor.com, 13 October 2016.
The Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award recognizes the best science fiction short story of each year. It was established in 1987 by James Gunn, Founding Director of the Center for the Study of Science Fiction at KU, and the heirs of Theodore Sturgeon, including his partner Jayne Engelhart Tannehill and Sturgeon's children, as an appropriate memorial to one of the great short-story writers in a field distinguished by its short fiction.
The Campbell Conference has been held each year since 1978, usually in Lawrence, Kansas. It includes a Friday-evening banquet where the annual Theodore Sturgeon and John W. Campbell Memorial Award are presented; a Saturday round-table discussion with scholars, scientists, and writers of science fiction; and other events.

04/01/2016

10/20/2015

James Gunn — an author of more than 40 books and a member of the Science Fiction Hall of Fame — has made a career out of thinking about the future. He has made most of it in Lawrence, having been a fixture at the university since 1955. The combination got us thinking: What does a man who ponders the…

09/28/2015

This Friday!

06/15/2015

Seth Chambers, Sturgeon Award finalist, gives a reading at Science Fiction Sunday.

06/14/2015

Tina Connolly gives a reading at Science Fiction Sunday.

Address

Lawrence, KS
66045

Telephone

+17858642509

Website

https://christopher-mckitterick.com/Sturgeon-Campbell/campbell-conference.htm

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Our Story

Held annually at the University of Kansas since 1973 (except for a special joint event in 2007 with SFRA, the Heinlein Centennial, and MidAmeriCon II), the Conference provides a setting for presenting these science-fiction honors: * Since 1979, the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for the best science-fiction novel of the year (http://www.sfcenter.ku.edu/campbell.htm). * Since 1987, the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award for the best short science fiction of the year (http://www.sfcenter.ku.edu/sturgeon.htm). * From 1996 - 2004, the induction of honorees into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame (http://www.sfcenter.ku.edu/SF-HOF.htm). The Gunn Center Conference is usually the concluding event of the Speculative Fiction Writing Workshop (http://www.sfcenter.ku.edu/SFworkshop.htm) and the SF/F Novel Writing Workshop (http://www.sfcenter.ku.edu/novel-workshop.htm), and the kick-off event for the Intensive English Institute on the Teaching of Science Fiction (http://www.sfcenter.ku.edu/SFinstitute.htm).

In 2016, the Gunn Center Conference served as the academic track for MidAmeriCon II: The 74th World Science Fiction Convention, in Kansas City, Missouri. All of that year's activities will take place at the MidAmeriCon facilities.

The Awards Banquet usually takes place on Friday evening. Winners of both awards take home trophies and have their names engraved on the permanent trophies (http://www.sfcenter.ku.edu/sturgeon-campbell-awards.htm) that remain on display at the Center's office. The Raven Bookstore and Jayhawk Ink Bookstore also usually hold a signing and often host readings with the attending authors on the Saturday of the Conference. See the full schedule of events for more information: http://www.sfcenter.ku.edu/campbell-conference.htm Our next event - originally moved to Fall 2020 - will likely be moved to 2021 due to the Coronavirus pandemic. We’ll kick off the opening of our newest branch office at the University of Nebraska (in Lincoln) for this event, when we’ll invite the winners of both awards for both years to attend.

Stay tuned for updates as we approach the event!