tag:theconversation.com,2011:/au/topics/speculative-fiction-18545/articles
Speculative fiction – The Conversation
2024-03-03T23:43:49Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/222155
2024-03-03T23:43:49Z
2024-03-03T23:43:49Z
Mykaela Saunders challenges colonial concepts of time – and their use to dehumanise Indigenous people
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579129/original/file-20240301-30-b2fo5c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=31%2C244%2C2987%2C2014&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Mykaela Saunders </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">UQP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Our understanding of ourselves is woven together with threads of time: a concept deeply entangled with power, culture and identity. Time is not a neutral concept. </p>
<p>Historically, time has acted as a tool of oppression and marginalisation. Colonial notions of “civilisation” were linked inescapably to the prudent use of time. So on the one hand, time is an objective measurement derived from observation of phenomena. On the other, it has been a cultural artefact, wielded to dehumanise Indigenous peoples. Their societies have been depicted as “time-less” – and therefore inferior. </p>
<p>The coloniality of time, and the society we have built around it, is the subject of the first short story in Dr Mykaela Saunders’ engrossing collection of Aboriginal-centred speculative fiction, <a href="https://www.uqp.com.au/books/always-will-be">Always Will Be</a>. </p>
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<p><em>Review: Always Will Be – Mykaela Saunders (UQP)</em></p>
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<p>In Taking our Time, a future Goori community in the Tweed assert their sovereignty by confiscating all the clocks, reclaiming – and reasserting, as they do so – Goori understandings of space and time. They directly challenge the centrality of quantifying, and accounting to, linear time.</p>
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<p>The short stories in Always Will Be each take place in an alternate future version of the Tweed. Each story is infused with a clear and critical insight into Indigenous ways of being, knowing and doing, linked comprehensively and beautifully to the future place where their events unfold. The stories are seamlessly blended with echoes of history and the realities of colonisation, skilfully explored and critiqued through these imagined futures. </p>
<p>In Fire Bug, young Tyson travels on a high-school camp to his country. It’s Country he has been disconnected from, because of his schooling and living situation. On camp, Rangers teach the students about fire and burning practices. At one stage, in an attempt to teach the students how to light fire the proper way, another student, Betty, observes “yeah but we got lighters and stuff now”. This is a relatively minor component of the story – but it stood out particularly to me. </p>
<p>This one exchange foregrounds, with precision, the challenges faced by Tyson, his family and the Rangers who will set out to help him. Communities face difficulty in passing on cultural knowledge, and not only from imposed systems of outside control. There are also challenges in passing that knowledge from within, to youth born and growing up <em>between worlds</em>. </p>
<p>Each of the stories in Always Will Be includes examples like this. On one hand, a clear articulation and respect for the expression of culture and connection to place. On the other, an equally clear-eyed engagement with the complexities of colonial legacies. The stories invite both Indigenous and non-Indigenous readers to reflect and imagine Aboriginal sovereignties – and to do so in ways that honour the wisdom of Aboriginal knowledges.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-first-australian-first-nations-anthology-of-speculative-fiction-is-playful-bitter-loud-and-proud-182228">The first Australian First Nations anthology of speculative fiction is playful, bitter, loud and proud</a>
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<h2>‘Powerful validation’</h2>
<p>Always Will Be consists of 16 stories. Each story has made me stop and think. Sometimes it’s with a realisation of shared experience – I draw connections and see similarities. </p>
<p>Other times, I recognise a concept that I knew academically, politically, historically or culturally – but reading these stories, I experience the concept as it plays out, or is extended or engaged with in ways I hadn’t necessarily expected. </p>
<p>For example, The Girls Home begins with Jalah waking up from a nightmare inside a facility under guard. The facility is revealed to be a factory where girls are kept and exploited for their labour and bodies. After plotting an escape with other girls in the home and putting that plan into action, the story shifts dramatically.</p>
<p>What felt predictable and known was not as it appeared. The girl’s Elders were testing them. We are left to question the future relationship between Indigeneity and trauma: what will it mean to be connected to community and culture when disadvantage gives way to privilege?</p>
<p>In moments like this, I found myself stopping to ponder. Paragraph by paragraph. Line by line. Yet at other times, I was engrossed, racing to the story’s conclusion.</p>
<p>For Indigenous readers, these stories can serve as a powerful validation of their lived realities. They offer the opportunity to see a representation of our culture and perspectives represented in literature. Through Saunders’ short stories, Indigenous traditions and struggles are honoured and celebrated, fostering a sense of empowerment and belonging. These stories invite readers to challenge dominant colonial frameworks, binaries and deficit discourses.</p>
<p>For non-Indigenous readers, Always Will Be is a compelling invitation to confront their own misconceptions. By immersing themselves in the richly textured worlds crafted by Saunders, non-Indigenous readers are invited to witness assertions of Aboriginal sovereignties, and experience actions that embody them. The stories serve as a catalyst for understanding, encouraging readers to engage with Indigenous perspectives. </p>
<p>For example, in The Fisherman’s Story, the Goori protagonist is asked to assist with an fungal outbreak in a fish farm. After witnessing the methods employed, he thinks to himself:</p>
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<p>We heard whispers about their strange beliefs but did not know whether they were true or not. No wonder these fish were always dying; it only appeared to be a scientific method. These practices were based on a charlatan system. Still, I bit my tongue for the time being.</p>
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<p>Because Saunders centres Indigenous perspectives, the focus of examination becomes non-Indigenous practices, beliefs and knowledge systems. And these non-Indigenous practices, beliefs and knowledge systems are problematised. Indigenous sovereignties are then enacted, to find solutions within Indigenous knowledges.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-30-years-after-mabo-what-do-australias-battler-stories-and-their-evasions-say-about-who-we-are-187110">Friday essay: 30 years after Mabo, what do Australia's battler stories – and their evasions – say about who we are?</a>
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<h2>Imagined futures</h2>
<p>The unpublished manuscript for this collection was awarded the 2022 David Unaipon Award for Emerging Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander writers – and it is not difficult to see why. The stories in Always Will Be started as the creative component of a Doctor of Arts degree, and they have been crafted with care. Each introduces its characters and place with clarity, depth and feeling. </p>
<p>But these imaginings must also be understood as just that: imaginings. As Saunders makes clear in Bugalbeh!, she is not writing history, nor is she sharing <em>specific cultural knowledge</em>. </p>
<p>As she states in Bugalbeh!, the collection’s conclusion: “I’ve imagined futures, and so the cultures in these stories are just as made up as the rest of the world building is”. </p>
<p>Instead, Saunders is, through creativity, creating space to explore different climates and politics – and to imagine alternatives to the business-as-usual state of Aboriginal relations. Published in the year following the failed referendum, when there is a lack of clear policy direction from the Australian government, this is a very timely endeavour. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579128/original/file-20240301-28-jnwj87.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579128/original/file-20240301-28-jnwj87.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579128/original/file-20240301-28-jnwj87.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=896&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579128/original/file-20240301-28-jnwj87.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=896&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579128/original/file-20240301-28-jnwj87.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=896&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579128/original/file-20240301-28-jnwj87.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1126&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579128/original/file-20240301-28-jnwj87.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1126&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579128/original/file-20240301-28-jnwj87.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1126&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<p>Within the broader landscape of speculative fiction, Saunders’ work represents an important intervention. She injects Indigenous perspectives and worldviews into a genre often dominated, at least in the published form, by Eurocentric imaginaries. </p>
<p>In doing so, Saunders’ builds on their recent work editing the groundbreaking 2022 collection, <a href="https://www.uqp.com.au/books/this-all-come-back-now">This All Come Back Now</a>, the first published anthology of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander speculative fiction. Its contributions were from both emerging and established Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander writers.</p>
<p>Always Will Be exemplifies the power of literature to both reflect and shape cultural landscapes. Saunders not only contributes to expanding the scope of speculative fiction, but also challenges readers to reconsider whose stories are deemed worthy of speculation and exploration. </p>
<p>The stories in Always Will Be were crafted with care, respect and humour. They are in equal measures enlightening and entertaining. This collection is a must-read in 2024.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/222155/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kristopher Wilson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Mykaela Saunders’ Indigenous speculative fiction collection Always Will Be, published in the year following the failed referendum, is a very timely endeavour.
