The first-ever St. Thomas University Geek Forum took place this weekend, and organizer Natasha Glover said she hopes the event will go down in history.
“We had so many more people turn out than I thought we would,” said Glover, this year’s students’ union activities coordinator. “I think I’m going to be bringing something to STU that I initially didn’t think would become a thing.”
Around 50 students participated in the forum, which ran on Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Students as well as professors gave lectures on topics ranging from Star Wars to zombies and vampires, the STU/UNB Magic: The Gathering society gave a presentation, and local shop Strange Adventures sold merchandise.
Professor Andrew Titus gathered the largest crowds of the day with his lectures on mythological transformation in Star Wars and another on The Lord of the Rings. He thanked the organizers of the event and joked that he was “sickeningly” happy to be there.
Titus said mythology is not at all something that’s outside of us. Mythology, he said, is part of a fabric of our very existence, and it’s the subject he prefers over all others.
“I’m like a one-trick, freaky-geeky pony,” he said during his lecture. “They could give me any class they want, and [mythology] is what I would teach. You know, they’re like, ‘You want to teach Victorian women underdog writers?’ and I’d be like, ‘Right, good!’ and it’d be about mythology.”
Titus spoke about the transformation of the hero in mythology and how its premise transfers not only to literature, but films and television shows as well. When talking about heroes needing helpers and mentors along their journey, he explained Chewbacca isn’t translated because he’s always swearing.
“But you need this walking carpet in order to balance Luke Skywalker,” he said to an already laughing crowd.
Sebosis Lydia Paul sat in the front row at Titus’ lectures. She said this event is important to bring people together that may not have otherwise had the chance to meet.
“When you bring something together like this it’s more of a bonding thing,” she said. “These days it’s cool to be a geek. It shows that not everyone is as different as they look.”
Professor Christine Cornell presented her initial take on a paper she will be presenting next year at the World Science Fiction Convention in Chicago. The paper’s thesis discusses our preoccupation with zombies, vampires and robots and the theory of the uncanny valley.
“The uncanny valley is the idea that we have a feeling of strangeness, unease, eeriness or revulsion when we encounter something human-like that’s attempting to replicate human appearance but doesn’t quite get there.”
Cornell used films like The Polar Express and The Incredibles to explain the uncanny valley. While the Incredible family is iconic and cartoony enough for us to be comfortable with, The Polar Express was made to look real but fell just short of its goal because of limitations on animation.
“We see something really close to human, and our brain starts to flick on the empathy switch,” she said. “If suddenly we perceive that it’s not human, our brain starts to try and shut down the empathy switch. It confuses your brain, and that’s where our eerie sense derives from.”
Cornell said a strange part of her thesis was her belief that one of the reasons society is so preoccupied with vampires and zombies at the same time is that “we’re actually culturally getting ourselves ready for robots.”
She discussed humanoid robots playing nurturing roles, like caretakers for children and the elderly. Eyes in the crowd grew wider as she showed pictures of human-like robots and their capabilities.
STU student Ryan Owens said the forum was a great opportunity to actively discuss different aspects of geek culture and see how they affect the real world.
“I think maybe the most important part of something like this is that we end up getting an opportunity to think critically and to perhaps append more academic thought to things that generally we derive entertainment from,” Owens said. “And so that, I think, is perhaps the most important part – that we get a different perspective on the way we lead our lives through these geek things.”
Sean Pearly, a computer science student at UNB, said the event reveals everyone’s inner geek and promotes discussion of our generation’s version of storytelling.
“The geek culture has kind of replaced the traditional elders who have told stories of great heroes and what not, of epic battles between good vs. evil. This has just kind of replaced that. This is our contemporary kind of storytelling that we see.”
