As I’ve written about before here and here, my small office space at City Tech has accumulated many vintage computers since 2014. Due to computers getting so densely packed into my space, it was difficult to show them to interested students or dig them out for classroom demonstrations. After failing to find any other colleagues around campus interested in salvaging those I didn’t need, I put in an e-waste request to have 15 computers removed. After recording serial numbers and other pertinent information, I stacked them next to the office entrance and I rearranged the remaining computers to be more presentable and easier to get to without too much hassle.
Also, I used some LEGO and DUPLO in the office to build stands for the large magnetic disk from my parents’ auto parts store computer and an Apple Newton donated by one of my friends at City Tech.
Last night, I stuck around after my first co-taught Interactive Technology and Pedagogy I class at the CUNY Graduate Center. The class went very well. Students demonstrated that they had done the reading and some brought deep perspectives from their disciplines to bear on our first discussion on technology and media.
Thankfully, there were no classes afterwards, because after everyone cleared out, I used the classroom to meet with a City Tech student over Zoom for her Individualized Study of ENG3790 Information Architecture.
Call for Papers: Image in Science Fiction: The Tenth Annual City Tech Science Fiction Symposium
Deadline for CFP: Friday, Oct. 31, 2025
Date and Time of Event: Tuesday, December 2, 2025, 9:00AM-5:00PM EST
Location: Academic Building A-105, New York City College of Technology (City Tech), CUNY
Organizers: Jill Belli, Wanett Clyde, Jason W. Ellis, Leigh Gold, Kel Karpinski, Lucas Kwong, and Vivian Zuluaga Papp
Science Fiction (SF) is an image driven genre. Whether described in text, see the “dull yellow eye” in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818)); rendered in the two-dimensional art of magazines like Analog; or brought to life in film, TV, and video games, SF imagery continually confirms Gérard Klein’s observation that “science fiction does not proceed directly from science, nor from philosophy, but from the “images (eikons) and representations (eidons)” that these disciplines “unknowingly” produce (“From the Images of Science to Science Fiction,” 2000). SF images abound; how those images are understood and interpreted iterates to infinity.
The Tenth Annual City Tech Science Fiction Symposium explores the many aspects, configurations, and meanings of the image in SF. We invite proposals for 10-20 minute scholarly paper presentations or 40-60 minute panel discussions related to the topic of image in SF broadly construed. Please send a 250-word abstract with title, brief 100-150-word professional bio, and contact information to Jason Ellis (jellis@citytech.cuny.edu) by Friday, October 31, 2025.
Topics with a connection to image in SF might include but certainly are not limited to:
image across modalities: textual, visual, interactive, etc.
images of race, ethnicity, sex, gender, sexuality, and other aspects of identity
images meant to shape understanding of stories and/or sell them (e.g., magazine covers, in-text illustrations, movie posters, trailers)
advertising images in and around SF (e.g., advertising to sell SF as well as non-SF advertising around SF ranging from Big Tobacco to the Johnson Smith Co.
fandom’s use, adaptation, and transformation of images
image and politics
image and meaning
image and representation
SF and photography
SF, simulacra, and simulation
Generative AI and SF
The event will be held in person at the New York City College of Technology (City Tech), CUNY in downtown Brooklyn, New York.
This event is free and open to the public as space permits: an RSVP will be included with the program when announced on the Science Fiction at City Tech website (https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/sciencefictionatcitytech/). Free registration will be required for participation.
The event is sponsored by the School of Arts and Sciences at the New York City College of Technology, CUNY.
The Annual City Tech Symposium on Science Fiction is held in celebration of the City Tech Science Fiction Collection, an archival holding of over 600-linear feet of magazines, anthologies, novels, and scholarship. It is in the Archives and Special Collections of the Ursula C. Schwerin Library (Library Building, L543C, New York City College of Technology, 300 Jay Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201). More information about the collection and how to access it is available here: https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/sciencefictionatcitytech/librarycollection/.
While its instructions state that “When ten or more heaters are used inside a vehicle or shelter, ensure the ventilation system is operating or a top hatch or door is open,” it gives me peace of mind to let my flameless ration heater (a water-activated magnesium, iron, and salt chemical heating device for MREs) do its thing on my supper next to a cracked window when I’m indoors as part of its reaction produces hydrogen. Also, it pays to remember that these things get HOT!
