Artsfest Online: 10 November 7 pm - Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles at Seventy

This year saw the widely celebrated one-hundredth anniversary of the birth of Ray Bradbury (1920-2012), the American author whose best-known work Fahrenheit 451 stands alongside Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four as a classic of twentieth-century dystopian fiction, and still holds relevance today.

But this year also saw the seventieth anniversary of Bradbury’s earlier The Martian Chronicles, a book which better captures the breadth and fragmentary nature of Bradbury’s many styles and interests, and one which more clearly reveals the irony of Bradbury’s association with the science fiction genre. For all its reliance on science-fictional tropes, The Martian Chronicles is a work which builds dream-like fantasy on top of Bradbury’s own fantastical influences. And, while projecting and warning about our future, it relies heavily on a rear-view mirror to reflect on colonialism, invasion and occupation.

In this illustrated lecture, Phil Nichols recounts the history of The Martian Chronicles, and shows how this short-story collection masquerading as a novel has constantly evolved with our changing times. He considers the long shadow the book has cast over television, radio and film science fiction, and shows how Bradbury’s unscientific book has nevertheless inspired several generations of real-life scientists and astronauts.

The online lecture will be followed by a question-and-answer session. Dr Phil Nichols, Course Leader for Film & Television Production at the University of Wolverhampton, has been called “the leading scholar on Bradbury's media adaptation history" by Bradbury biographer Professor Jonathan R. Eller (Bradbury Beyond Apollo, University of Illinois Press, 2020). Phil has spoken about Bradbury on the BBC World Service and National Public Radio, and has published and presented widely on Bradbury’s work in all media. He currently produces and presents a podcast, Bradbury 100, which explores Bradbury’s centenary.

This event is free and can be booked through Eventbrite: https://themartianchronicles.eventbrite.co.uk