Dear colleagues!

The Department of Philosophy of Samara University in association with the Department of Russian and Foreign Literature and Public Relations of Samara University with the assistance of the Scientific Council for Methodology and Artificial Intelligence of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Samara Research Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and the Association of Science Fiction Researchers are glad to invite you to participate in the Scientific Conference “The Fifth Lem’s Readings” devoted to science fiction. The event is to be held on March 25-28, 2020.
The proceedings of the First, Second, Third and Fourth Lem’s Readings are in open sources: Science Fiction and Technology. Samara, 2009; Second Lem’s Readings. Samara, 2014; Third Lem’s Readings. Samara, 2016; Fourth Lem’s Readings. Samara, 2018.
Topics for discussion:
• The artistic and philosophical heritage of Stanislav Lem
• Theoretical foundations of science fiction: literary theory and philosophical approaches
• History and the current status of science fiction: subjects, idea, authors
• Models of the future in science fiction: a neo-human and alternative social models
• Science fiction and the war of ideologies
• Cybernetic immortality and transhumanism
• Science fiction and scientific technological progress: prognostic models of real science and their history
• Pedagogical potential of science fiction

Within the framework of the conference, open lectures and round tables will be devoted to
• the works of S. Lem “The Philosophy of chance” and “Summa technologiae” in the synchronous and diachronous aspects of the philosophy of technology and creativity,
• Soviet science fiction as a form of religious thinking,
• ethics of artificial intelligence in the concept of "third artificial nature."
Within the framework of the conference, a contest of children's science fiction story and novel is planned. The best works will be published.
The collection of materials will be compiled based on the results of the conference. Conference participants should no later than February 17, 2020 send an application to the organizing committee, including the name, place of work and position, title of the report with an annotation of 2000-2500 characters.
Key dates:
• September 2, 2019 – first notification of conference
• February 17, 2020 – application deadline
• February 20, 2020 – mailing out the invitations
• March 2, 2020 – formation of the conference program
• March 25-28, 2020 – the conference
• September 12, 2020 – deadline for accepting papers to the conference proceedings
• December 21, 2020 – publication of the conference proceedings
Applications, suggestions and comments should be sent to Alexander Nesterov or Anna Demina - lemovskiye.org@gmail.com or phil@ssau.ru with the note “The Fifth Lem’s Readings”.
Tel. number +7 846 267-47-87.