Children of Cuarón: Speculative Futures Through Cinematic Fiction Conference

Feb. 20-22      
Schedule and panelists                

Authors, filmmakers, historians, and literary scholars convene for a series of film screenings and panel discussions that explore how speculative fiction in literature and film provides opportunities to discuss some of the most pressing concerns now confronting our global society.

Alfonso Cuarón’s 2006 film Children of Men includes graphic depictions of border spaces and the mass deportation of immigrants, set within a near future in which sterility and environmental crises have hardened political borders and destroyed social bonds. Border crossing, environmental decline, childbirth, and women’s bodies are also themes in Octavia Butler’s novels Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents. In these creative works the date in which the “futures” are set has either arrived (Butler’s 2024) or is about to arrive (Cuarón’s 2027), which makes this conference timely for 2025.