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Eaton History | Technocracy and Plutocracy | Inside the Eaton Collection
A History Of The Eaton Volumes And Volumes From Related Conferences
(Note: due to circumstances not of my choosing, I am no longer involved in any activities related to the J. Lloyd Eaton Collection of Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature, housed in the Tómas Rivera Library of the University of California, Riverside; for current information about the Collection and its activities, please use this link. However, I offer the following history to commemorate my many years of involvement with the Eaton Conferences as a guest, speaker, coordinator, and volume co-editor.)

To date, there have been twenty-one J. Lloyd Eaton Conferences on Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature, with a twenty-second conference scheduled to occur in May, 2008. These have produced nineteen Eaton volumes to date. There have also been a number of Eaton-related volumes produced by conferences that were not official Eaton Conferences; however, these conferences were all co-sponsored by the University of California, Riverside, and co-coordinated by George Slusser or (in two instances) by Gary Westfahl, so these volumes are sometimes regarded as Eaton volumes. The chart below lists all Eaton volumes and all Eaton-related volumes, arranged in chronological order according to the date of the conference that produced the volume. Official Eaton volumes are preceded by "Eaton" and the number of the conference. When an Eaton Conference or related conference has not to date produced a volume, the conference title is given in brackets.

The titles of each Eaton Conference were usually similar or identical to the volume titles, with these exceptions:  the 1994 Eaton Conference was entitled Science Fiction in the Contests for Authority; the 1996 Eaton Conference was entitled The World, the Flesh, and the Doctor; and the title Worlds Enough and Time was employed as the umbrella title for both the Eaton track (Time) and the SFRA track (Space) of the 1997 joint SFRA/Eaton Conference, and the title Space and Beyond was created later for the volume taken from the SFRA track. I also recall that the 1984 conferences had somewhat different titles, specifically referencing George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, but I did not attend either conference and have been unable to verify their titles. Also, with the exception of the 1989 cyberpunk conference, I believe that the related conferences co-coordinated by George Slusser had somewhat different titles, but with one exception, I did not attend those conferences and hence cannot be sure about their titles. (The one I attended, the 1990 College Station Conference, was entitled, I believe, the Fantastic Imagination in New Critical Theories.) The related conference I co-coordinated which generated a volume, the 2001 Hong Kong Conference, was entitled Hong Kong 2001: Technology, Identity, and Futurity, East and West, in the Emerging Global Village.

A final volume associated with the Eaton Conferences, the 2003 anthology Genre at the Crossroads: The Challenge of Fantasy:  A Collection of Essays, ed. Slusser and Jean-Pierre Barricelli (Riverside, California: Xenos Press, 2003), actually consisted mainly of essays originally assembled in 1988 for the first issue of a projected new journal, Fantasy Studies, which never appeared. There was no conference associated with the project. Also, a collection of Eaton Conference essays by Frank McConnell, The Science of Fiction and the Fiction of Science: Storytelling, Science Fiction, and the Gnostic Imagination, is scheduled to be published by McFarland Publishers in 2008; its Table of Contents is available at this link.

