Event registration can be found here. You must register for GIFCon to recieve links to all events!
Speaker abstract and bios can be found here.
Keynotes can be found here.
The 2026 Reading List can be found here.
Our post on How to Join the Discord can be found here.
Please note this programme is subject to change. All times listed are BST, British Summer Time.
Day 1: Wednesday May 13th 2026
| Day 1: Wednesday May 13th 2026 | ||
| 12:00 – 12:15 Platform wide welcome / Opening words with Anna McFarlane | ||
| 12:15 – 1:00 – Introductory Roundtable: Technologies of the Fantastic with the GIFCon Committee Chair: Anna McFarlane Deputy Chair: Lea Warren | ||
| 1:00 – 1:15 Break | ||
| Panels 1 1:15 – 2:30 | ||
| Panel 1A Powering the Fantastic Chair: Sam Tegtmeyer Deputy Chair: Maggie Naylor 1:15 Martine Gjermundsen Ræstad “Prometheus Unbound: The Mystery, Magic and Miracle of the Atom in Golden Age Science Fiction” 1:35 Amanda Weiss “Technologies of Faith and Fantasy: Containing Catastrophe in Makoto Shinkai’s Post-2011 Disaster Trilogy” 1:55 Discussion | Panel 1B Extraterrestrial Speculations Chair: Anna Salvaggio Deputy Chair: Jasna Deas Mason 1:15 Jaya Singh “Extraterrestrial Contact vs. Existential Speculation: A comparative analysis of films Cargo, Koi Mil Gaya, Krish and sequels” 1:35 Lorna Ross “‘Then build us a world’: How Becky Chambers’sira alien world-building imagines a more inclusive future for disabled people” 1:55 Amit Mandal “Alien Ancestors and the Myth of Prehistory: Reimagining Human Origins in Moonfall and Prometheus” 2:15 Discussion | Panel 1C Social Media Chair: Sarah Bresnahan Deputy Chair: Sophie Jemima O Reilly 1:15 Alexandra Davies Franco Lucio “Fans policing fantasy: the role of social media networks in escalating pro-censorship fan rhetoric” 1:35 Caighlan Smith “Playing an Eldritch Influencer: Technologies of Magical Influence in Cult of the Lamb” 1:55 Elisa Pesce “The (Un)Freedom to Live on the Threshold of Death – The Fantastic vs Capitalist Technology in Adam Silvera’s Death-Cast Series” 2:15 Discussion |
| 2:30 – 2:45 Break | ||
| 2:45 – 3:45 Keynote: Oliver K. Langmead Chair: Matthew Sangster Deputy Chair: Abigail Pinsent | ||
| 3:45 – 4:00 Break | ||
| 4:00 – 5:00 Professional Events Networking Event with Lea Warren Chair: Lea Warren Deputy Chair: Eleanor Patterson Ticketed attendees only, see the Eventbrite for tickets and information PowerPoint Party (party like its professional development) Chair: Mimi Markham Deputy Chair: Anna Salvaggio Ticketed attendees only, see the Eventbrite for tickets and information | ||
| 5:00 – 5:15 Break | ||
| Panels 2 5:15 – 6:30 | ||
| Panel 2A Surveillance and Control Chair: Eleanor Patterson Deputy Chair: Chase Read 5:15 Clarice de Souza “No One Mourns The Wicked: The Construction of a Public Enemy No. 1 for Maintaining the Status Quo” 5:35 Danielle Blee “The Archduke’s Arsenal: Necropolitics, Warfare, and the Industrialisation of Magic in Baldur’s Gate 3” 5:55 Adrian Arana-Armesto “Invisibility Is Not Freedom: Transparency, Surveillance, and Fantasy Technology in Tolkien” 6:15 Discussion | Panel 2B Magical Machines Chair: Lea Warren Deputy Chair: C Mims 5:15 Dr. Pritam Panda and Dr. Panchali Bhattacharya “Three Hundred Patents and A Cooking Pot: Culinary Magic as Rogue Infrastructure in Saad Z. Hossain’s Bring Your Own Spoon” 5:35 Lara Toppel “Alethiometer and Adolescence: Regarding the Matter of Consciousness in His Dark Materials” 5:55 Mario Scorzelli “Extrascientific Machines: Absolute Contingency and Technological Fantasy in Leopoldo Lugones’s “La Fuerza Omega”” 6:15 Discussion | Panel 2C Reckoning with the Past Chair: Mercury Natis Deputy Chair: Percy Truong 5:15 Maliha Iqbal “Unsettling Time: The Self-Reflexive Fantastic in Om Shanti Om and Last Night in Soho” 5:35 Mimi Markham “‘Adam’s utopia masked a nightmare, as utopias generally do’: Future Technologies and Historical War in Fantasy” 5:55 Anna Milon “Who Built This Nature: Technophilia in Epic Fantasy” 6:15 Discussion |
