The English Media Centre have asked me to deliver a keynote at their annual student conference this year, the emagazine Student Conference for English Literature AS & A Level and IB taking place at Friends House in London on Friday 14th October 2016. The title of my talk...

I was recently interviewed for a BBC One documentary about the life of H. G. Wells, titled 'Future Tense: The Story of H. G. Wells.' Broadcast on television on 16 September 2016, the documentary was part of a range of events celebrating the 150th anniversary of Wells' birth,...

The Austrian Science Fund (Fonds zur Förderung der wissenschaftlichen Forschung, or FWF) and the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna recently invited me to Vienna to speak about open access and open science, in my capacity as Founder and Co-Director of the Open Library of...

I'm looking forward to the Current Research in Speculative Fiction (CRSF) 2016 conference later on in June. This year I've been asked to deliver one of two keynote addresses, along with Dr Patricia Wheeler (University of Hertfordshire). I've taken the opportunity to revisit my...

As part of my duties as Founder and Editorial Director of the Open Library of Humanities, I recently organised a panel at the 131st Annual Convention of the Modern Languages Association (MLA), held at Austin, Texas in January 2016. The panel was titled "The New Open Access...

I'm delighted to have been invited onto the editorial board for the book series "Palgrave Studies in Utopianism." Utopianism is an interdisciplinary concept which explores both imagined ideal societies and practical attempts to create them, as interpreted through...

Having organised a panel on petrocultures as part of Birkbeck's Arts Week last year, "Environmental Futures: Oil, Ecology, Petrocultures," I'm delighted to be working with Dr Graeme Macdonald (University of Warwick) in co-editing a special issue of the Open Library of...

I'm delighted to announce that China Miéville: Critical Essays is now published. I've been co-editing this collection since Autumn 2012, after the successful Weird Council conference which saw academics from all over the world meeting to discuss Miéville's...

Since organising the panel "Environmental Futures: Oil, Ecology, Petrocultures" as part of Birkbeck's Arts Week programme in May 2015, I've been working up an article on critical engagements with peak oil in popular cultural texts – from films and TV to...

In my capacity as Co-Director of the Open Library of Humanities (OLH), I was recently invited to give a talk at a workshop organised by the European Commission, Alternative Open Access Publishing Models. My talk offered an overview of the innovative business model that we are...

On Monday 28th September 2015 the Open Library of Humanities (OLH) is being launched. The project was started with my colleague, Dr Martin Eve, in January 2013 as a response to the serials crisis in academic publishing and a direct commitment to finding a way of publishing open...

I've been invited this Autumn to deliver a lecture as part of a new series, "King's Fantastic Talks," organised by Dr Rhys Williams. My lecture will take place on 29th October at King's College London's campus and is titled "What's New About the Novum? SF,...

Since we organised a conference dedicated to British novelist Maggie Gee's writing in 2012, Dr Sarah Dillon (University of Cambridge) and I have been co-editing a book of scholarly essays examining her novels and short stories. Maggie Gee: Critical Essays is published by Gylphi...

The annual conference of the European Utopian Studies Society took place this year at the University of Newcastle. Taking its theme as "The End of the City," the 2015 conference was dedicated to examining the function of the city in contemporary utopian thought. As Yevgeny...

The Open Library of Humanities (OLH), which I co-direct with my Birkbeck colleague Dr Martin Paul Eve, has been awarded a major grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to launch its open access platform in September 2015. The 3-year award for $741,000 has been made to Birkbeck, University...

I was recently invited to give a talk as part of a panel on "Changing Prospects" for the LUNÄ talks organised by the Belgian artist Marjolijn Dijkman. The week-long talks were part of the ongoing fig-2 exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) and...

I'll be joining artist Tania Kovats on Saturday 2nd May 2015 for a fantastic day of talks at the Wellcome Collection, curated by the Invisible Dust project as part of the "Incredible Encounters with Light" event. Bringing together artists, scientists, writers and researchers,...

I've been invited to the University of Nottingham's graduate "Popular Culture Lecture Series" on 12th May 2015 to talk with writer and academic Professor Adam Roberts about science fiction and SF scholarship. The Popular Culture Lecture Series is a new weekly lecture series...

I've been invited by the National Library of Sweden to give the keynote for the "Meeting Place: Open Access Conference" in Malmö, April 2015. The title of my talk will be "Opening Up Open Access Beyond the Sciences: Learning from the Open Library of...

I was invited to participate in a panel discussion as part of the LSE Literary Festival 2015, titled "Visions of Future Humans: Science Fiction and Human Enhancement." The panel consisted of Professor Adam Roberts (Royal Holloway), Dr Andres Sandberg (Future of Humanity...