'100 YEARS OF WONDER': SPECIAL ISSUE OF FOUNDATION (AUTUMN 2026)
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2026 marks the centenary of Hugo Gernsback’s Amazing Stories, the first anglophone magazine devoted to what Gernsback originally called ‘scientifiction’. To commemorate and critically explore what many regard as the birth of genre science fiction, the autumn 2026 issue of Foundation (no. 153) will present a series of articles that investigate and re-evaluate the history of the pulps.
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Despite defining the genre for many lay readers outside of the sf community, pulp science fiction has long been a contentious subject. From Brian Aldiss (Billion Year Spree) to Jeff VanderMeer (The Big Book of Science Fiction), writers, editors and historians have tried to diminish the significance of pulp sf and the so-called ‘Golden Age’. By contrast, Gary Westfahl in The Mechanics of Wonder (1998) rebuked such attempts and asserted the importance of Gernsback and John W. Campbell to an understanding of what science fiction is. More recently, Jeannette Ng caused outrage by publicly denouncing Campbell’s racism. Alec Nevala-Lee’s revisionist history of Campbell and Astounding Science Fiction has contributed to this critical reassessment, whilst successive anthologies from Lisa Yaszek have emphasised the role of women in the early years of pulp sf.
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This special issue seeks to further this critical engagement. What can we meaningfully say about the legacy of the pulps in the light of an increasingly more diverse science fiction field, let alone the gathering focus on Indigenous futurisms, non-print-based media, and non-anglophone literature? Can we talk about pulp traditions in other parts of the world, not necessarily influenced by the US model, which continue to influence local sf cultures? To what extent is fandom still indebted to the pioneering activities of the 1930s?
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We invite contributions of between 4000 and 8000 words, written in accordance with the journal’s style guide, no later than 5 April 2026. Topics may include (but are not limited to):
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• The prehistory of pulp sf – Edgar Rice Burroughs and the Munsey magazines, etc.
• The roles of Gernsback and Campbell as editors and critics
• The importance of editors other than Gernsback and Campbell
• The visual look of the pulps
• The relationship between the pulps and their readers
• The legacy of First Fandom – zines, clubs, conventions, cosplay
• Women writers and readers and the pulps
• Black pulp science fictions
• The economics of pulp – copyright, distribution, royalties, agents
• Pulps versus the slicks
• Technocracy and the Great Depression
• Bio-engineered futures
• Pulp sub-genres: planetary romance, space opera, super-science, social science fiction
• Pulp sf cinema/comics – Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, Just Imagine, etc.
• The ‘big three’ – Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, A.E. van Vogt
• The Futurians
• Pulp sf and World War Two
• US pulp sf and British scientific romance
• Pulps versus the digests: did pulp sf die?
• Pulp sf and Latin America
• Retrofuturism and the legacy of pulp sf
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All submissions should be emailed to the current editor at paulmarchrussell@gmail.com
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Published 21 August 2025​
THE PETER NICHOLLS ESSAY PRIZE 2026 IS NOW OPEN
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We are pleased to announce our next essay-writing competition. The award is open to all post-graduate research students and to all early career researchers (up to five years after the completion of your PhD) who have yet to find a full-time or tenured position. The prize is guaranteed publication in Foundation in 2026. To be considered for the competition, please submit an original article on any topic, period, theme, author, film or other media within the (broadly defined) field of science fiction and its academic study. Approximate length should be 6000-8000 words. All submitted articles should comply with the guidelines to contributors as set out on the journal pages of the SF Foundation website. Only one article per contributor may be submitted. The deadline for submission is 11 January 2026. All competition entries, with a short (50 word) biography, should be sent to the journal editor at paulmarchrussell@gmail.com. The entries will be judged by the editorial team and the winner will be announced in the spring 2026 issue of Foundation.
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Published 5 June 2025
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​​​​​MAUREEN K. SPELLER TRAVEL FUND NOW AVAILABLE
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In honour of our departed friend and colleague, Maureen Kincaid Speller, we are launching an annual travel fund of up to £500 to enable independent scholars to pursue their research. The fund can be used to attend conferences, workshops and archives both in the UK and overseas. This has been made possible by the profits from the When It Changed conference held online in December 2022, for which we thank all the attendees. For further details, go to our new Research and Travel Funds page on the website.
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Published 1 May 2023
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​FOUNDATION EDITOR CO-LAUNCHES NEW SCIENCE FICTION IMPRINT
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Paul March-Russell and Una McCormack have launched a science fiction imprint, Gold SF, devoted to new feminist writing, to be published by Goldsmiths Press. The call for submissions is below:
Gold SF - Call for Submissions
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Goldsmith’s Press is seeking to establish a dedicated imprint to publish feminist science fiction. We believe that sf and speculative fictions offer a mode of critical and utopian thinking ideally placed to address contemporary issues. We are therefore looking to commission novella and novel length work which answers to the times, dealing with subjects such as:
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· Anti-rationalism and the rise of the alt-right
· The climate crisis and feminism in the Age of the Anthropocene
· Global movements of populations and refugees
· New visions of race, class, and queerness
· Expanding frontiers in gender and sexuality
· Decoloniality and indigenous knowledge traditions
· Pathways to resistance and rebellion
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We are particularly keen to hear from new voices not traditionally represented by science fiction, literary fiction, and liberal feminism.
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Enquiries to: Ellen Parnavelas - E.Parnavelas@gold.ac.uk
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Editorial board: Abi Curtis, Elizabeth English, Joan Haran, Una McCormack, Paul March-Russell, C. Palmer-Patel, Aishwarya Subramanian, Sheree Renee Thomas and Aliya Whiteley
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Follow us at: https://twitter.com/GoldSF_Books
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Published 17 April 2020 (last updated 5 September 2024)
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