ИСТИНА

For more than 30 years we are gathering at RSACS International conferences to discuss aspects of gender and science fiction studies,multidisciplinary in their essence. At first, there were papers only in philology, but even in this sphere the need arose to look at wider societal aspects through the lens of cultural studies and political studies. Also among the first, we started to delve into film and art studies. The core group of presenters consisted of Tatyana Komarovskaya, Lyubov Pervushina from Belarus, Tatyana Voronchenko from Chita, Firdes Dimitrova from Belgorod, Marina Knyazeva and Tatyana Zabelina from Moscow. Then we moved deeper into history with the help of such researchers as Larisa Baibakova, Tatyana Alentyeva and Maria Filimonova, And in 2006 we added one more coordinator who anchored our research in exact data on social and demographic stratification within feminist studies, on political analysis – Nadezhda Shvedova, who became our unwavering defender. And we are now approximately 30 people strong, As for studies of the Fantastic, the section was based on solid research within the International Science Fiction Research Association framework, and attracted both seasoned scholars, such as Vladimir Prozorov, Elvira Osipova, but predominantly young ones. It was a pleasure to observe how grew the talent of Natalia Krinitskaya from Poltava who studied philosophical images of Ursula Le Guin, and of several other researchers from Kharkov where was a center of Ukrainian research and creation of science fiction. Some researchers – as Evgenia Ozerova and Pavla Ripinskaya – became also writers. In the presentation I shared the most memorable moments of our ”run’ so far.