Science Fiction Discussion Table

From SWILwiki

Science Fiction Discussion Table was one of the few SWIL events that can very firmly be said to fall within Mandate, as it was a venue specifically intended for SWILlies to discuss and debate one of the elements of SWIL's mission defined in its charter, science fiction (literature, movies, fan culture, etc.)

The literal table in Sharples was once a major event at dinner, but has become a tradition that has fallen by the wayside as SWIL's non-membership has gradually become far less involved in fan/convention culture than generations past (for instance, the Unreality Warp reading at Inauguration becoming first unpopular, then mystifying, then just plain gone) and many SWIL non-members not, actually, being avid readers of science fiction or fantasy. The literal table did spawn a virtual version, the SFDT discussion list at swil.org, largely populated by alumni who participated in the "real" SFDT in their time here. That list these days shows relatively little traffic, though it does erupt in bursts of activity when someone posts to the list and successfully generates interest in reading one "book of the month" and discussing it. Much of the purpose of the list has been swallowed by people using the Chit-Chat list for random discussion of science fiction and fantasy, though SFDT remains the group where more focused, in-depth discussion that requires a greater background in SF/F to appreciate takes place. For instance, a focused conversation about Diana Wynne Jones books might go on in SFDT, after everyone has taken the time to read the books, while discussions about, say, Star Wars, Harry Potter or Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which people are presumed to be already familiar with, all mainly stay on Chit-Chat.

The Ironic Presidency made a bold, semi-successful attempt at reviving the table in the 2004-2005 school year, largely the initiative of Mai, as part of the Ironic Presidency's general attempt to revive Mandate from its slumber. Though that year's SFDT struggled somewhat with numbers in its early stages, it did develop a healthy regular membership later in the year, though, as with Third Wing, SWIL was big enough (and enough of SWIL wasn't strongly interested in science fiction/fantasy) that SWILtable only split in half on Tuesday nights when SFDT was held, rather than being depleted as reportedly happened in years past. As with other discussion tables like the Drama Board, Ring Board, (now-defunct) Philosophy Club, Third Wing and so on, SFDT made use of the upstairs rooms in Sharples by the front-door checkers, which are usually unoccupied by regular diners.

The coordinator of SFDT was responsible for choosing a topic for each week's discussion -- unlike previous years (and the online SFDT) where everyone reading the same book and coming to discuss it, book-club-style, most 2004-2005 SFDTs used the Third Wing system of having the coordinator pick a general, easily accessible topic each week and allowing people to prepare for it as they so chose (usually not at all), with some exceptions (such as when Noda proposed reading and discussing Eastern Standard Tribe, which is available freely online and therefore circumvents the usual difficulty of asking everyone to be able to find a particular title before next week). Mai acted as coordinator for its first semester, then passed it on to Alex Pshenichkin second semester.

Though the group was successful enough to become a fixture of SWIL life during that year, there were criticisms that having two discussion groups a week that only certain subsets of SWIL regularly attended detracted from the atmosphere at SWILtable and hampered socialization. That may have played a part in both SFDT and Third Wing not generating enough interest to be reinstated for the fall of 2005.

Postmortem

Most people who were there agree that 2004-2005's SFDT was a basically good idea in spirit, but was always beset by certain problems, even when it was at its most lively, active and fun during the peak in late 2004/early 2005.

Some who attended both Third Wing and SFDT noted that it was, in general, far easier to come up with a coherent debate or discussion about an issue in politics than about an equivalent issue in SF/F, simply because everyone's degree of shared knowledge about politics tends to be greater than their shared knowledge about SF/F, and also because politics is, itself, debated and discussed in the mainstream media while SF/F is not. In general, discussion topics about a particular SF phenomenon ("Badass heroes", "Cyberpunk", "Cheating Death", "Apocalypse", "Psionics") became too easy to form discussions around people going around and naming interesting examples of a certain phenomenon they had seen in their own reading or viewing that, often, no one else had; many agreed that this was a somewhat uninteractive and unsatisfying way to have discussions, and though both Mai and Alex tried to push the group away from this pattern it was often difficult to do so. People repeatedly proposed the book club idea, but unlike older SFDTs the 2005 SFDT lacked the organization necessary to pass a book from the Cordwainer Bird Library to everyone who could be expected to want to attend the next meeting within the course of a week.

However, SFDT's dissolution in fall 2005, like that of many things, is most directly predicated on the absence of an individual willing to take responsibility for keeping it going (though the relative difficulty of keeping it going, of course, is what determines this, which is itself determined by the aforementioned other factors). A more book-club-like system, with a membership list that would commit to attending at regular times (probably less often than weekly) that would read and discuss a particular book, would likely be able to generate more spirited discussion than the 2004-2005 SFDT and be more in the spirit of the SFDT mailing list and various SFDTs of years past; it would, of course, on the other hand require a great deal more effort to organize and be far more of a letdown if it failed, which is why, although this idea was proposed by various SFDT regulars at various times in 2004-2005, it has not yet been implemented.