check out my personal essay "The City Below the Sound" in the Local
Articles
My Ideas in March (New Empty Mirror essay, Aurora Awards upcoming works)
Greetings! It is March in Toronto, which means it’s simultaneously plus 7 degrees Celsius and also heavily snowing. You can start the day (if you wish) by checking out my latest essay in Empty Mirror Books: Questioning Our Characters: Performative Identity in Nella Larsen’s Passing and Eugene O’Neill’s The Hairy Ape Important to me that … Continue reading My Ideas in March (New Empty Mirror essay, Aurora Awards upcoming works)
What We See [in 2020 and beyond]
Welcome to my first blog post set after the events of Blade Runner, but still (thankfully) before the opening of Blade Runner 2049! Welcome to 2020! 2019 was a year of big things for me, and I wanted to take a moment to stop and reflect and give thanks. In between finishing my undergrad at … Continue reading What We See [in 2020 and beyond]
Come to the Nerd Nite!
Hello all! I'm excited to share that I've been announced as a speaker at Nerd Nite Toronto on November 28th. Here is a link to the event page, the 2019 Nerdtacular! I will be giving a talk about the Cyborg, a figure that has dominated the focus of my writing –both my academic and creative efforts … Continue reading Come to the Nerd Nite!
Toronto SFF Panel and Boochani Interview
Check out two cool but very different events coming in the next few weeks!
Hey, remember the (Yellow) Nineties?
I’m excited to be joining Ryerson University’s Centre for Digital Humanities as a Research Assistant on the Yellow Nineties Project! This project, run by Professor Lorraine Janzen Kooistra, is creating a resource for scholars (and everyone else) to gain access to the early arts and literary magazines of the 1890s, first and foremost of which … Continue reading Hey, remember the (Yellow) Nineties?
So Long HBA
Well, that's it. On April 15th I took my final exam at The University of Toronto, which means I'm finally finished my bachelors. (Well, it's been five years. But five years is a long time – at least for me). It was an exhausting half-decade, but I got a lot out of it, and I … Continue reading So Long HBA
“Cat’s Cradle: The Sin of Scientists and Systems” by Ben Berman Ghan
Science Fiction (SF) is a genre often used to explore how scientists and science are a source of evil, potentially leading to the demise of civilization. Works such as Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus (1818) have well established the trope of the mad scientist who focuses on unnatural or evil experiments. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.’s … Continue reading “Cat’s Cradle: The Sin of Scientists and Systems” by Ben Berman Ghan
Cormac McCarthy’s The Road and the death of Dialogue Tags
Cormac McCarthy's 2006 novel The Road is an intensely bleak vision of the apocalypse. The narrative follows two characters only ever referred to as"Man" and "boy" as they limp across a grey and hellish landscape full of cannibals, rotting houses, and precious canned food in aquest to reach the ocean. McCarthy raises very uncomfortable questions … Continue reading Cormac McCarthy’s The Road and the death of Dialogue Tags
Do Androids Dream in Review
I find that when most people think of Rick Deckard and the neo-noir world he inhabited, they think first of Ridley Scott’s film Blade Runner (and it’s many different editions). But while the film and it’s very late/very recent sequel are remarkable science fiction films, there are essential disconnects between them and the narrative of … Continue reading Do Androids Dream in Review
Ben Berman Ghan 