2021/01/01 by Anthony Enns · 1 citation
Social Sciences · Arts and Humanities · Economics, Econometrics and Finance · #Gothic Literature and Media Analysis #Comics and Graphic Narratives #Cinema and Media Studies
paper · doi:10.1353/sfs.2021.0000
openalex publication_date 2021/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/04/05
171 BOOKS IN REVIEW Academia, Fandom, and Philip K. Dick. David Sandner, ed. Philip K. Dick: Essays of the Here and Now. McFarland, 2020. 226 pp. 39.95 pbk. In 1972 Willis E. McNelly, a professor at California State University, helped Philip K. Dick relocate to Fullerton, California. Dick remained there for the rest of his life and many of his later novels were directly inspired by his experiences there, including A Scanner Darkly (1977) and Radio Free Albemuth (1985). He was also frequently involved in campus activities, and he eventually left his manuscripts and papers to the special collections department of the university library. Thirty-five years later, another professor at CSU, David Sandner, sought to highlight Dick’s connections to the local area by creating a student project in a course on Digital Literary Studies. Students involved in this project created the website Philip K. Dick in the OC, which identified various locations in Orange County that were important in Dick’s life and work. Following the success of this project, Sandner was invited to host the 2016 Philip K. Dick Conference, whose theme was “Here and Now,” as it sought to emphasize Dick’s ties to Southern California as well as the continued relevance of his work today. This event was part academic conference and part fan convention, as it featured a series of scholarly presentations as well as informal talks given by friends and fans. The conference was also accompanied by a film series featuring adaptations of Dick’s works, two local art shows featuring pieces inspired by his works, and the release of two student-edited fanzines: Philip K. Dick in Orange County and The Aramchek Dispatch. One result of these projects is Sandner’s new collection, Philip K. Dick: Essays of the Here and Now, and the hybrid nature of the conference is reflected in the hybrid nature of the book, which includes scholarly essays, oral histories, fan art, and excerpts from various zines. In the first part, for example, Ursula Heise’s “Philip K. Dick’s Futuristic Ecologies” analyzes the significance of Dick’s apocalyptic narratives within the context of the current climate crisis and the concept of the Anthropocene. Umberto Rossi’s “From Soft Totalitarianism to TV Introjection” analyzes the often ambiguous representations of television in Dick’s novels: he initially feared the device as an instrument of social control that promoted viewer passivity but later speculated that television realities might also have the potential to facilitate authentic experiences and even spiritual revelations. Richard Feist’s “Voices, Consciousness and the Bicameral Mind” focuses on the philosophical and scientific theories of consciousness that influenced the writing of A Scanner Darkly, including studies of split-brain phenomena developed by psychologists Robert E. Ornstein, Michael S. Gazzinaga, Joseph E. Bogen, and Julian Jaynes. Sean Matharoo’s “Ubik Does Not Yet Exist” employs the theories of French philosopher Quentin Meillassoux to explain how the psychedelic aspects of Ubik (1969) are linked to its critique of capitalism, as the unstable realities in the novel create the conditions of possibility for social and political change. Michael Kvamme-O’Brien’s “Evolving Dickian Criticism” examines Dick’s interest in French philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, and in particular how Dick used Chardin to explain his own visionary experiences as 172 SCIENCE FICTION STUDIES, VOLUME 48 (2021) a process of spiritual evolution. Gabriel Cutrufello’s “Rereading Dick’s Mainstream Fiction Within a Science Fiction Framework” and Gregg Rickman’s “Philip K. Dick, the Earthshaker” also identify certain recurring themes that connect Dick’s sf novels to his neglected mainstream novels, such as the prevalence of simulated realities, entropic decline, and pattern recognition. These scholars thus describe Dick as an eclectic thinker whose works are worthy of serious critical attention due to their scientific, philosophical, and media-theoretical aspects. Unlike the first part, the second part features transcripts of various informal talks and discussions with Dick’s friends and fans. For example, Jonathan Lethem’s contribution (a transcript of his keynote address) provides a personal account of the history of the Philip K. Dick Society—a fan organization dedicated to promoting Dick’s work, founded in Southern California by the famous...