Kristopher Wilson, Director of Indigenous Leadership and Engagement and Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Engineering and IT and Faculty of Law, University of Technology Sydney
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/218801
2024-01-08T19:16:18Z
2024-01-08T19:16:18Z
‘Cli-fi’ might not save the world, but writing it could help with your eco-anxiety
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564752/original/file-20231211-17-uxgzy8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=17%2C0%2C5961%2C3097&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Morpheus Szeto/Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The consequences of climate change weigh on all of us, especially as we face an El Niño summer, with floods and fires already making themselves felt in the Australian environment.</p>
<p>But even outside of being directly affected, there is evidence that mere awareness of climate change can be <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/19/7836">detrimental to your mental health and wellbeing</a>. Terms such as “<a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S266727822300010X">climate change anxiety</a>”, “<a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2667278221000444">eco-anxiety</a>” and “<a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18027145/">solastalgia</a>” are regularly used to describe the negative emotional states created by thinking and worrying about climate change and environmental destruction.</p>
<p>If just knowing about climate change is emotionally difficult, what is it like spending years focusing on and writing about the topic? Research has looked at the emotional impact close engagement with climate change can have on groups such as <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1755458617301251">climate scientists</a> <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-11741-2_12">and</a> <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1103308818817603">climate activists</a>. </p>
<p>But little time has been given to writers of climate fiction, or “cli-fi” – a relatively new genre of fiction focused on climate change.</p>
<h2>What can a genre do?</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/36205.Cli_Fi_Climate_Change_Fiction">Cli-fi</a> has been touted as one of the ways to help save the world, with an emphasis on how imagining our future might make us reconsider our relationship to the natural world. </p>
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<p>Fictions in this genre have primarily imagined <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/culture/books/we-don-t-need-more-dystopian-stories-despair-is-stopping-us-from-acting-20220905-p5bfjg.html">dystopian worlds</a> where the very worst has happened and humanity is (often barely) surviving in flooded or desolate wastelands. These apocalyptic visions are meant to serve as warnings, to galvanise us to action, making sure this bleak future doesn’t happen.</p>
<p>This seems a good idea in theory, but do dystopian fictions help us engage with the climate crisis? An empirical study of the <a href="https://read.dukeupress.edu/environmental-humanities/article/10/2/473/136689/The-Influence-of-Climate-FictionAn-Empirical">effects of climate fiction on readers’ attitudes or actions</a> found little evidence that those who read cli-fi have a stronger engagement with environmental concerns.</p>
<p>There has been some discussion of the <a href="https://www.energyhumanities.ca/news/why-read-fiction-while-the-planet-is-in-crisis-reflections-on-cli-fi-book-clubs">influence of these books on readers</a>. But perhaps the value is not in the reading, but in the writing? Might writing provide emotionally supportive strategies for all of us? Can the act of writing itself counter “eco-anxiety”?</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/can-cli-fi-actually-make-a-difference-a-climate-scientists-perspective-83033">Can 'cli-fi' actually make a difference? A climate scientist's perspective</a>
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<h2>Waking in the night</h2>
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<p>We talked to <a href="https://textjournal.scholasticahq.com/article/90091">16 Australian and New Zealand authors of “cli-fi”</a> , including <a href="https://cityoftongues.com/">James Bradley</a>, <a href="http://www.mireillejuchau.com/">Mireille Juchau</a> and <a href="https://jennifermills.net.au/">Jennifer Mills</a>. Their responses made it clear that writing about a climate-changed future does more than bring up the anticipated negative emotions.</p>
<p>Of course, sitting with the climate crisis is challenging. It demands we wrestle with guilt, shame, responsibility, rage and despair. Writers of climate fiction are often drawn to the genre because they are already thinking about the climate and feeling anxious.</p>
<p>Clare Moleta said her climate anxiety was “a bit more concentrated” while writing her novel <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com.au/books/Unsheltered/Clare-Moleta/9781761104886">Unsheltered</a>, but also that the manifestations of this anxiety were familiar to her: </p>
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<p>I had waking patches in the night over that time, where I’d be very intensely imagining something and grieving it […] But to be fair, I do that anyway.</p>
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<p>But many of the writers spoke of the writing process as helping, not exacerbating, their anxiety. For some, writing about climate change gave them a sense of purpose. Jennifer Mills, whose cli-fi novel <a href="https://www.panmacmillan.com.au/9781760558604/">Dyschronia</a> was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award in 2019, stated that “having a book to write gives you something to do. [It] makes you feel like you have some power over the events that are happening around you.”</p>
<p>Climate fiction can be a method of transforming anxiety into something useful. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miles_Allinson">Miles Allinson</a> says that “writing about my own fear put that fear to use, in a way that was, if not comforting, then at least energising”. He argues for the therapeutic aspect of imagining and writing one’s worst fears: </p>
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<p>Sometimes when you turn towards something and start to live it, with all its difficulties and mystery, then something changes […] It’s actually not as hard as you sometimes think it will be. It’s sometimes more terrifying to close your eyes, I have found.</p>
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<p>James Bradley, author of several works of speculative fiction, including <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/clade-9781926428659">Clade</a> and <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/ghost-species-9781926428666">Ghost Species</a>, observed that the</p>
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<p>process of imagining demands you to think about what happens next […] To imagine the complexity of the lived experience of what lies ahead, and to insist that life will go on and history will keep happening.</p>
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<p>While peering into our climate-changed future can be emotionally difficult, <a href="https://katemildenhall.com/">Kate Mildenhall</a> said it can help prepare us for what is to come: </p>
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<p>We have to imagine ten years in the future and we have to imagine 50 years in the future. And if we do that, we are forearmed and we also begin to make small changes immediately, we don’t even know we’re making them, just to move towards or away from that future.</p>
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<p>Imagining our future lives can offer a sense of hope. We are currently living with bushfires, floods, pandemics and the extreme challenges of the climate crisis; the future is our present and the ways we think about it will dictate the ways we act and cope.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/566215/original/file-20231218-19-ezhufw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/566215/original/file-20231218-19-ezhufw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/566215/original/file-20231218-19-ezhufw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566215/original/file-20231218-19-ezhufw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566215/original/file-20231218-19-ezhufw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566215/original/file-20231218-19-ezhufw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566215/original/file-20231218-19-ezhufw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566215/original/file-20231218-19-ezhufw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Bushfires near Stacks Bluff, Tasmania.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Matt Palmer/Unsplash</span></span>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/writing-can-improve-mental-health-heres-how-162205">Writing can improve mental health – here's how</a>
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</p>
<hr>
<h2>Theraputic benefits</h2>
<p>Approaching writing about climate change as a process, rather than thinking about writing as a product produced by professional authors, is a new method for alleviating climate anxiety.</p>
<p>The mental health and wellbeing benefits of creative writing have been established. Studies have explored how writing can <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2212420919313172">reduce anxiety in those affected by natural disasters</a>. Much of the research in this area focuses on expressive writing or other similar therapeutic-focused techniques that produce quickly written and usually insular work, not intended for an audience. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/566211/original/file-20231218-31-a398jx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/566211/original/file-20231218-31-a398jx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/566211/original/file-20231218-31-a398jx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=917&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566211/original/file-20231218-31-a398jx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=917&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566211/original/file-20231218-31-a398jx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=917&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566211/original/file-20231218-31-a398jx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1152&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566211/original/file-20231218-31-a398jx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1152&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566211/original/file-20231218-31-a398jx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1152&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This is different from the experiences of the writers interviewed here. Yet, as the writers quoted here have shown, the imaginative process of crafting fictional narratives about difficult topics comes with its own benefits.</p>
<p>In discussing their findings from one of the few studies to focus on the <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/capr.12435">wellbeing effect of writing fictional narratives</a>, Catherine Deveney and Patrick Lawson state: “it is in the craft of writing, the combination of technique and emotional catharsis, that some of the therapeutic benefits of writing can be found”.</p>
<p>We tend to think of writing as a professional activity, but it is an art form practised by amateurs as well as professionals. The 2022 <a href="https://creative.gov.au/advocacy-and-research/creating-value/">National Arts Participation Survey</a> found that one in seven Australians engage in creative writing. The value of such writing is more than its end product.</p>
<p>We need to shift from worrying about the effects of cli-fi texts to thinking about the <a href="https://textjournal.scholasticahq.com/article/35289-creating-new-climate-stories-posthuman-collaborative-hope-and-optimism">benefits of writing creatively as we imagine our possible futures</a>. As Mireille Juchau observes, the sense of control when writing on a difficult topic </p>
<blockquote>
<p>helps to manage anxiety […] Whether it’s climate change, or something else, when I’m preoccupied, writing helps put some order into the chaos.</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218801/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>This research receives funding from Assemblage Centre for Creative Arts at Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alex Cothren and Amy T Matthews do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Research suggests the act of creative writing can have therapeutic benefits.
