Through a series of images drawn by artists from the past imagining life in the future, Ken asks the audience to think through provocative questions about the science fictional imagination. What do SF authors tend to get wrong about the future? What do they tend to get right? Is SF about “predicting” the future? Just why is the future so difficult to pin down?

Ken Liu is an American author of speculative fiction. A winner of the Nebula, Hugo, and World Fantasy awards for his fiction, he has also won top genre honors abroad in Japan, Spain, and France.

Liu’s most characteristic work is the four-volume epic fantasy series, The Dandelion Dynasty, in which engineers, not wizards, are the heroes of a silkpunk world on the verge of modernity. His debut collection of short fiction, The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories, has been published in more than a dozen languages. A second collection, The Hidden Girl and Other Stories, followed. He also penned the Star Wars novel, The Legends of Luke Skywalker. His latest book is All That We See or Seem, a techno-thriller about the fight against loneliness in the age of AI.

Photo Credit: Lisa Tang Liu

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Joshua Cohen, author of the Pulitzer Prize winning novel The Netanyahus, will speak about fiction and its complicated relationship to history.

Joshua Cohen is the author of six novels, one collection of short fiction, and one collection of nonfiction. Called "a major American writer" by the New York Times, and "an extraordinary prose stylist, surely one of the most prodigious at work in American fiction today" by the New Yorker, Cohen was awarded Israel’s 2013 Matanel Prize, and in 2017 was named one of Granta’s Best Young American Novelists. The Netanyahus won the 2021 National Jewish Book Award for Fiction and the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

Mr. Cohen’s Athenaeum presentation is co-sponsored by the Gould Center for Humanistic Studies and the Salvatori Center, both at CMC

Register for this Ath talk here!

Stop by the Gould Center in Kravis Lower Court for our Open House to learn about the many research and creative programming opportunities that are available to students throughout the academic year. From our Humanities Labs, Gould Center Fellows program, Editorial Board, Faculty RAships, Filmmaker’s Lab, Passion Projects, Creative Works Fellowships, and more - there is so much you can do in the humanities at CMC!

Chipotle provided. First come, first served!

Join us at the Campus Engagement Fair on Friday, August 29th from 11AM-1PM at Roberts Pavilion to learn more about the Gould Center’s opportunities, initiatives, and everything we have to offer. Don’t forget to grab some swag and a sweet treat!