2022 Awards

Awarded by the Science Fiction and Technoculture Studies program at the University of California, Riverside, The Science Fiction and Technoculture Studies Book Prize honors an outstanding scholarly monograph that explores the intersections between popular culture, particularly science fiction, and the discourses and cultures of technoscience. The award is designed to recognize groundbreaking and exceptional contributions to the field.

This year’s winner is Sherryl Vint for Biopolitical Futures in Twenty-First-Century Speculative Fiction (Cambridge University Press). The committee also chose to recognize Jayna Brown’s Black Utopias: Speculative Life and the Music of Other Worlds (Duke University Press) with a special honorable mention.

The Student Paper Award is presented to the outstanding scholarly essay read at the annual conference of the SFRA by a student.

The winner of the 2021 award is John Landreville (Wayne State University) for his paper “‘Speculative Metabolism: Digesting the Human in Upstream Color.”

The Mary Kay Bray Award is given for the best essay, interview, or extended review to appear in the SFRA Review in a given year.

This year’s awardee is Nora Castle for her essay “Review of Upload (2020, TV series)” (51.1).

The Thomas D. Clareson Award for Distinguished Service is presented for outstanding service activities-promotion of SF teaching and study, editing, reviewing, editorial writing, publishing, organizing meetings, mentoring, and leadership in SF/fantasy organizations.

This year’s awardee is Gerry Canavan of Marquette University.

The SFRA Innovative Research Award (formerly the Pioneer Award) is given to the writer or writers of the best critical essay-length work of the year.

This year’s awardee is Amy Butt for her essay “The Present as Past: Science Fiction and the Museum” from Open Library of Humanities 7.1 (2021). The selection committee also awarded an honorable mention to Katherine Buse for her essay “Genesis Effects: Growing Planets in 1980s Computer Graphics” from Configurations 29 (2021).

The SFRA Book Award is given to the author of the best first scholarly monograph in SF, in each calendar year.

This year’s winner is David M. Higgins for his book Reverse Colonization: Science Fiction, Imperial Fantasy, and Alt-Victimhood.

Originally the Pilgrim Award, the SFRA Award for Lifetime Contributions to SF Scholarship was created in 1970 by the SFRA to honor lifetime contributions to SF and fantasy scholarship. The award was first named for J. O. Bailey’s pioneering book, Pilgrims through Space and Time, and altered in 2019.

This year’s awardee is Roger Luckhurst (Professor of English, Birkbeck, University of London).