Rachel Hennessy, Lecturer in Creative Writing, The University of Melbourne
Alex Cothren, Associate Lecturer, Creative Writing, Flinders University
Amy T Matthews, Senior Lecturer, Creative Writing, Flinders University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/206264
2023-08-31T12:20:49Z
2023-08-31T12:20:49Z
Peruvian writers tell of a future rooted in the past and contemporary societal issues
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535111/original/file-20230701-24873-qrswzb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=10%2C10%2C3405%2C1395&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An artist's vision of a future underwater Lima, Peru, graces the cover of the short story collection 'Llaqtamasi.'</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.facebook.com/pandemoniumeditorial/">Art by Juan Diego León via Pandemonium Editorial</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Aymara people of the Andean Highlands speak of <a href="https://ndsmcobserver.com/2023/05/the-future-is-behind-us/#:%7E:text=The%20word%20qhipa%20means%20%E2%80%9Cback,%E2%80%9D%20%E2%80%94%20denotes%20a%20future%20time.">“qhipa pacha,”</a> a phrase that refers to the future as a direction one walks to backward. They believe in looking to the past as a way to understand what may come next.</p>
<p>Last year, 13 Peruvian writers launched the <a href="https://qhipapacha2022.blogspot.com/2022/02/manifesto.html">Qhipa Pacha Collective</a>, a literary initiative which “aims to recover the <a href="https://qhipapacha2022.blogspot.com/2022/02/manifesto.html">memory of our original peoples</a> to build possible worlds.” These writers imagine futures that reflect Peruvian ideas and concerns about their past and present. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534657/original/file-20230628-25-x7uxmc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Portraits of 13 Peruvian writers of speculative fiction appear on a promotional poster" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534657/original/file-20230628-25-x7uxmc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534657/original/file-20230628-25-x7uxmc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=345&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534657/original/file-20230628-25-x7uxmc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=345&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534657/original/file-20230628-25-x7uxmc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=345&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534657/original/file-20230628-25-x7uxmc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534657/original/file-20230628-25-x7uxmc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534657/original/file-20230628-25-x7uxmc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Peruvian speculative fiction writers and members of Qhipa Pacha.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rocío Quispe Agnoli</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>My <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=fHNZ_N4AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">teaching and writing</a> focuses primarily on Peruvian literary history and realism, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8YEpvFbvRw">a style that has been predominant</a> since the 19th century. Recently, I’ve grown interested in Latin American writers who explore an imagined future through speculative fiction.</p>
<p>This approach isn’t simply science fiction written in Spanish and set in Peru. It’s a genre rooted in respect for both Peru’s ancestral memory and attention to present-day societal issues. </p>
<h2>Writing to mirror society</h2>
<p>In Spanish, the verb “especular” relates to optics, such as a reflection in a mirror. As in English, it also means to speculate – or observe the world attentively and think about it inquisitively. Both meanings inform the term “speculative fiction.” </p>
<p>Speculative fiction is a broad field that encompasses works of fantasy such as “<a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/series/LOR/the-lord-of-the-rings">The Lord of the Rings</a>”, horror like “<a href="https://www.harperacademic.com/book/9780062125897/the-exorcist/">The Exorcist</a>,” the supernatural as in “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4574334/">Stranger Things</a>,” dystopia such as “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1392170/">The Hunger Games</a>” and science fiction like “<a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/325356/2001-a-space-odyssey-by-arthur-c-clarke/">2001: A Space Odyssey</a>.” Often, speculative genres have been considered <a href="https://overland.org.au/2016/06/what-does-everyone-have-against-speculative-fiction/">escapist or not serious</a>. Yet, when addressing social, political, economic and climate conflicts and projecting them into the future, speculative literature offers a new way to understand the consequences of the past and the concerns of the present.</p>
<p>Futurism is also a type of speculative fiction. At the center of Peruvian futurism are characters of Spanish, Indigenous and African descent. The stories feature Native technologies like <a href="https://www.si.edu/newsdesk/snapshot/quipu">quipus or “talking knots”</a>, an ancient system for recording and transmitting information, and <a href="https://www.forest-trends.org/blog/andenes-y-terrazas-ingenieria-andina-al-servicio-del-agua-y-los-suelos/">“andenes,” or agriculture terraces</a>. They highlight <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Inca-religion">Inca beliefs about the natural world</a> and <a href="https://futurism.com/the-dark-constellations-of-the-incas">astronomy</a>.</p>
<p>In such works, fantasy ceases to be an evasion of reality and becomes a critical reflection of our relationship with the world and ourselves, writes <a href="https://www.luccacomicsandgames.com/it/2022/ospiti/dettaglio/santivanez-cesar/">César Santivañez</a>, the editor of <a href="http://isbn.bnp.gob.pe/catalogo.php?mode=detalle&nt=119864">a collection of Peruvian speculative fiction</a>, in the prologue of the book. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534654/original/file-20230628-21915-4aexya.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Five book covers of Peruvian speculative fiction published by Pandemonium Editorial" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534654/original/file-20230628-21915-4aexya.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534654/original/file-20230628-21915-4aexya.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=270&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534654/original/file-20230628-21915-4aexya.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=270&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534654/original/file-20230628-21915-4aexya.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=270&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534654/original/file-20230628-21915-4aexya.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=339&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534654/original/file-20230628-21915-4aexya.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=339&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534654/original/file-20230628-21915-4aexya.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=339&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Titles of several Peruvian speculative fiction books.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rocío Quispe Agnoli</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Fiction grounded in Peru’s history</h2>
<p>In 1843, Julian del Portillo published two <a href="https://www.casadelaliteratura.gob.pe/la-primera-novela-peruana-retorna-171-anos-despues/">serial novels</a> that imagined the cities of Lima and Cuzco 100 years into the future. But modern Peruvian futurism stories offer more than science fiction starring Peruvian characters or places.</p>
<p>Sarko Medina’s <a href="https://isbn.cloud/9786124783357/el-ekeko-y-los-deseos-imposibles/">“Microleyenda”</a> tells of a golden condor suspended in flight in outer space while it holds a sphere of gold in its claws. The sphere contains our universe. The condor is one of many animals floating in space, each safeguarding one sphere containing one universe – until the day thieves appear to steal and replace the spheres with replicas. </p>
<p>Medina’s story was inspired by the golden garden in <a href="https://www.cuscoperu.com/en/travel/cusco/archaeological-centers/qoricancha/">Coricancha, the Temple of the Sun</a> in Cuzco, which was looted by Spanish conquistadors in the 1530s. “Microleyenda” fiercely criticizes the boundless ambition of the conquistadors who looted the Incan empire. </p>
<p>In Daniel Salvo’s story “<a href="https://tenebrisoficial.wordpress.com/2017/07/05/el-primer-peruano-en-el-espacio-de-daniel-salvo/">El primer peruano en el espacio</a>,” a brilliant Andean engineer confronts his captain aboard a space base orbiting Earth, questioning the intentions of those he calls “whites” who, like his captain, intend to dominate his race. Salvo’s work reads as a story of class struggle and ethnic and racial discrimination that mirrors the tension between the white residents of Peru’s dominant urban centers and the Indigenous people of the countryside. This story reflects a social problem of Peruvian society that begins in the colonial era and reaches all the way to the present and on into space.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534460/original/file-20230627-21-ievjpf.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Portrait of a native Peruvian man dressed as an astronaut" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534460/original/file-20230627-21-ievjpf.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534460/original/file-20230627-21-ievjpf.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534460/original/file-20230627-21-ievjpf.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534460/original/file-20230627-21-ievjpf.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534460/original/file-20230627-21-ievjpf.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534460/original/file-20230627-21-ievjpf.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534460/original/file-20230627-21-ievjpf.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Anatolio Pomahuanca, a fictional astronaut who wrestles with the truth while orbiting a troubled Earth.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rocío Quispe-Agnoli</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Medina’s and Salvo’s stories are part of a collection that includes <a href="http://isbn.bnp.gob.pe/catalogo.php?mode=detalle&nt=119864">other Peruvian authors</a> who write about a dystopian future in Peru. Also included are Daniel Collazos’ “Dependencia Programada,” Tanya Tynjälä’s “Miraflores,” Luis Apolín’s “Ledva,” and stories by Tania Huerta and Sophie Canal, among others.</p>
<p>These authors side-step the traditional science fiction focus on the technological progress of human society to explore the consequences of limitless dependence on digital tools. How does the human race and the natural world survive when racism and discrimination continue despite technological and scientific advances? </p>
<h2>The future arrives for everyone</h2>
<p>Peruvian futurism is rooted in <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-global-south-is-on-the-rise-but-what-exactly-is-the-global-south-207959">the Global South</a>. Much classic science fiction from the United States, in contrast, imagines a future mostly starring Caucasian heroes and Western technologies. The <a href="https://qhipapacha2022.blogspot.com/2022/11/qhipa-pacha-en-la-boskone-59-boston-usa.html">Collective</a> is committed to writing Peruvian literature that does not imitate or replicate these norms. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535679/original/file-20230705-29-21kvjn.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Dark Peruvian mountains in the background and massive Incan steps carved into the highlands carpeted with green plant material." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535679/original/file-20230705-29-21kvjn.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535679/original/file-20230705-29-21kvjn.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=371&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535679/original/file-20230705-29-21kvjn.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=371&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535679/original/file-20230705-29-21kvjn.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=371&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535679/original/file-20230705-29-21kvjn.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535679/original/file-20230705-29-21kvjn.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535679/original/file-20230705-29-21kvjn.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Andean terraces near Cuzco, Peru.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by Rocío Quispe Agnoli</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>On the website <a href="https://www.futurefiction.org/?lang=en">Future Fiction</a>, an editorial project to explore the diversity of the future, Italian science fiction writer <a href="https://www.futurefiction.org/category/francesco-verso-stories/?lang=en">Francesco Verso</a> reminds readers that “we all tell ‘tomorrow stories’” and that the future arrives everywhere and for everyone, not only for those living in developed societies. </p>
<p>Peruvian futurism writers are putting those words into practice and helping broaden our view of what the future could be.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/206264/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rocio Quispe Agnoli does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
In the Global South, a group of writers are rejecting the norms of science fiction and commenting on the future in a way that embraces Indigenous culture.
