Monday Morning Links!

* CFP: Living in the End Times: Utopian and Dystopian Representations of Pandemics, Cappadocia University, Thu, Jan 14, 2021 – Fri, Jan 15, 2021. CFP: Science Fictions, Popular Cultures.

* I have made a table of sixteen general classifications into which it seems to me all science fiction stories written to date can be placed.

* New issue of MOSF Journal of Science Fiction, on Environmental SF.

I have a brief foreword in the new MOSF Journal of Science Fiction special issue on Environmental SF, which talks a bit about eco SF and the pandemic, if you’re interested! https://t.co/SawgwRwukd pic.twitter.com/eXrfFrJzRS

— Gerry Canavan (@gerrycanavan) August 16, 2020

* ExoTerra is an online collaborative research role-playing game (RPG) community, in which students from all disciplines, from physics to literature, pool their expertise to design a new world. Participating students play the crew of a space colony ship traveling from Earth to a newly-terraformed exoplanet, and must work together to design the new world they will create: its ocean biosphere, its capital city, its educational system, its power grid, its laws.  Over the three quarters of the 2020/21 school year, students will explore the new solar system, unlock its mysteries, and debate and decide the foundations of their new civilization.  All students at the university can participate as an extracurricular, but each quarter a selection of courses in many fields (Social Sciences, Humanities, Arts, STEM) will offer ExoTerra as an integrated course component, guiding the class through researching and producing a design for the new world as part of the class itself.

* Students, faculty, staff raise concerns about Marquette’s reopening plan. Milwaukee County Currently Suppressing COVID-19. ‘I can’t afford tuition’: College students face financial strains, health concerns from pandemic ahead of fall semester. Notre Dame sees spike in COVID-19 cases. Entire OSU sorority house in quarantine after 23 sisters test positive for coronavirus. UNC faculty call special meeting as fourth COVID-19 cluster among students reported.

Marquette has ten days to pivot or ten days before this starts happening here https://t.co/dWb1yGdoPQ

— Gerry Canavan (@gerrycanavan) August 16, 2020

We couldn’t agree more. @MarquetteUnited calls on all tenure-track faculty to stand up for the health and safety of everyone in our campus community. #WeAreMarquette. Sign the petition here: https://t.co/YhTLbceKOY https://t.co/jhftA9gBex

— MarquetteFacultyUnited (@MarquetteUnited) August 16, 2020

this but non-ironically https://t.co/kTfZHH1PRJ

— Gerry Canavan (@gerrycanavan) August 16, 2020

* People Are Struggling To Cope With The Physical Manifestations Of Their COVID Stress.

* Inside the Prison Where California’s Coronavirus Outbreak Exploded.

* “This is the first Fire Tornado Warning we are aware of in history.” In Derecho’s Wake, More Than 250,000 in Midwest Struggle Without Power. California Braces for More Blackouts as Heat Wave Persists. Greenland’s ice sheet has melted to a point of no return, according to new study. Just thinking about how virtually shutting down the entire world economy wasn’t enough to lower carbon emissions by the amount necessary.

* Biden Dems simply cannot wait to screw over their voters. And everybody else.