SWIL is the historical name of the science fiction and fantasy club at Swarthmore College. For information about the current science fiction and fantasy club, see Psi Phi. For information about the history of the club, and the eccentric, irrational and occasionally somewhat insane activities of the club's alumni, you've come to a good place. This is SWIL's historical website.
SWIL, founded in 1978, was nominally the science fiction and fantasy
club at Swarthmore College.
It is eccentric, entropic, and
infinitely interpretable.
Participants in SWIL (called non-members, for complicated, but quite explicable reasons) met every Saturday at high noon in Sharples room 4 to plan for the next week and reaffirm our existence. Like other cults, we also engaged in ritual activities such as story reading, round singing, attending science fiction conventions and renaissance faires, and presenting weekly movies. Our most famous event was the Pterodactyl Hunt, an all-campus roleplaying event whose objective is to exterminate the last of the venomous pterodactyls. We also published a literary magazine called BEM: Bug-Eyed Magazine or Unicorn Star and maintained a science fiction library open to all students.
The SWIL alumni network reconvenes annually at Swarthmore's Alumni Weekend, as well as at larger reunions in the fall every four years or so. The next Reunion will be SWIL32, on April 8-10, 2011. Local alumni groups around the country get together more frequently, coordinating their activities via mailing lists in Philadelphia, New York, Boston, DC, San Francisco, and Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill.