Volume Title [conference title if no volume] Year of Conference
Eaton 1. Bridges to Science Fiction,
ed. George Slusser, George E. Guffey, and Mark Rose (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1980)
1979
Eaton 2. Bridges to Fantasy,
ed. Slusser, Eric S. Rabkin, and Robert Scholes (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1982)
1980
Eaton 3. Coordinates: Placing Science Fiction and Fantasy,
ed. Slusser, Rabkin, and Scholes (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1983)
1981
Eaton 4. Shadows of the Magic Lamp: Fantasy and Science Fiction in Film,
ed. Slusser and Rabkin (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1985)
1982
Eaton 5. Hard Science Fiction,
ed. Slusser and Rabkin (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1980)
1983
Eaton 6. Storm Warnings: Science Fiction Confronts the Future,
ed. Slusser, Colin Greenland, and Rabkin (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1987)
(two conferences, in Riverside and in England)
1984
Eaton 7. Intersections: Fantasy and Science Fiction,
ed. Slusser and Rabkin (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1987)
1985
Eaton 8. Aliens: The Anthropology of Science Fiction,
ed. Slusser and Rabkin (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1987)
1986
Eaton 9. Mindscapes: The Geographies of Imagined Worlds,
ed. Slusser and Rabkin (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1988)
(includes Westfahl essay)
1987
Eaton 10. Fights of Fancy: Armed Conflict in Science Fiction and Fantasy,
ed. Slusser and Rabkin (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1993)
(includes Westfahl essay)
1988
Eaton 11. Styles of Creation: Aesthetic Technique and the Creation of Fictional Worlds,
ed. Slusser and Rabkin (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1992)
(includes Westfahl essay)
1989
Fiction 2000: Cyberpunk and the Future of Narrative,
ed. Slusser and Tom Shippey (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1992)
(conference in Leeds, England, co-coordinated by George Slusser, not an official Eaton conference)
(includes Westfahl essay)
1989
Eaton 12. Science Fiction and Market Realities,
ed. Gary Westfahl, Slusser, and Rabkin (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1996)
(includes Westfahl essay)
1990
The Fantastic Other: An Interface of  Perspectives,
ed. Brett Cooke, Slusser, and Jaume Marti-Olivella (Amsterdam: Rodopi Press, 1998)
(conference in College Station, Texas, co-coordinated by George Slusser, not an official Eaton Conference)
(includes Westfahl essay)
1990
Biopoetics: Evolutionary Explorations in the Arts,
ed. Cooke and Frederick Turner (Lexington, Kentucky: ICUS, 1999)
(includes additional papers from the College Station conference)
(includes Westfahl essay)
1990
Eaton 13. Foods of the Gods: Eating and the Eaton in Fantasy and Science Fiction,
ed. Westfahl, Slusser, and Rabkin (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1996)
(includes Westfahl essay)
1991
Transformations of Utopia: Changing Views of the Perfect Society,
ed. Slusser, Paul Alkon, Roger Galliard, and Danièle Chatelain (New York: AMS Press, 1999)
(conference in Yverdon-les-Bains, Switzerland, co-coordinated by George Slusser, not an official Eaton conference)
(includes Westfahl essay)
1991
Eaton 14. Immortal Engines: Life Extension and Immortality in Science Fiction and Fantasy,
ed. Slusser, Westfahl, and Rabkin (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1996)
(includes Westfahl essay)
1992
Eaton 15. Nursery Realms: Children in the Worlds of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror,
ed. Westfahl and Slusser (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1999)
(includes Westfahl essay)
1993
Eaton 16. Science Fiction, Canonization, Marginalization, and the Academy,
ed. Westfahl and Slusser (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2002)
(includes Westfahl introduction; Westfahl conference paper, published elsewhere, is available at this link)
1994
Eaton 17. Unearthly Visions: Approaches to Science Fiction and Fantasy Art,
ed. Westfahl, Slusser, and Kathleen Church Plummer (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2002)
(includes two Westfahl essays)
1995
H. G. Wells's Perennial Time Machine: Selected Essays from the Centenary Conference "The Time Machine: Past, Present, and Future," Imperial College, London, July 26-29, 1995,
ed. Slusser, Patrick Parrinder, and Chatelain (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2001)
(conference in London, England, co-coordinated by George Slusser, not an official Eaton Conference)
1995
Eaton 18. No Cure for the Future: Disease and Medicine in Science Fiction and Fantasy,
ed. Westfahl and Slusser (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2002)
(includes Westfahl essay)
1996
Eaton 19. Worlds Enough and Time: Explorations of Time in Science Fiction and Fantasy,
ed. Westfahl, Slusser, and David Leiby (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2002)
(Eaton track of joint SFRA/Eaton Conference, Long Beach, California)
(includes Westfahl introduction)
1997
Space and Beyond: The Frontier Theme in Science Fiction,
ed. Westfahl (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2000)
(SFRA track of joint SFRA/Eaton Conference, Long Beach, California, not officially part of that year's Eaton conference)
(includes Westfahl essay)
1997
[Eaton 20. Science Fiction and the Two Cultures—no conference volume to date]
(Westfahl paper available at this link)
1999
World Weavers: Globalization, Science Fiction, and the Cybernetic Revolution,
ed. Wong Kin Yuen, Westfahl, and Amy Kit-sze Chan (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2005)
(conference in Hong Kong, co-coordinated by Gary Westfahl, not an official Eaton conference)
(includes Westfahl essay)
2001
[Hong Kong 2003 Conference: Technoculture, Material Science, and Everyday Life
(conference in Hong Kong, co-coordinated by Gary Westfahl, not an official Eaton conference)—no conference volume to date]
2003
[Eaton 21. Inventing the 21st Century: Many Worlds, Many Histories (conference held at Science Fiction Museum, Seattle, Washington)—no conference volume to date] 2005
[Eaton 22. Chronicling Mars—no conference volume to date] 2008

Eaton History | Technocracy and Plutocracy | Inside the Eaton Collection

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