Welcome!

The Specposium is an informal virtual conference focused on the field of speculative biology. The way we envision it, this conference will encompass presentations regarding speculative biology projects that the presenters are working on, the history and of the field itself, and principles of biology, geology, evolution, and natural history that can be applied to speculative scenarios. Anyone is welcome to present or attend!

Specposium 2023 will occur on July 1st and 2nd, 2023.

What is speculative biology?

Speculative biology, also known as speculative evolution, is a crossroads of science and art, in which the principles of evolution are applied to hypothetical scenarios. Speculative biology can be distinguished from normal creature design by an evolutionary perspective and a strong grounding in science, often alluding to known examples in earth's present and past. Many speculative biology works fall under four rough, non-mutually exclusive categories: evolution of the future, evolution on other worlds, alternative timelines of evolution, and biology of fantasy animals. It may be an exclusively creative endeavor, or it may be used to teach natural processes through fictional examples. The first known example of speculative evolution in fiction is H.G. Wells' novel The Time Machine, and the genre was popularized by Dougal Dixon's book After Man: A Zoology of the Future, starting a new movement that flourished with the rise of the internet and continues to this day. It is a very popular subject among biology and paleontology enthusiasts, and many works can now be found both online and off.

Code of conduct

The Specposium is an event free of harassment or bigotry. We will not tolerate any form of discrimination or hatred based on race, nationality, sex, gender, orientation, physical or mental disability, class, religion, or culture. As well, you are expected to be a cool person and not harass others, threaten others, disrupt talks, or do things solely to provoke or offend others. If any content is embargoed, you are also not allowed to share it without the presenter's permission. And if you are presenting, you will not plagiarize anyone else's work. By registering or joining the Discord server, you agree to follow these rules. If you violate these rules, you may be removed from the event and the Discord server.

The team

The Specposium is brought to you by two speculative biology fans who also happen to be paleontologists.

Charlotte Bowman (she/her) has an undergraduate degree in zoology from Newcastle University and a masters in palaeontology and geobiology from Edinburgh University in the UK, and she is currently writing papers on metriorhynchoid (Jurassic marine crocodylomorph) rostral anatomy. She writes sci fi and fantasy as a hobby, and there’s only so much fantasy that a zoologist/paleontologist can write before she needs to work out the entire evolutionary history of made up worlds. Her current long-running project, Dracones Mundi, is a field guide to dragons of mythology from all over the world, written as if they were real animals.

Henry Thomas (he/they) is a Master's student studying vertebrate paleontology at Idaho State University. He has worked on dicynodont systematics, pterosaur phylogenetics, and Pennsylvanian coal swamp ecology. He has had an interest in speculative evolution since he was a child, getting hooked on it via the first airing of The Future is Wild in the United States, which he saw at age five. His current speculative biology project is On Beyond Holocene, an exploration of the next 600 million years of Earth's future.

There is no registration fee, but if you wish to support us, feel free to donate to Henry's Ko-fi (say it's for the Specposium).

Contact

Feel free to contact us via email (specposium@zhejiangopterus.org) or our Discord server.

Affiliates

Astrovitae

A digital magazine focused on speculative biology, art, and science fiction. The editor, Domenic Pennetta, has presented at Specposium 2021, and Charlotte and Henry authored a piece about the Specposium in Astrovitae's second issue. Astrovitae is open to submissions!

Logo design by Charlotte Bowman. Website design by Henry Thomas.