This post is by Cameron Andersen, a Graduate Student Assistant at NYU Special Collections. She is in her final semester of a dual degree program with Long Island University, completing both an MA in Religious Studies at NYU and an MLIS in Archives and Records Management at LIU.

While looking through a box from the Center for Student Life Records in search of some kind of environmental club memorabilia, I came across a series of scrapbooks, each marked simply as “photo album.” These albums, I was delighted to discover, contain the photographic souvenirs and memories of the NYU Science Fiction Club from 1988 to 1991. These students were passionate, hilarious, and so creative, and as I was flipping through the pages, I, a fellow sci-fi/fantasy (now portmanteaued to be “scifan”) nerd, felt such a strong camaraderie with my NYU predecessors that I felt they deserved their own blog post. It isn’t often in the New York University Archives that we stumble upon such a pristine and preserved slice of life as this, and I simply wish to share the joy I felt upon discovering these albums with all of you. 

There are four albums in total, and I must assume that the club had a member those four years who carried a camera around, or who was the group’s designated photographer/scrapbook maker, and that the tradition of making these albums ended when that student graduated. As that seems to be the case, as the albums also span only four years, I am even more grateful that these images exist at all and that they can be found in the NYU Special Collections. There is much context missing surrounding these albums – who exactly made them, why there are so few, how they found their way into this particular collection – but the unknowns make the existence of these books even more precious. The scrapbooks are no longer bound, and are just a bunch of sticky photo sheets held together by the folders they are contained within. The majority of the photographs are accompanied by handwritten captions, written on separate scraps of paper and glued in next to the images. There are also a handful of other memorabilia included, such as stickers, trading cards, and news clippings about the club itself or about science fiction news in general. The photos and their captions, especially, reveal to us the great joy that these NYU students found in their passion and in each other, and all of the ways in which they used science fiction to form a community within the massive student body of New York University.

Photo Album 1988-1990; Center for Student Life Records; RG.12.16; Box 1; Folder 3; New York University Archives.

Photo Album 1990-1991; Center for Student Life Records; RG.12.16; Box 1; Folder 1; New York University Archives.

This tight-knit community is most apparent in the window displays that the club put up, as well as in the holiday celebrations and trips that the club organized together. I am not sure which building the club met in, but it seems as if they had a street-facing window that they were able to decorate of their own accord. One of these displays, labeled as “Cool window: Oct. 29-Nov. 2 1990” in the scrapbook, was Halloween themed, with pumpkins, streamers, and skulls surrounding a string of hand-cut paper words. The words read: “A loose gathering of diversely like minded individuals.” Underneath, they taped “NYU Science Fiction” to the window. Much of this particular photo album is dedicated to this Halloween party and the parties of other years. The Sci-Fi Club students hand-made their own matching mirror suit costumes and marched in the Village Halloween parade. In their own words, they “danc[ed] up 6th Avenue.”¹

Another window, this one captioned as having appeared from April 22-April 29 in an unspecified year, reads “We are not alone.”² This phrase is surely in reference to all kinds of aliens and unidentified flying objects and other such supernatural phenomena, but it is easy to imagine that the club members also meant it as a rallying cry for themselves and for other students who might feel that there was no place for their interest in sci-fi in a college setting. In putting those words in the club window, the Sci-Fi Club was broadcasting itself as a refuge for other students who might need a home and a second family.

Photo Album 1990-1991; Center for Student Life Records; RG.12.16; Box 1; Folder 1; New York University Archives.

The club also traveled together frequently to science fiction conventions. They attended the 1988 World Con in New Orleans,³ the 1989 World Con in Boston,⁴ and the 1990 GenCon,⁵ and they documented it through their photography of the convention events, of the sights they saw in the convention cities, and of each other meeting authors and in costume. They threw Halloween parties, Christmas parties, and birthday celebrations. They attended the NYU Club Fair every year with a table decorated with sci-fi books and memorabilia, hoping to draw more students into their homebrewed family. 

The NYU Science Fiction Club appears in the yearbooks from 1988 to 1991, but only as one club listed among many, so there is no good way to tell from the yearbooks how the club advertised itself to other students or what the student population thought of it. We do get one glimpse, however, into the reputation the Sci-Fi Club had on campus. In the May 2, 1991 edition of the Washington Square News, a letter ran titled “Standing up for NYU’s Science Fiction Club.”⁶ Apparently, an NYU freshman running for the next year’s Sophomore Representative Candidate handed out a flier disparaging the Sci-Fi Club: “Now you may be asking yourself why I want to be Sophomore Representative… I feel the position is worth my energy, time and effort. That’s why I’m not in the NYU Choir or the Science Fiction Club.” The club had some strong words to say in response to this slight. Their published rebuttal noted their 55 members of varying backgrounds, their impact on the NYU community, their costuming awards, their long-running publication, their service awards and charity events, among other notable achievements. They affirm their impact on the community, and the work that goes into making the club “interesting and vital.” Their rebuttal forced a response from the candidate, who issued an apology in the Washington Square News.⁷ This exchange reveals to us the importance of the Science Fiction Club; they had fun, yes, but they also deeply contributed to the flavor and tenor of campus life. The fact that this artifact is preserved in the Special Collections, just waiting for a researcher like me to come across and enjoy it, points to the necessity of representation in the archives. Because these books were created, protected, and maintained, we all have a bit better sense of what campus life looked like in decades past and how students interacted with, bonded with, and loved each other.

References

1. Photo Album 1990-1991; Center for Student Life Records; RG.12.16; Box 1; Folder 1; New York University Archives.
2. Ibid.
3. Photo Album 1988-1990; Center for Student Life Records; RG.12.16; Box 1; Folder 3; New York University Archives.
4. Ibid.
5. Photo Album 1990-1991; Center for Student Life Records; RG.12.16; Box 1; Folder 1; New York University Archives.
6. Volume Bound January-May 1991; New York University Archives Collection of the Washington Square News; RG.39.178; New York University Archives.
7. Volume Bound January-May 1991; New York University Archives Collection of the Washington Square News; RG.39.178; New York University Archives.