The Hall Center’s 2023 Visiting International Scholar, Simon Bréan, is an Associate Professor in French Literature (Maître de Conférences) at Sorbonne Université (CELLF XVI-XXI). He published La Science-Fiction en France: Théorie et Histoire d’une Littéra­ture (2012) [Science Fiction in France: The Theory and History of a Literature]. Professor Bréan’s primary focus is the history of French Science Fiction and Anticipation (Early Science Fiction), but he is also interested in how mainstream authors fit into science fiction theory, authors such as Pierre Boulle, Robert Merle, Michel Houellebecq, or Camille Laurens.

More broadly, Bréan is working to ascertain how speculative fiction may prove to be a source of insights on fiction theory and narratology (textual worldbuilding, science fiction artifacts), with occasional forays into science fiction films and comic books. He is a member of the editorial board of ReS Futurae, a sisterly publication of the academic journal Science Fiction Studies, and the chief editor of ELFe XX-XXI (Studies in French Literature of the 20th-21st Centuries).

Professor Bréan will participate in a wide variety of programs for the week that he is on campus and will deliver a keynote talk in the Hall Center Conference Hall the evening of Thursday, April 27.

This visit is sponsored by the Hall Center, the Department of French, Francophone, and Italian Studies, the J. Wayne & Elsie M. Gunn Center for the Study of Science Fiction, and the KU Center of Excellence.

Simon Bréan, "Science Fiction in France: The Theory and History of a Literature"