Briar Cliff University Media Announcement

BCU Professor Presents Findings at Science Fiction Research Conference

SIOUX CITY, Iowa – Briar Cliff University’s Adam Frisch, Ph.D., professor and chairperson of English and Writing department, presented a paper entitled “Forms of Compromise: The Interaction of Humanity, Technology and Landscape in Ken MacLeod’s Night Sessions” at the annual meeting of The Science Fiction Research Association in Atlanta, Ga., June 11-14. At the conference, Dr. Frisch also was one of three featured participants in a roundtable discussion on the possible uses of science fiction texts and videos in non-science fiction courses.

“My paper examines the ‘master/slave’ relationship that humans take toward artificially-intelligent robots in Ken MacLeod's Night Sessions, which the British Science Fiction Association named best novel for 2008,” he said. “My thesis shows how the powerful and the ‘colonized’ learn their own identities through their meetings with the ‘others.’”

Dr. Frisch has been at Briar Cliff since 1978, where he teaches courses in British romantic literature, modern drama, literature and film and current social problems in science fiction literature and film.

Briar Cliff University is a Catholic institution with an enrollment of more than 1,100 students from 24 states and four countries. Students are educated in the Franciscan tradition of excellence in the liberal arts and career preparation in an environment of care and compassion. For more information, please visit briarcliff.edu.