Science Fiction Studies has relied on performance theory in order to define itself.   For instance, the 'father' SF studies, Darko Suvin, relied on Brecht in the development of his definition of SF as the literature of cognitive estrangement. Later, Carl Freedman wrote of the effect that SF performs on the reader. And, more recently, China Miéville  draws from Austin in order to make a point that SF is 'something done with language by someone to someone' and then flirts with Stanislavski by suggesting how SF works pretty much with the possibility of an alterity based on a fictitious 'as if'.

This group is interested in discussing the interconnection that SF theory and Performance theory may have. Not only to investigate a genealogy of sorts and identify how of much of each field has entered the other, but more to think about the possibilities that doing science fiction opens with regards to performance philosophy proper, and to ponder on SF as a performative thinking.