I’m attending the Society for Novel Studies conference in Pittsburgh this week. I’m on a panel organized by my colleague Rebecca Walkowitz on “Genre Fiction and World Literature,” with papers by Sarah Chihaya (Princeton), Jessica FitzPatrick (Pitt), and Philip Joseph (University of Colorado–Denver). The panel is in the D session, Saturday at 2:30 p.m. in Carnegie Room I-II.
My paper is called “Cosmopolitanism before and after the Omnivore,” and I’m going to argue that the rise of omnivorousness as a high-status disposition enables one kind of cosmopolitan science fiction—exemplified by Ghosh’s Calcutta Chromosome—while inviting us to forget the worldliness of lowlier forms dating back to the earliest pulps. Visualization:
 from [Galactic Central](http://philsp.com).](/images/amazing_stories_192709.jpg)
Science fiction enters the scene of world literature. Cover of Amazing Stories, 2, no. 6 (September 1927). Image from Galactic Central.