Rocio Quispe Agnoli, William J. Beal Distinguished Professor, Michigan State University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/197944
2023-01-27T16:52:16Z
2023-01-27T16:52:16Z
Exxon scientists accurately forecast climate change back in the 1970s – what if we had listened to them and acted then?
<p>Writers of speculative- and science-fiction often identify a key point in time and explore how a seemingly insignificant event might change the path of humanity. </p>
<p>One of these moments came in the 1970s when oil giant Exxon chose to ignore its own commissioned research on the impact of fossil fuels. A new analysis published in the journal <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abk0063">Science</a> has found that Exxon’s forecasts from that era have proven incredibly accurate, yet it did not act to prevent its own predictions from happening.</p>
<p>Instead, the company chose to maintain its role as an oil company and fund people to question the science and delay a coherent response. Staggeringly, in 1996 the company’s chief executive, Lee Raymond, <a href="https://www.climatefiles.com/exxonmobil/global-warming-who-is-right-1996/">referred to</a> “the unproven theory that [fossil fuels] affect the earth’s climate”. The company, now known as ExxonMobil, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-64241994">denies the allegations</a>, saying “those who talk about how ‘Exxon Knew’ are wrong in their conclusions”.</p>
<p>So what if the senior executives of Exxon had seen their own research as a business opportunity? Here’s one way things might have worked out.</p>
<h2>Ahead of the emissions curve</h2>
<p>Following the publication of terrifying research by Exxon in the late 1970s and the “energy crisis” in 1979, the policy direction of the US changes forever. </p>
<p>Nasa’s earth sciences funding is soon increased. The agency responds enthusiastically by launching several satellites which over the 1980s confirms the Exxon research beyond any reasonable doubt – the world is indeed warming, thanks to human-caused emissions. </p>
<p>Senator (and in this world future president) Al Gore invites Nasa’s James Hansen to present his findings, supported by the work of Exxon, to congress. As a result the US government commits to a net zero carbon economy by 2000. (A similar presentation <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1988/06/24/us/global-warming-has-begun-expert-tells-senate.html">happened in our world</a> but, faced with greater scientific scepticism, it didn’t have much immediate policy impact.) </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504906/original/file-20230117-11-6bznib.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Graph of long-term temperature changes" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504906/original/file-20230117-11-6bznib.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504906/original/file-20230117-11-6bznib.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=335&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504906/original/file-20230117-11-6bznib.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=335&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504906/original/file-20230117-11-6bznib.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=335&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504906/original/file-20230117-11-6bznib.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504906/original/file-20230117-11-6bznib.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504906/original/file-20230117-11-6bznib.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A 1977 internally-reported Exxon graph, showing a ‘carbon dioxide-induced 'super-interglacial’‘</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abk0063">Supran et al / Science</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Solar provides power – and food</h2>
<p>Following this, Exxon establishes a massive <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-solar-thermal-electricity-51210">solar thermal power plant</a> in the Californian desert. Unfortunately, complex engineering and intermittent energy production make it a challenging addition to the US energy grid. However, after ten years of research, the tech is exported to Egypt and Morocco where the output was more than enough to power these countries. </p>
<p>Further research results in enormous economic growth as the technology not only <a href="https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20211115-how-morocco-led-the-world-on-clean-solar-energy">produces power</a> but food through the use of <a href="https://seawatergreenhouse.com/">seawater greenhouses</a>. By 2000, North Africa is the main exporter of large solar power plants around the world. This economic success is matched in northern Europe with government-supported firms developing offshore wind turbines and tidal power throughout the 90s.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504908/original/file-20230117-13536-v65nkc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Mirrors in desert, viewed from above" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504908/original/file-20230117-13536-v65nkc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504908/original/file-20230117-13536-v65nkc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504908/original/file-20230117-13536-v65nkc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504908/original/file-20230117-13536-v65nkc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504908/original/file-20230117-13536-v65nkc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504908/original/file-20230117-13536-v65nkc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504908/original/file-20230117-13536-v65nkc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Huge solar thermal plants could have been built decades earlier.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Fly_and_Dive / shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Petrol becomes a quaint hobby</h2>
<p>Back in the US, Exxon teams up with General Motors to develop in the late 1980s the first production electric vehicle, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_EV1">EV1</a>. (This existed in our world too, but not until a decade later). The car uses <a href="https://www.designnews.com/aerospace/batteries-powered-lunar-module">Nasa-patented batteries</a> and space-age materials to produce cars that outperform petroleum vehicles in every area but extreme range. </p>
<p>Exxon’s PR machine devises a “plugging into the Sun” programme promoting micro rooftop solar panels that refuel the EV1s for free. Millions of systems are manufactured and installed by subsidiaries of Exxon making it the wealthiest “energy” company on the planet. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://microgridprojects.com/india-microgrids/">micro-grids</a> developed for car charging are also suitable for developing countries without large electrical grids. A second wave of development occurs, this time driven internally by countries across the southern hemisphere. Exxon is held up as alleviating extreme poverty across the world and improving the lives of billions.</p>
<p>By the late 1990s, huge <a href="https://ambri.com/">“liquid metal” batteries</a> allow inter-seasonal energy storage, creating an energy reserve sufficient to allow the roll out of large wind and solar projects around the world. This makes coal and oil too expensive for energy production and its use is ramped down and eventually put into the history books by 1997. </p>
<p>The use of petroleum and gas does continue in the domestic sector, but <a href="https://www.hockertonhousingproject.org.uk/">construction moves beyond the need for active heating and cooling</a> by the end of the decade and use of petroleum cars is seen as a quaint hobby for those that wish to use this very risky fuel. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504911/original/file-20230117-14-nbya3c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="rusty old cars with moss growing on them" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504911/original/file-20230117-14-nbya3c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504911/original/file-20230117-14-nbya3c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504911/original/file-20230117-14-nbya3c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504911/original/file-20230117-14-nbya3c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504911/original/file-20230117-14-nbya3c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504911/original/file-20230117-14-nbya3c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504911/original/file-20230117-14-nbya3c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">RIP petrol cars.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Samoli / shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Collapse averted</h2>
<p>The age of oil is not entirely over. Demand for petrol continues at a level that oil companies are still able to make a small profit (environmentalists claim the oil companies are making “gas cars” cool so they don’t lose their final market). </p>
<p>However, seeing the opportunity for the manufacture of gasoline, many renewable energy firms begin the manufacture of “synth oil”, another space age output. The mineral oil companies push back but are unable to compete with the extremely low energy prices of synth oil as it uses virtually free energy from renewable energy systems off-peak.</p>
<p>By the 2000s, human society produces barely any greenhouse gases for manufacturing, transport or energy. Things are not perfect, and there are concerns about poverty, conflict, resources running out and the ecological impact of 8 billion humans and their dietary choices. The challenge for a stable, sustainable human society continues. </p>
<p>But climatic collapse – as we understand it in our world today – has largely been avoided.</p>
<p>And Exxon? Much like in our own timeline, Exxon is one of the world’s largest companies. But its massive rollout of distributed solar systems has also made it one of the world’s most liked companies.</p>
<p>In our world, former US vice president Al Gore won the Nobel peace prize in 2007 together with the UN’s climate advisory body, the IPCC. In this world, Gore still gets a Nobel for his work in the 1990s, but shares it with Exxon CEO Lee Raymond – there is less need for an IPCC as scientists were listened to three decades previously. </p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Imagine weekly climate newsletter" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><strong><em>Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?</em></strong>
<br><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/imagine-57?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=Imagine&utm_content=DontHaveTimeTop">Get a weekly roundup in your inbox instead.</a> Every Wednesday, The Conversation’s environment editor writes Imagine, a short email that goes a little deeper into just one climate issue. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/imagine-57?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=Imagine&utm_content=DontHaveTimeBottom">Join the 10,000+ readers who’ve subscribed so far.</a></em></p>
<hr><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197944/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Grant does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
An alternate timeline that ends with a Nobel prize for Exxon’s CEO.
