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I am delighted to present a paper at Beyond Borders: Empires, Bodies, Science Fictions, the London Science Fiction Research Community 2020 conference, an online event in partnership with the London Chinese Science Fiction Group and Science Fiction Beyond the West.I'll be talking about A new and unexampled way of writing the history of future empires: Samuel Madden's Eighteenth-century Twentieth century, presenting the first results of an ongoing research  on the future as a secularized imaginary space in eighteenth-century European culture through the case study of the Memoirs of the Twentieth Century. Published anonymously in 1733, the Memoirs is a work of speculative fiction in the form of an epistolary novel by the Irish writer Samuel Madden, an Anglican clergyman and philanthropist with pro-Hanoverian and Whig sympathies.Madden's novel is a fine example of the emergence of a new secularized future, pliable through human action. This research, using the Memoirs as a case study, places new emphasis on the role played by a new form of imperial and global interconnectedness in shaping and accelerating complex processes of time secularization.My paper is scheduled as part of  Panel 4B: Pliable Futures&#160;(chair: Tom Dillon), Saturday  12th September, 10:00-11:30 (GMT+1) – Panel Block 4:Giulia Iannuzzi- A new and unexampled way of writing the history of future empires: Samuel Madden’s Eighteenth-century Twentieth centurySakshi Tyagi – Beyond Otjize and Medusae: Identity and Borders in Nnedi Okorafor’s BintiMary Regine Dadole – Familiar Aliens: An Analysis of the Postcolonial Condition and the Politics of Science Fiction in Isaac Asimov’s “The Martian Way”.The conference programme includes:a plenary session on &#160;SF &#38; Translation with Sawad Hussain, Emily Jin, Guangzhao Lyu, Dr. Sinéad Murphy, Dr. Tasnim Qutait, keynotes by Dr. Nadine El-Enany, Florence Okoyea Creator Roundtable with Chen Qiufan, Larissa Sansour, Linda Stupart, chair: Angela Chan,a rich schedule of panels exploring borders in science fiction,  and particularly "borders as politicised tools used to uphold empires, divide communities and police the bodies of those most marginalised".Here's the conference webpage: http://www.lsfrc.co.uk/category/beyond-borders/. If you wish to attend the event, please visit the ticket tailor event page for the conference at this link.At this link a set of conference documents, including the programme beautifully designed by Sinjin Li.[cite]