| 6:30 – 6:45 Short Break | ||
| 6:45 – 7:45 –After Dark 18+ Roundtable: Digital Embodiment through Fandom Erotica with Mars Nicoli, Saige Severin, Bailey Van Den Heuvel, Molly Brown Chair: Mercury Natis Deputy Chair: Chase Read | ||
Day 2: Thursday May 14th, 2026
| Panels 3 9:00 – 10:15 | ||
| Panel 3A The World(s) We Make Chair: Abigail Pinsent Deputy Chair: C Mims 9:00 Amelia Chen “Dwelling in the 21st-Century West of Ireland: Sublime Infrastructures in Mike McCormack’s Solar Bones” 9:20 Sophie Fink “Cities Born and Raised: Negotiations of Urban Selfhood in Nghi Vo’s The City in Glass and N. K. Jemisin’s The City We Became” 9:40 Punyashree Panda & Rirtwika Roychowdhury “Let It Go, Let It Grow: Building the Material Self in Frozen and Encanto” 10:00 Discussion | Panel 3B R.F. Kuang’s Babel Chair: Eleanor Patterson Deputy Chair: Lara Toppel 9:00 Patricia García-Santos “From Biblical Myth to Speculative Fantasy: R. F. Kuang’s Babel or the Technology of Translation” 9:20 Stephen Goldfinch “Silver, empire and colonialism in Babel by R.F. Kuang” 9:40 Michelle Chen “Babel’s Loose Ends: Destruction and Vengeance in Academic Settings” 10:00 Discussion | Panel 3C Post-Human Possibilities Chair: Mimi Markham Deputy Chair: Percy Truong 9:00 Cenk Tan “Artificial Companionship, Affective Labour, and Technocratic Care in Brian Aldiss’s Super-Toys Last All Summer Long” 9:20 Dr. Francesca Bihet “Electronic Parasites: The Programming of Fairy Belief in Steven Spielberg’s A.I.” 9:40 Özlem Uslu “The Biomechanics of Death: NDEs as Traumatic Technologies of the Body in V.E. Schwab’s Villains” 10:00 Discussion |
| 10:15 – 10:30 Break | ||
| 10:30 – 11:45 Panels 4: Workshop (Ticketed attendees only; Zoom links available via Eventbrite) Conjuring Wonder: Ambi-Drawing and the Pencil as Machine with Erin Finley Deputy Chair: Maggie Naylor | ||
| 11:45 – 12:45 Lunch Break Research Spotlight in the Discord with Maddie Reid Chair: Sam Tegtmeyer | ||
| 12:45 – 1:00 Break | ||
| 1:00 – 2:00 Roundtable on Utopias + Dystopiaswith Caroline Edwards and Oliver Langmead Chair: Anna McFarlane Deputy Chair: Jasna Deas Mason | ||
| 2:00 – 2:15 Break | ||
| Panels 5 2:15 – 3:30 | ||
| Panel 5A Medical Magic Chair: Anna McFarlane Deputy Chair: Lara Toppel 2:15 Brian Keeley “Heart Transplant Technologies: the struggle against the fantastic” 2:35 Dr. Grace A.T. Worm “Contraception as Both Magic and Technology in the Fantasy Worldbuilding of Tamora Pierce and Robin Hobb” 2:55 María Ferrández-Sanmiguel “Transhumanism, Immortality and the Political Role of Fantasy in Brandon Sanderson’s The Final Empire (2006)” 3:15 Discussion | Panel 5B Technological Fantasies and the Real World Chair: Sam Tegtmeyer Deputy Chair: Percy Truong 2:15 Saige Severin “Pondering the Orb: Artificial Intelligence and the Colonization of the Imagination” 2:35 Alexander Morgan “Machinations of Magic: Tolkien’s Typing, Elvish Technology, and the Victorian Arts & Craft Movement” 2:55 Kyna McClenaghan “The Fantastic in Scientology’s E-Meter—A New Age Technology” 3:15 Discussion | Panel 5C Rhetorics of Genre Chair: Abigail Pinsent Deputy Chair: C Mims 2:15 Prakriti Basu “From Laboratory to Lore: A Study of Stranger Things as Science Fantasy and an escape from capitalist anxieties” 2:35 Michelle Esrig-Munguia “Technologies of Genre Regulation: Romantasy and the Marginalisation of Feminised Systems” 2:55 Mikayla Wigder “Urban Romantasy: How Technology and Romance Come Together” 3:15 Discussion |
| 3:30 – 3:45 Break | ||
| 3:45 – 4:45 Keynote: Jeff Vandermeer Chair: Will Tattersdill Deputy Chair: Lea Warren | ||
| 4:45 – 5:00 Break | ||
| 5:00 – 6:00 Author Spotlight: Vajra Chandrasekera Chair: Will Tattersdill Deputy Chairs: Sam Tegtmeyer & Lea Warren | ||