John Grant, Senior Lecturer in Natural and Built Environment, Sheffield Hallam University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/192486
2022-11-15T19:24:20Z
2022-11-15T19:24:20Z
When landscapes come alive: ‘New weird’ stories speculate about the eerie natural world in a climate crisis
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/494776/original/file-20221110-17-cer7qz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=407%2C30%2C1490%2C1309&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Raffiella Chapman in 'Vesper.'</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Signature Entertainment)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Extreme weather events have risen globally. In 2022, parts of the world, such as <a href="https://public.wmo.int/en/media/news/climate-change-made-heatwaves-india-and-pakistan-30-times-more-likely">India, Pakistan</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/07/england-excess-deaths-during-2022-heatwave">England</a> witnessed heatwaves that killed many people. </p>
<p>The effects of extreme weather like drought, famine and floods are harming the world’s most vulnerable people, including in <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-unfairness-of-the-climate-crisis-podcast-192469">the Global South</a> in disproportionate ways.</p>
<p>Climate change <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/10/11/extreme-heat-heatwave-deaths/">is increasing the frequency</a> of extreme weather events. These are now described <a href="https://www.ifrc.org/sites/default/files/2022-10/Extreme-Heat-Report-IFRC-OCHA-2022.pdf">as unprecedented</a> and expected to grow. </p>
<p>Humans exploit the natural world and its resources, and the consequences are evident in climate change. While people have been able to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/oct/30/capitalism-is-killing-the-planet-its-time-to-stop-buying-into-our-own-destruction">control resource extraction in our global capitalist economy</a>, extreme weather events make the natural world uncontrollable from a human perspective. The extractionist mindset treats the word as inert, lacking in agency. </p>
<p>In the shadow of the climate crisis, a wave of speculative fiction, named <a href="https://www.jeffvandermeer.com/2009/06/28/the-new-weird-anthology-notes-and-introduction/">the “new weird,”</a> rethinks the role of agency and the natural world. It asks what it means to live in a world where everything is not an extractable resource — and where humans are not in control. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ending-the-climate-crisis-has-one-simple-solution-stop-using-fossil-fuels-194489">Ending the climate crisis has one simple solution: Stop using fossil fuels</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Our times</h2>
<p>Scholars have named our current era the time of <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/415023a">the Anthropocene</a>. The Anthropocene stands for a geological age where human activity has become the biggest cause for geological change. </p>
<p>Not everyone agrees on this name. To highlight the legacies of colonialism, capitalism and racism in this current epoch, some scholars have proposed the name <a href="https://edgeeffects.net/plantation-legacies-plantationocene/">plantationocene</a>. A plantation mode of agriculture is premised on extracting the maximum from land and labour. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-term-anthropocene-isnt-perfect-but-it-shows-us-the-scale-of-the-environmental-crisis-weve-caused-169301">The term 'Anthropocene' isn't perfect – but it shows us the scale of the environmental crisis we've caused</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>To bring the role of capitalism to the forefront, others have proposed renaming the current age to <a href="https://jasonwmoore.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Moore-The-Capitalocene-Part-I-published-JPS-2017.pdf">capitalocene</a>.</p>
<p>Irrespective of the name, these terms capture how humans have treated the natural world as a resource to be exploited and controlled. </p>
<p>How do we as a species engage with climate anxiety when faced with a world that is beyond our control?</p>
<h2>Speculative narratives</h2>
<p>New weird speculative narratives reimagine the natural world no longer as an inert background that serves as a canvas for action. </p>
<p>The new weird <a href="https://bookriot.com/new-weird-genre/">mixes genres</a> and has elements of science fiction, fantasy and even horror. The genre is also preoccupied with what we might think of as weird ecology. In these narratives, life forms that western thought has traditionally understood not to possess agency are granted it, giving rise to <a href="https://repeaterbooks.com/product/the-weird-and-the-eerie/">an eerie</a> effect. </p>
<p>Take for instance, the 2022 film <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt20225374/"><em>Vesper</em></a>, a <a href="https://www.cineuropa.org/en/newsdetail/427476">Lithuanian-French-Belgian co-production</a> (released in France as <a href="https://www.allocine.fr/film/fichefilm_gen_cfilm=291598.html"><em>Vesper Chronicles</em></a>). The movie opens with a note about its setting. The world has become dangerous because of a genetic engineering project gone awry; viruses have been released into the world. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/9dajBhMSd00?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Official trailer for ‘Vesper.’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Viewers then see a seemingly calm woods. The camera moves closer to the trees and reveals that they possess sensory organs. Tentacles emerge from the ground. The protagonist, who knows the landscape, avoids these traps hidden in the calm landscape. </p>
<p>Similarly, the 2021 South African <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11881160/">film <em>Gaia</em></a> shows a forestry department employee get injured in a remote national park. </p>
<p>She is found by a father and son who have been surviving in the park. The employee discovers that the forest is home to a species of fungus which infects the humans and consumes them. Viewers are introduced to visually appealing landscapes whose beauty is produced by elements that are beyond any human efforts to control them. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/WwJNP-CX1QQ?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Official trailer for ‘Gaia.’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>‘The shimmer’</h2>
<p>The 2018 <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2798920/">American film, <em>Annihilation</em></a>, inspired <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374104092">by the novel</a> by American author and literary critic Jeff VanderMeer, also features landscape that is eeriely powerful. The novel and film takes place in a special ecological zone named Area X, which <a href="https://www.macleans.ca/culture/how-annihilation-author-jeff-vandermeer-became-king-of-the-new-weird/">is weird</a> and <a href="https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/weird-ecology-southern-reach-trilogy/">alien</a>. </p>
<p>The film represents the separation between the ordinary world and an ecological anomaly through an iridescent boundary named “the shimmer.” </p>
<p>A team of scientists sent to investigate the anomaly <a href="https://www.inverse.com/article/41706-annihilation-plant-people-hox-genes">finds plants that look like human bodies</a>. These eerie formations contain a mixture of different DNAs. Here again, a seemingly pristine landscape encroaches on the human body, operating under principles beyond human understanding or control. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/89OP78l9oF0?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Official trailer for ‘Annihilation.’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Agency of the world</h2>
<p>In the above instances, the natural world capable of having effects beyond human control is a cause for concern. From a western humancentric worldview, a natural world that is not an inert resource, potentially awaiting extraction, is horrific. </p>
<p>Contrary to this perspective, Indigenous cosmologies have long maintained that <a href="https://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/des/article/view/19145/16234">agency is not a uniquely human trait</a>. <a href="https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/4611-not-murdered-not-missing-rebelling-against-colonial-gender-violence">Casting the natural world and land as resources</a> effectively removes their agency. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/from-the-amazon-indigenous-peoples-offer-new-compass-to-navigate-climate-change-167768">From the Amazon, Indigenous Peoples offer new compass to navigate climate change</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Even though extreme weather events show that a climate crisis is now unfolding, reporting about effects in the West sometimes stresses that the direst state of affairs <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/10/11/extreme-heat-heatwave-deaths/">will unfold in the future</a>. </p>
<p>However, scholars remind us that for some communities, <a href="https://kylewhyte.marcom.cal.msu.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2018/07/Our_Ancestors_Dystopia_Now_Indigenous_Co3.pdf">apocalypse is not futuristic</a>, it is now and has happened many times before. </p>
<p>Speculative narratives can be a tool to draw attention to the inequalities of the status quo. They can also offer hints in <a href="https://ecwpress.com/products/moon-of-the-crusted-snow">imagining different futures</a>, not reliant upon exploiting the natural world solely for human gain.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/192486/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Priscilla Jolly does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
In the shadow of the climate crisis, a wave of speculative stories ask what it means to live in a world where everything is not an extractable resource — and where humans are not in control.
