This year June 13th will mark the third "PKD Day" at Nottingham Trent University. While there's no word yet on the lineup of speakers (stay tuned for that) the event has been a huge success in the past with even our own ever-ubikuitous Palmer Eldritch giving a talk at last year's PKD day.
I like the way the English department at NTU has organized this event, making it a casual, one day thing, that I get the sense they put on without a big budget. There has never been a comparable PKD event on this side of the pond. I've thought a lot about putting something like this together at San Francisco State University where I (and PKD biographer Gregg Rickman) work.
The problem is that these things cost quite a lot of money to do right. We'd want to bring in PKD experts from all over the world, organize symposiums, panel discussions, maybe even a tour of important PKD sites in the Bay Area. But perhaps I'm going about this all wrong. Maybe it should be a low-key thing, minus the scholars from all over the world. Maybe it should be in bar, rather than on a campus.
What do you think?
More info on PKD Day 3 here.
14 comments:
it should be at a coffee house, maybe a Starbucks
-- Phil used to wish that he could go back to 18th century London and discuss philosophy, politics and literature with the great minds of that day, the men who used to frequent the coffee houses
-- too bad we don't have real coffee houses today
~~ Tessa
~~~
If you arranged something, I would totally try to get there. I'm just up in Oregon. I'm not a world-famous scholar, of course, but I wrote my master's thesis on Dick. (I weighed down your e-mail inbox with a copy several months ago). Anyway, it would be great to have a PKD day in the Bay area.
Josh
Maybe money could be forthcoming from the publicity budget of the next big Hollywood adaptation of a PKD story.
I'd rather see people like Josh than ivory-tower academics.
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I'm all for a PKD philosophical coffee house meetup (I'm a Berkeley GTU grad student and have no problem getting to SF).
I'd also be all for some kind of informal student conference on PKD and would be happy to contribute a paper and/or give a talk. [My whole academic career (from Philosophy to English to Religious studies--now ABD with my MA) has been largely dedicated to tracking down interests that were imbued in me by PKD and his theological detective work.]
lately I've also been thinking it would be cool to get a big van and do a PKD north bay tour; see various locations in Marin co. and Berkeley mentioned in the books or lived in by the author.
Luckily we don't have too many ivory tower types here at Nottingham Trent University, Tessa. As an eighteenth-century scholar though, I do appreciate Phil's love of coffee-house culture, and hope we shall be able to recall that spirit of discussion on PKD-Day3. What would be really great would be our little UK-based PKD-Days gained some sister events over there, whether on or off campus...
thanx, John -- glad to hear of your interest in 18th-century culture.
I find their obsessive-compulsive tendencies irritating (just try to read Pepy's Diary or Pope's essays, and you'll see what I mean), but they did produce some brilliant literature and philosophical ideas
~~ Tessa
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Dick's relationsip to knowledge and the gatekeepers/dispensers of knowledge is rather interesting. The breadth and depth of his voracious intellect would normally mark him as an "academic," and yet he worked almost completely outside the university structure. This method of inquiry has drawbacks, of course, but it kept him free to pursue his interests outside of rigid disciplines and established "digests" of knowledge.
It's ironic that my first PKD novel (VALIS) led me *right* to college. I was in awe at his wide-ranging knowledge and thought-provoking ideas. I credit my interest and success in school to him. What's neat about Dick's work is that it shakes up even jaded, petty, or unoriginal academics. You can find a lot of boring articles on (say) Charles Dickens, but not a lot of boring articles on Dick. At the same time, he encourages "regular" readers to investigate their assumptions to the point that they become "critics" -- or at least readers with a more nuanced or problematized perspective. They take nothing at face value.
All this is a long way of saying that I think Dick thrives in all sorts of settings; the quality of the material ensures that both "academic papers" and conversations over coffee offer terrific possibilities. Except I don't drink coffee....
Josh
that's okay, John, we'll make you a pot of tea
-8)
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John, where are the UK-based PKD days?
-Gio
PKD-Day is held at Nottingham Trent University, Clifton Campus, annually in mid-June. Email me for more details: john.goodridge@ntu.ac.uk
P.S. if anyone wants to come over from the States for PKD-Day 3, NTU Clifton Campus is an easy half-hour bus ride from East Midlands Airport (EMA), and I can recommend some pleasant, inexpensive local accommodation here.
i'm in Monterey so count me in for a day in my hometown. a buddy lives across the street from his old San Rafael house. we should really consider a day of touring his old homes and wrapping at a pub to talk amongst ourselves...
Go to: www.philipkdickfestival.com
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