Ray Bradbury's The Illustrated Man at Seventy

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Ray Bradbury's book The Illustrated Man - a short story collection very loosely woven together with a fantastical framing narrative - is now seventy years old, and yet it remains a greatly influential work. Dealing with ideas around virtual reality, civil rights, the end of the world, and body art, it has managed to sustain a resonance through to the twenty-first century, despite its 1950s trappings. Individual stories from the collection have been adapted for film, television, radio and stage on multiple occasions, confirming Bradbury's position as one of the most significant writers of science fiction even as the author tried to escape from the "ghetto" of genre fiction.

In this illustrated talk, Dr Phil Nichols will show how Bradbury's short-story collection both defines and confines the author.

Phil Nichols is Course Leader for Film and Television Production at the University of Wolverhampton, Senior Advisor to Indiana University's Center for Ray Bradbury Studies, and newly-appointed editor of the academic journal The New Ray Bradbury Review. His studies of Ray Bradbury's screenwriting and media work have presented internationally in conferences, books and journals since 2006.

Visit: https://researchers.wlv.ac.uk/P.Nichols

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