Priscilla Jolly, PhD Candidate, Department of English, Concordia University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/182859
2022-07-11T20:03:32Z
2022-07-11T20:03:32Z
A dystopian or utopian future? Claire G. Coleman’s new novel Enclave imagines both
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473174/original/file-20220708-17-rb7ugm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=136%2C51%2C11278%2C7547&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>I was reading Noongar author Claire G. Coleman’s third novel, <a href="https://www.hachette.com.au/claire-g-coleman/enclave">Enclave</a>, a few days after the US Supreme Court <a href="https://theconversation.com/us-supreme-court-overturns-roe-v-wade-but-for-abortion-opponents-this-is-just-the-beginning-185768">overturned</a> the Roe v Wade judgement, a political victory for a conservative project many years in the making. </p>
<p>As Michael Bradley argues in <a href="https://www.crikey.com.au/2022/06/27/trumps-activist-supreme-court-abortion-us-christian-theocracy/">his recent article in Crikey</a>, those driving this project “want to live in the America of their small imaginations: white, straight, patriarchal, Christian and mean”.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Review: Enclave – Claire G. Coleman (Hachette)</em></p>
<hr>
<p>Such small imaginations also inhabit the world of Enclave. Divided into two parts, the novel opens in a dystopian society just enough like our own to be disconcerting. </p>
<p>The third-person narrative is told from the perspective of Christine, who is soon to turn 21. She has recently completed her undergraduate degree and is about to enrol in a Masters of Pure Mathematics. She has grown up in a walled town ruled by a Chairman and controlled by an Agency full of identity-less men in charcoal suits, backed up by security forces. People are led to believe that the widespread <a href="https://theconversation.com/big-brother-is-watching-how-new-technologies-are-changing-police-surveillance-115841">camera surveillance</a> and armies of <a href="https://theconversation.com/eyes-on-the-world-drones-change-our-point-of-view-and-our-truths-143838">drones</a> keep them safe. </p>
<p>The world is hotter than our own, so everyone lives indoors in temperature-controlled environments. Opening a window in your own home is enough to alert the security forces. Light does not illuminate – it sneaks up, heats up, blinds and glares. It is violent and ugly bright, not unlike the “blank and pitiless” gaze from W.B. Yeats’ poem <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43290/the-second-coming">The Second Coming</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/471519/original/file-20220629-24-mzfal9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/471519/original/file-20220629-24-mzfal9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/471519/original/file-20220629-24-mzfal9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/471519/original/file-20220629-24-mzfal9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/471519/original/file-20220629-24-mzfal9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/471519/original/file-20220629-24-mzfal9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1153&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/471519/original/file-20220629-24-mzfal9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1153&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/471519/original/file-20220629-24-mzfal9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1153&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Christine lives a life of seemingly immense privilege. Servants are bussed in from outside the wall each day to serve her every whim. The <a href="https://theconversation.com/algorithms-can-decide-your-marks-your-work-prospects-and-your-financial-security-how-do-you-know-theyre-fair-171590">algorithms</a> of the Enclave’s social network anticipate and manufacture desires that are met before Christine is even aware she has them. </p>
<p>The Safetynet’s news service feeds residents a constant stream of images of the terror, violence and chaos outside the wall, from which the Agency is protecting them. </p>
<p>The people of the Enclave live in uncannily similar homes that all seem new – even the faux old buildings of the University. They present perfectly manicured and curated lives on Safetynet socials. The town is nominally Christian, but no one goes to church. </p>
<p>Christine is just starting to wake up to the reality of her situation. Her family is cold and loveless. Her father is a callous and unfeeling patriarch who works for the Fund, which controls the finances of the town. He wants Christine to do the same, at least until she gets married. </p>
<p>Her mother drinks herself numb during endless long lunches with empty women who all share the same cosmetic surgeon. She exhorts her daughter to do the same, which is both menacing and hangover-inducing. </p>
<p>Christine’s brother Brandon, a clone of her father, is a business student preparing to work for the Fund. He is, as she suggests, a real dick.</p>
<p>Christine is also mourning the mysterious disappearance of her best friend Jack who, in a dig at the handful of controversially well-funded programs in the Australian university system, studied in the <a href="https://theconversation.com/western-civilisation-history-teaching-has-moved-on-and-so-should-those-who-champion-it-97697">Western Civilisation Studies</a> department. She is awaiting a message from him through a secret channel. It never arrives.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/471522/original/file-20220629-14-fse2eb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/471522/original/file-20220629-14-fse2eb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/471522/original/file-20220629-14-fse2eb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/471522/original/file-20220629-14-fse2eb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/471522/original/file-20220629-14-fse2eb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/471522/original/file-20220629-14-fse2eb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/471522/original/file-20220629-14-fse2eb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/471522/original/file-20220629-14-fse2eb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Claire G. Coleman.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Hachette</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-concept-of-western-civilisation-is-past-its-use-by-date-in-university-humanities-departments-87750">The concept of 'Western civilisation' is past its use-by date in university humanities departments</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Becoming illegal</h2>
<p>Life in the Enclave is deeply oppressive, not to mention boring. Questioning the status quo is not tolerated. The lonely, loveless and listless descriptions of Christine’s world are enervating. </p>
<p>Although she is meant to be rather smart, Christine has a remarkable lack of curiosity – an effect, one supposes, of the world in which she is raised. But for the first time in her life, she is starting to notice that all of her servants are brown-skinned or darker. Though they move around her home silently, catering to her every need, she doesn’t know any of their names. </p>
<p>Things come to a head when she sees for the first time that one female servant in particular is breathtakingly beautiful. She feels desires that she wasn’t aware were even possible, and kisses her. They are caught on one of the many surveillance cameras. Her family is appalled, not only because Christine is attracted to a woman, but to a dark-skinned woman. According to her father, this makes her a “dyke, race traitor, bitch”. (I was more concerned about the power dynamics between master and servant.) </p>
<p>Christine is cut off from everything – money, accommodation, communication – and taken into custody. She thus learns that Safetown, the name of her walled Enclave, is actually a private facility, so being without support is trespass. She is, in effect, illegal. </p>
<p>Safetown, it transpires, is one of several organisations that established walled enclaves made possible by earlier government policies and laws. It is an economic and socio-political enclave started by extremely wealthy people, to produce and sustain a homogenous society. </p>
<p>Christine is cast into the world outside Safetown: a hellish liminal zone where sunburned white exiles, dressed in rags and living off soup kitchens, slowly go mad. In this violent and dangerous place, people survive by trapping rats and pigeons with discarded wire. This wasteland is littered with corpses, evidence of prior occupation of the land on which Safetown was built.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473171/original/file-20220708-13-z92lh6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="a tall building covered in plants on the outside walls" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473171/original/file-20220708-13-z92lh6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473171/original/file-20220708-13-z92lh6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473171/original/file-20220708-13-z92lh6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473171/original/file-20220708-13-z92lh6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473171/original/file-20220708-13-z92lh6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473171/original/file-20220708-13-z92lh6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473171/original/file-20220708-13-z92lh6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In Claire Coleman’s utopian future Melbourne, buildings are covered with plants to combat climate change.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/witchcraft-and-fascism-collide-in-jane-rawsons-imaginative-new-novel-175641">Witchcraft and fascism collide in Jane Rawson's imaginative new novel</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Utopian and dystopian</h2>
<p>Coleman’s vision is both utopian and dystopian. The world of the Enclave is a dystopia created in an attempt to realise an exclusive utopian vision: a homogenous world of straight white people served by a coloured underclass. In Safetown, everyone believes themselves to be protected from the chaos and violence outside the wall. </p>
<p>Part two reveals Safetown as the walled dystopia the reader already knows it to be. And it offers a revised postcolonial and queer utopia – a place of radical inclusivity, in the form of a more technologically advanced version of Melbourne. </p>
<p>Buildings are covered in plants to combat climate change. Trains are free to keep cars off the road. There is a universal income. Education is free and world-class. There is no surveillance or drones. Food is multicultural and always delicious; the coffee uniformly good (in that sense, not too different from Melbourne today): </p>
<blockquote>
<p>It was like a fever dream of a civic heaven, all light and beauty and people in connection with the natural world, which appeared to be invited into all human spaces […] And everywhere there were people, men, women, people she could not determine either way, every spectrum of skin colour from darker than Sienna to lighter than her. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Like all literary utopias, Coleman’s idealised city reminds us that change is possible if we can imagine an alternative vision that makes change worth fighting and hoping for. But the novel also falls prey to the dangers of all utopias with its ideological certainty, its lack of nuance, the totality of its vision, and its dehumanisation of those who don’t share it. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/471733/original/file-20220629-16-egrji6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/471733/original/file-20220629-16-egrji6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/471733/original/file-20220629-16-egrji6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=840&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/471733/original/file-20220629-16-egrji6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=840&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/471733/original/file-20220629-16-egrji6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=840&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/471733/original/file-20220629-16-egrji6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1056&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/471733/original/file-20220629-16-egrji6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1056&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/471733/original/file-20220629-16-egrji6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1056&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">William Butler Yeats, photographed in 1911.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Public domain</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Surely, I’m not the only reader who is suspicious of a <a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-our-utopia-careful-what-you-wish-for-165314">utopia</a> in which everyone is beautiful. And a place where everyone is happy all the time has its own sinister and coercive feel, flying in the face of the human condition as it does. </p>
<p>Having said that, Enclave is a novel that inclines towards hope. It touches on many of the issues of our own world – the ecological crisis, the scourge of racism, Australia’s treatment of refugees, greed and the manufacture of algorithm-driven desires, our acceptance of widespread digital surveillance and stolen attention, and the refusal to adequately acknowledge prior occupation and dispossession. It also reminds us of the dangers of the othering politics of fear. </p>
<p>Enclave’s epigraph and some of its section titles are taken from Yeats’ The Second Coming, which describes a strange alternative to the prophesised return of Jesus. The poem opens in a world spiralling into chaos where </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The best lack all conviction, while the worst<br>
Are full of passionate intensity.<br></p>
</blockquote>
<p>The Second Coming proposes a catastrophic and apocalyptic vision for a world on the brink of self-destruction that seems all too apt for the present moment. Coleman’s novel offers us an alternative: a world in which people, in meeting the demands of the present with curiosity, courage and conviction, can bring about a more just and inclusive future.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/scorched-dystopia-or-liveable-planet-heres-where-the-climate-policies-of-our-political-hopefuls-will-take-us-182513">Scorched dystopia or liveable planet? Here’s where the climate policies of our political hopefuls will take us</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/182859/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Maggie Nolan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Noongar author Claire Coleman’s new novel forces us to question what we value and how we live by combining dystopia and utopia, in a near-future very like our own.