| 6:00 – Pub Quiz Chair: Mercury Natis Deputy Chair: Sarah Bresnahan | ||
Day 3: Friday May 15th, 2026
| Panels 6 10:00 – 11:15 | ||
| Panel 6A Crip Technics Chair: Anna Salvaggio Deputy Chair: Chase Read 10:00 Oana Marin “Crip Technics and the Geopolitics of Stasis: Uneven and Combined Development in Game of Thrones” 10:20 Julia Jin Wang “The Affective Potentials of Writing: Fantastical Depictions of Mental Health Management in Murashige’s The Lost Souls of Benzaiten” 10:40 Discussion | Panel 6B Science is Magic/Magic is Science Chair: Eleanor Patterson Deputy Chair: Sophie Jemima O’Reilly 10:00 Laura Ciriza Martin “Uncertainty, struggle, choice and change”: The One Power and the Scientific Structuring of Fantasy in Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time” 10:20 Nicole Love “Communities of Belief: Science / Magic as Technologies of the Fantastic in Alasdair Gray’s Poor Things and Ahmed Saadwai’s Frankenstein in Baghdad” 10:40 Siravich Khurat “Hosts of Homeostasis: Digital Monster as the Balance of Parallel Convergence between Fantasy and Science” 11:00 Discussion | Panel 6C Infrastructure and the Environment Chair: Sarah Bresnahan Deputy Chair: Sophie Fink 10:00 Sara Kabir “Infrastructures of Care: Solarpunk, Science-Fantasy, and Ethical Technology in Sultana’s Dream and Monk and Robot” 10:20 Ana Diéguez-Algaba “The Seeds of Downfall: Technology, Knowledge and Nature in “Aldarion and Erendis”” 10:40 Özcan Kahraman “Solar-Powered Fantasy: Video Game Infrastructure and Magical Systems in Boktai: The Sun is in Your Hand” 11:00 Discussion |
| 11:15 – 11:30 Break | ||
| 11:30 – 12:30 Keynote: Maha Rafi Atal Chair: Anna McFarlane Deputy Chair: Mercury Natis | ||
| 12:30 – 1:30 Lunch Break | ||
| 1:30 – 2:45 Panels 7: Workshop (Ticketed attendees only; Zoom links available via Eventbrite) Beak, Feather, and Bone: A Collaborative Map-making Game about Fantastic Infrastructure with Stephen Goldfinch Deputy Chair: Sophie Jemima O Reilly | ||
| 2:45 – 3:00 Break | ||
| Panels 8 3:00 – 4:15 | ||
| Panel 8A Postcolonial Reimaginings Chair: Sam Tegtmeyer Deputy Chair: Lara Toppel 3:00 Cláudio Augusto Carvalho Moura “Science-Folk and the Fantastic in ‘O Auto da Maga Josefa’: Folklorized Technologies and Northeastern Brazilian Folklore” 3:20 Ishita Lahiri “Jugaad-punk: Reframing Speculative Aesthetics through South Asian SF” 3:40 Zuleyha Cetiner-Oktem “Mapping the Magical: Atlases, Footnotes, and the Archives of Authority” 4:00 Discussion | Panel 8B Marginalized Futurities Chair: Mimi Markham Deputy Chair: Sophie Fink 3:00 Caleb Berk ““We Finish this Together”: Queering Utopian Imagination through Magic and Technology in Netflix’s Arcane” 3:20 Zvonimir Prtenjača “You think Ida B. Wells could have done what she did from a kitchen?”: An Afrofuturist Feminist Reading of Bitter Root” 3:40 Mars Nicoli “Transgender Technohorror” 4:00 Discussion | Panel 8C Tabletop RPG: House Rules/Whose Rules? Chair: Sarah Bresnahan Deputy Chair: Sophie Jemima O’Reilly 3:00 Mark Hines “Aragorn the Divider: Racebending in Magic: The Gathering’s “Tales of Middle Earth” and Deviant Excommunes.” 3:20 Timothy R Granger “Bureaucratic Magic in Jack Vance’s Rhialto the Marvellous” 3:40 Percy Truong “‘Horror Lurks Within’: World-building through Intratextuality and Intertextuality in Magic the Gathering’s Innistrad Expansion.” 4:00 Discussion |
| 4:15 – 4:30 Break | ||
| 4:30 – 5:30 Roundtable: Worldbuilding and Magic Systems Chair: Lea Warren Deputy Chair: Sam Tegtmeyer, Will Tattersdill | ||
| 5:30 – 5:45 Closing Remarks | ||
| 5:45 – 6:00 Break | ||
| 6:00 – Onward: Game Streaming Event: Tactical Breach Wizards with Grace A.T. Worm on Discord | ||
| 6:30 – Onward: Pub Night in person for attendees in or around Glasgow Location: Curler’s Rest, 256-260 Byres Rd, Glasgow G12 8SH | ||