Newcastle University is the site of a one-day seminar on Science Fiction in the Present: Military Technology and Contemporary Culture. The event takes place on May 26, 2011, and features the following speakers:

Noel Sharkey (University of Sheffield)
Stephen Graham (Newcastle University)
Mark Dorrian (Newcastle University)
David Cunningham (University of Westminster)
Matt Carr (Independent Scholar)
John Beck (Newcastle University)
Iain Boal (Birkbeck/Retort)

Themes are very much on urban culture, ‘automated death’, and the weather. Nothing on identity at the surface, but check the authors out.