Maggie Nolan, Associate Professor in Humanities, Australian Catholic University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/182228
2022-05-31T20:12:35Z
2022-05-31T20:12:35Z
The first Australian First Nations anthology of speculative fiction is playful, bitter, loud and proud
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466164/original/file-20220531-26-eoybgi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">shutterstock</span> </figcaption></figure><p>This is not “just” an anthology of Australian First Nations <a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-science-fictions-women-problem-58626">speculative fiction</a>, but also the <em>first</em> Australian anthology of First Nations speculative fiction. And what an entry onto the scene it is! </p>
<hr>
<p><em>Review: This All Come Back Now: An Anthology of First Nations Speculative Fiction edited by Mykaela Saunders (University of Queensland Press)</em></p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465671/original/file-20220527-21-w6ca4m.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465671/original/file-20220527-21-w6ca4m.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465671/original/file-20220527-21-w6ca4m.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=896&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465671/original/file-20220527-21-w6ca4m.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=896&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465671/original/file-20220527-21-w6ca4m.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=896&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465671/original/file-20220527-21-w6ca4m.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1126&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465671/original/file-20220527-21-w6ca4m.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1126&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465671/original/file-20220527-21-w6ca4m.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1126&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In my view, speculative fiction – the narrative exploration of “what-ifs”, the creative probing into latent possibilities, the imaginary voyaging into potential futures – is the genre of our times. We are on the brink of … something. Environmentally, for sure. But also socially, politically, economically. </p>
<p>What this something is, when it will happen, how it will shape the future: these are the questions at stake. This collection of Australian <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-way-we-talk-about-first-nations-issues-is-striking-as-our-analysis-of-82-million-words-of-australian-news-and-opinion-shows-179480">First Nation</a> voices exploring these very questions – creatively, through storytelling – is a most welcome addition to the scene. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-how-speculative-fiction-gained-literary-respectability-102568">Friday essay: how speculative fiction gained literary respectability</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Country with a capital ‘C’</h2>
<p>What makes the contributions to <a href="https://www.uqp.com.au/books/this-all-come-back-now">This All Come Back Now</a> distinct – and distinctly First Nations? </p>
<p>First, Country with a capital “C”, in that very First Nations sense of something utterly fundamental and intimately related to the self, is centrally present across these pages. Many of these stories are fully immersed in Country. </p>
<p>It’s often being restored after catastrophe, or is restorative. For example, in Larrakia, Kungarakan, Gurindji and French writer Laniyuk’s piece, “Nimeybirra”: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I want justice. I want retribution. I want vengeance. I want the ugly. I want the wrong. […] In the quiet calm, in conversation with Country, I hear the whispers of another way of being, and that is the call I must follow. That is the only reason and voice that makes sense in the world.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465963/original/file-20220530-16-84t9za.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465963/original/file-20220530-16-84t9za.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465963/original/file-20220530-16-84t9za.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465963/original/file-20220530-16-84t9za.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465963/original/file-20220530-16-84t9za.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465963/original/file-20220530-16-84t9za.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465963/original/file-20220530-16-84t9za.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465963/original/file-20220530-16-84t9za.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Laniyuk: Country is ever-present in her story, ‘Nimeybirra’.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Throughout, Country’s ever-presence is suggested in little phrases or metaphors (the moths in Martu author Karen Wyld’s “Clatter Tongue”, the mangroves in Bardi writer Kalem Murray’s “In His Father’s Footsteps”). And it’s there in myriad deeply meaningful references to smoke, birds, sand, water, wind, light, air and trees. </p>
<p>Sometimes, the contrast between a story’s setting and Country is incongruent – but at first glance only. A gripping example is Nyungar technologist and digital rights activist Kathryn Gledhill-Tucker’s startling piece “Protocols of Transference”. </p>
<p>It consists of shards of monologue directed towards an unspecified electronic technology, from when it “first spoke” to its final days. </p>
<p>The narrator observes that the collapse predicted by data that had “overwhelmed our scientists” was “avoidable, had they paid attention to our country and kin.”</p>
<blockquote>
<p>By country and kin, we mean all of it. We encompass the ground and all its substrate, sand, rare earth minerals, craters left from old meteors that make their way into old stories, hidden river systems, animals fossilised in place, tracks tracing paths from trees to waterholes; trade routes and songlines that have made way for worn paths, widened by horses, then lanes of cars, paved with bitumen, that leave scars of old stories in the geometry of people and protocol.</p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ancient-stories-and-enduring-spirit-loving-country-reminds-us-of-the-wonders-right-under-our-noses-151571">Ancient stories and enduring spirit: Loving Country reminds us of the wonders right under our noses</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Cheeky and ‘bitter-funny’</h2>
<p>Another recurring element in this anthology is a particular kind of humour. It’s playful: Noongar writer Timmah Ball’s “An Invitation” is set in a time that references the “era before buildings disappeared”. </p>
<p>It’s cheeky and tongue-in-cheek, as shown in Gomeroi poet <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/alison-whittaker-506872/articles">Alison Whittaker</a>’s “The Centre”: “I remember my first time in the digital coolamon”. (A <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coolamon_(vessel)">coolamon</a> is an Australian Aboriginal carrying vessel.)</p>
<p>And it’s often bitter-funny. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465964/original/file-20220530-22-t704ru.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465964/original/file-20220530-22-t704ru.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465964/original/file-20220530-22-t704ru.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465964/original/file-20220530-22-t704ru.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465964/original/file-20220530-22-t704ru.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465964/original/file-20220530-22-t704ru.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465964/original/file-20220530-22-t704ru.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465964/original/file-20220530-22-t704ru.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Adam Thompson.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In pakana writer Adam Thompson’s “Your Own Aborigine”, a “Sponsorship Bill” requires Aboriginal people to be personally sponsored by an Australian taxpayer in order to receive welfare money. </p>
<p>In a story within a story in “Five Minutes”, Kalkadoon writer John Morrissey presents a mocking play on the the relative <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-new-artistic-call-for-us-to-recognise-the-connections-of-country-is-a-testament-to-the-power-of-aboriginal-knowledge-169102">connection to Country</a> for settlers (200 years) compared to Aboriginal Australians (50,000 years), as aliens invade. </p>
<p>They incinerate settlers in an instant – but apologetically grant Aboriginal people an extra five minutes to say goodbye to Country. </p>
<p>Or consider Wonnarua and Lebanese author Merryana Salem’s play on temporalities in “When From?”, a story about a clandestine time-travel mission, in a world where <a href="https://theconversation.com/time-travel-could-be-possible-but-only-with-parallel-timelines-178776">time travel</a> is possible (but has been banned), to collect “reference footage” of <a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-but-we-already-had-a-treaty-tom-griffiths-on-a-little-known-1889-peace-accord-182511">frontier violence</a>, for historical accuracy in filmmaking. </p>
<p>When traveller Ardelia Paves, instructed not to interact with “the population”, protests that “they’ll be massacred”, she’s told:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Even if you were permitted to interact with the population, Miss Paves, how would you warn them? Last I checked, the dialect was lost […] I acknowledge your anger, I do, but we’re making a film that will tell their story, and we need you to do this so that we can.”</p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/supernovas-auroral-sounds-and-hungry-tides-unpacking-first-nations-knowledge-of-the-skies-178875">Supernovas, auroral sounds and hungry tides: unpacking First Nations knowledge of the skies</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>‘Loud and proud’ First Nations voice</h2>
