A Celebration of Time Travel Recap

 

Yesterday was the 10th Annual DePaul Pop Culture Conference. It was noted a few times that I had been to all 10 conferences so far. This means I have been to the most conferences because last year Paul Booth who runs the conference had Covid and could not attend. 

The very first conference was on Doctor Who so having the 10th be on Time Travel felt very fitting. I attended the first one on Doctor Who after hearing about it from one of the Doctor Who groups I was part of and had such a great time with fellow fans and academics that I have returned for every one.

Here are some notes from panels I attended. If you want to know more about these subjects buy the charity book where many of us expand on our topics. Personally I would suggest getting it here and supporting my wonderful Three Avenues Bookshop in addition to supporting this years charity Inside Circle.

Pictured are my new friends Dylan Pank and John Caro from England

We ended up talking and hanging out together for a lot of the conference :)

The first panel I attended was Time Travel in Education.

Jesus Magallon – “(With Regards To Bill & Ted…) Edutainment’s Excellent Adventure: Exploring Point-and-Click Edutainment Gaming Via Comparative Time Travel Narratives”

Dylan Pank and John Caro – “‘I suggest you don’t worry about those things and just enjoy yourself.’: Time Travel, the Scientist and the Evolution of Narrative Conventions”

Dylan and John look at how the role of the scientist has changed as time travel stories have been developed. This includes the scientist as protagonist, as antagonist (mainly telling people they should not change history just for love), as helper/expositional device, and as super hero.

LaTiana Ridgell – “Time Traveling Through the PhD: An Autoethnographic Study of Reflexivity in Doctoral Studies”

Pictured: Caroline M. Yoachim

Literary Keynote.

Caroline M. Yoachim. “The Psychology of Time Travel Stories: Understanding Our World by Changing the Rules”

This talk covered how we try to make sense of the world via counter-factual reasoning. It also covered how we love to create plausible stories about why we do things. It also covered how agency includes choosing not to do something. There was also a reference to the idea that even if our choices are fixed does not mean they do not matter (for example what we chose to do yesterday is now fixed but we could decide at that time, and even if we want back and time and could not change our choices it would not mean we can't make meaningful choices). There likewise was the suggestion that in science fiction there is a push to explain time travel where as in fantasy you can do a bit more hand waving. 

Writing and Reading Time Travel.

Rebecca Johns-Trissler, Mary Anne Mohanraj, Nancy McCabe

When writing time travel stories we have to manage how much research we do. If we love research we can run wild, but some use research as a form of procrastination (when someone has been researching for 10 years but has not created any drafts). One reader will always point out every mistake you made in your time travel, but you're not composing for them. When writing it comes down to where to begin, who will tell the story, and how much you want to translate for the reader. All stories involve time management in terms of where to start the story. This may be different for time travel stories. In these stories, you might have 50 or 60 pages about the person's life before they travel in time, instead of jumping into the action.

Pictured Jana Sinyor and Paul Booth

Professional Keynote.

Jana Sinyor - “We Are All Time Travelers: Repeated patterns that wreck your life. Where they come from and how to change them.”

Started out in TV and wrote for several shows that included time travel including "Being Erica" with time travel therapists. Realized that while she had the skills and evidence for it, she did not have the passion for it. She switched and becoming a therapist instead. She shared how we often hyperfixate on our image of the world (and ignore anything that contradicts that image) and when we give up that image we don't know who we are anymore. We need to be willing to feel the feelings we suppressed in the first place which is very challenging to do. Most of what we think is rational is really emotional avoidance. Most adults are numb to their emotions. TV and film are safe places to feel emotions. Part of her job as a therapist is helping people feel safe about being out of control.

(Pictured Lisa "Dreaming Ace" (Me LOL))

Time Travel Tropes.

Steve Clairmont – “You’ve Turned Jules Verne into a Hood Ornament” – Disney’s The Timekeeper

Lisa Rothman – “What's The Point Of Time Traveling If You're Not Having Fun? (An Exploration of Legends of Tomorrow, Doctor Who, and Hob Gadling)”

Owen Smith – “The Once and Future Jungle: Interrogating Time Travel from a Mythical Perspective”

Pictured Dr. Ronald Mallett and the formula that allows time travel to actually occur

Scientific Keynote.

Dr. Ronald Mallett - “The Real Science of Time Travel”

Time travel is possible and has the potential to happen today. This is what happens at the Large Hadron Collider | CERN. While high speeds (towards the speed of light) can cause time travel in the forward direction it does not work to go backwards in time (sorry every show that has used that as a method.) Light effects gravity effects time means light can effect time. We can create ways to travel back in time but they only work when they are turned on. (Which I realized means that even though we have not run across time travelers yet, it does not mean they won't exist. They just might not be able to get this far back in time.)

Also Dr Mallett mentioned how there is likely life in other parts of the universe (goldilocks planets) so if we find a time traveling race that set up their time travel devices before the earth was created we might be able to go way back in time at some point) Travelling to the future does not cause paradoxes, going to the past could but with the many worlds/parallel universe model if you did go back in time and changed something it would not matter because its not your timeline aka no actual grandfather paradox. 

Time Travel in Film.

*Samuel Crider – “Second Chances: Time Travel Wish Fulfillment in Avengers: Endgame”

Kara Kvaran – “Going Back in Time: Race, Gender, and the Lure of Cinematic Nostalgia”

Katie Utke – “The Future Is What You Make of It: The Legacy of Back to the Future”

Kara Kvaran's talk was interesting and covered the fact that when people travel back in time in films 87% of the time the person who travels through time is a white cis-gendered able-bodied male identified individual even though they only make up 31% of the US population. Many films take us back to the same nostalgic eras where they can avoid wrestling with race, gender, sexuality etc. Even when time travel is completely accidental in the movie they still travel in time to the same nostalgic eras (like traveling in time to the American revolution, or WW2 verses the civil war or WW1 since those later ones were more messy).

All too often it is a white dude who decides what is better for everyone when he time travels without asking anyone else. In addition way too often women are marginalized (the I fell in love with someone in the past, I come back to the present, see you look like my lost love, and realize I never really lost my love) or women who decide to stay in the past because of love ignoring the challenges she will face such as having high mother mortality rates etc. (as Kyaran says "Love does not defeat cholera")