Ad Astra Center for Science Fiction & the Speculative Imagination

Ad Astra Center for Science Fiction & the Speculative Imagination brings writers, readers, educators, and fans of speculative fiction together to learn about and create work that changes the world.

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Who We Are

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What We Do

Explore what we do and why we are dedicated to speculative fiction

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Our Events and Conferences

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The Ad Astra Blog

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Science fiction, fantasy, horror—speculative fiction—have become the most popular forms of storytelling in the world. And why not? Humanity is living in the future now, in a world that is changing incredibly, incomprehensibly, fast. What if? What else? How do we stay human in a universe filled with nonhuman entities, known, potential, and impossible? What is “human,” anyway? How do we move into the future? Speculative fiction is a way to ask and answer these and other questions, through art that informs, entertains, extrapolates, and inspires.

About the Ad Astra Center

Ad Astra News

Image Card reading: The Higgs Boson in This Particular Universe: Facts, Speculation, and the Story of a Liittle Ripple with a Big Bang A Presentation with Phil Baringer Professor Emeritus KU Physics and Astronomy Weds., Aug. 30th | 7:30PM Lawrence Public Library If you can't join us in person, visit our website or social media for live-steaming.

Ad Astra Presents: The Higgs Boson In This Particular Universe

We are excited to announce our first event! "The Higgs Boson in This Particular Universe: Facts, Speculation, and the Story of a Little Ripple with a Big Bang" features a talk with KU physicist Dr. Phil Baringer, with a follow-up story development and workshop.

Ad Astra at ConQuesT 53

In one of our first events, the Ad Astra Center for Science Fiction & the Speculative Imagination participated in this year’s ConQuesT, Kansas City’s longest-running science fiction and fantasy convention.

Image card: Please welcome to the Ad Astra Center, Kij Johnson, Associate Director

Ad Astra Center Announces Celebrated Author Kij Johnson as Associate Director

The Ad Astra Center for Science Fiction & Speculative Imagination is pleased to announce that celebrated science fiction and fantasy author Kij Johnson will be joining the center as Associate Director.

Image card featuring images from Arrival, Santa Clarita Diet, It Follows, and Squid Game with text that reads, Zombies, Aliens, and Monsters with Prof. Paul Scott FREN 150 | Summer Session June 6 through July 1 2022, Asynchronous Online, Get in touch! Prof. Paul Scott pascott@ku.edu.

Affiliate Faculty Paul Scott Offering Summer Course "Zombies, Aliens, and Monsters"

Ad Astra Center Affiliate Faculty Paul Scott will be teaching what looks to be a very interesting course this summer, entitled "Zombies, Aliens, and Monsters." Designed to answer broadly the question, "why do we enjoy being scared," this course will examine "real and imagined monsters across diff

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“Speculative fiction posits other worlds, other ways of being, and then puts real people there, which lures the reader into that space, where they can look around with wonder, with terror, with hope, with dread — but what matters is that they're imagining a different reality. And doing that imaginative work is what gets us to make new places, and new ways of being, real."

Stephen Graham Jones

Professor of Distinction, University of Colorado Boulder

What is Science Fiction and Why Study It?

Science fiction is the literature of the human species encountering change, whether it arrives via scientific discoveries, technological innovations, natural events, or societal shifts.

Defining Science Fiction