<p>Finally, what sets this anthology apart is its sense that though each “what-if?” story is wildly different from the next, they come together as a whole that is bigger than its parts. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465965/original/file-20220530-16-bnftsc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465965/original/file-20220530-16-bnftsc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465965/original/file-20220530-16-bnftsc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465965/original/file-20220530-16-bnftsc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465965/original/file-20220530-16-bnftsc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465965/original/file-20220530-16-bnftsc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465965/original/file-20220530-16-bnftsc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465965/original/file-20220530-16-bnftsc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mykaela Saunders, editor of This All Come Back.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>To some considerable extent, this is due to Koori writer and editor Mykaela Saunders’ exceptional editing. Each story stands alone as a unique exploration of its “what-if” premise – set in its own imaginative time and place, with its own original story arc, delivered in its own style. Yet these stories segue seamlessly from one to the next. </p>
<p>Each story is connected to its precedessor through one theme and to its successor through another: they come together like notes in a song. While there are many original voices in this anthology, it also speaks with one loud and proud overarching First Nations voice. </p>
<p>I recommend this anthology to readers interested in good fiction generally and speculative fiction in particular. But most emphatically, I recommend it to anyone who might wonder what a First Nations response to the question of our potential future might look like. </p>
<hr>
<p><em>Correction: this article originally stated this anthology was the first First Nations anthology of speculative fiction. However, First Nations anthologies that come under the ‘speculative fiction’ umbrella have been found to exist in other countries, so we have amended the text to make clear it is the first in Australia.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/182228/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Yasmine Musharbash received funding from the ARC. </span></em></p>
What might our future look like? Together, these speculative fiction stories offer a First Nations response to this burning question.
Yasmine Musharbash, Senior Lecturer and Head of Anthropology, Australian National University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/178882
2022-05-02T04:16:09Z
2022-05-02T04:16:09Z
Here comes the pandemic fiction: murder, disease and life after death in Steve Toltz’s Here Goes Nothing
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/460721/original/file-20220502-56362-af3a5v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=3%2C14%2C2001%2C1570&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mathew Schwartz/Unsplash</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The afterlife, as depicted in Steve Toltz’s latest novel <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/here-goes-nothing-9781761043536">Here Goes Nothing</a>, turns out to be somewhat disappointing. There are no heavenly rewards or seething lakes of fire. If there are any reunions with lost family and loved ones, then they occur by happenstance and can be rather awkward. The suffering – of which there is still plenty – does not result from divine or cosmic justice and lacks any kind of satisfying irony. Life after death, it turns out, is just another life. </p>
<hr>
<p><em>Review: Here Goes Nothing – Steve Toltz (Hamish Hamilton).</em></p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/459027/original/file-20220421-66102-y7s59p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/459027/original/file-20220421-66102-y7s59p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459027/original/file-20220421-66102-y7s59p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459027/original/file-20220421-66102-y7s59p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459027/original/file-20220421-66102-y7s59p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1153&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459027/original/file-20220421-66102-y7s59p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1153&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459027/original/file-20220421-66102-y7s59p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1153&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption"></span>
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<p>Here Goes Nothing is narrated by the recently deceased Angus Mooney, a reformed petty criminal and ardent atheist, who is alarmed and faintly embarrassed to find himself in this underwhelming afterlife. Thrust into a new world that seems every bit as arbitrary as the one that preceded it, Mooney must struggle to navigate its unwelcoming culture, while also finding a way to contact his wife, Gracie, who is still alive and contending with both an unexpected pregnancy and a deadly pandemic that is threatening to make its way to Australian shores. </p>
<p>More problematically, from Mooney’s perspective at least, Gracie is unknowingly cohabiting with his murderer, Owen Fogel, a dying doctor who had convinced Mooney and Gracie to allow him to spend his last months living in their house, which had been his childhood home. </p>
<p>There is a lot going on in Here Goes Nothing, from Mooney and Gracie’s tragic histories, to Owen’s enjoyably glib perfidy, to the surprising nature of the afterlife, to the potential extinction of the human race. Toltz keeps things moving at a brisk pace, with sections rapidly alternating between Mooney’s posthumous misadventures and Gracie and Owen’s experiences on the deteriorating mortal plane. </p>
<p>With its focus on a deadly epidemic, potential extinction, social upheaval, isolation, and increasingly oppressive restrictions (in both this world and the next), Here Goes Nothing can be understood as part of a growing wave of pandemic fiction, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/nov/27/inside-story-the-first-pandemic-novels-have-arrived-but-are-we-ready-for-them">recently discussed by Lara Feigel in the Guardian</a>. </p>
<p>Feigel divides pandemic fiction into two broad categories: those that offer realist accounts of life under COVID restrictions and lockdowns, and those that utilise the pandemic as a spark for imaginative speculation, considering how life might be transformed by similar disasters in the future. </p>
<p>Sequoia Nagamatsu’s recent novel, <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/au/how-high-we-go-in-the-dark-9781526637208/">How High We Go in the Dark</a> (2022), considers the ways in which the massive global fatalities from a resurgent prehistoric plague might transform the ways in which we manage death and mourning, and ultimately lead to societal and technological change. By contrast, a thread in Hanya Yanagihara’s latest novel <a href="https://www.panmacmillan.com.au/9781529077483/">To Paradise</a> (2022) offers a dystopian vision of a totalitarian future that results from the uncontrollable spread of virulent plagues. </p>
<p>Toltz’s novel fits with this trend, bleakly satirising the ways in which an increasingly isolated Australia attempts to deflect awareness of the severity of a new, deadlier virus. In the afterlife, Mooney sees this extinction-level event manifest as a refugee crisis, with increasingly brutal and repressive measures taken towards the hordes of newly arrived deceased. In Here Goes Nothing, the world of the living and the world of the dead are both marked by cruelty, indifference, and an entropic slide towards chaos.</p>
<h2>Magnificently ordinary</h2>
<p>Toltz’s depiction of the afterlife is magnificently ordinary. After his sudden death, Mooney finds himself adrift in a muddy terrain of semi-derelict towns and villages, administered by a harried, ineffectual bureaucracy and surrounded by perpetually shifting borders and ceaseless conflicts between governments and rebel guerrillas. The technology is rusting and archaic, the plumbing is dreadful, the only reliable entertainment is community theatre, and there is no Wi-Fi. </p>
<p>In this regard, Here Goes Nothing is somewhat reminiscent of Will Self’s novel <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/119115.How_the_Dead_Live">How the Dead Live</a> (2000), where life after death is similarly presented as a prosaic downgrade: the dead simply move to a less fashionable suburb and continue much as they had before. </p>
<p>Toltz’s afterlife serves to underscore the arbitrary nature of existence as it is experienced by his characters. Death simultaneously fails to offer any expected closure or finality or satisfying answers to life’s mysteries. </p>
<p>Seemingly unfair or confounding afterlives have been subjects in fiction before – from the mysterious and unknowable City in Kevin Brockmeier’s <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/18635/the-brief-history-of-the-dead-by-kevin-brockmeier/">The Brief History of the Dead</a> (2006) to the horrific Null depicted in Stephen King’s <a href="https://stephenking.com/works/novel/revival.html">Revival</a> (2014) – but the deflatingly mundane world found in Here Goes Nothing feels particularly bleak. What follows death is not a judgement of a revelation, just more of the same. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/459028/original/file-20220421-15-9uua7w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/459028/original/file-20220421-15-9uua7w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/459028/original/file-20220421-15-9uua7w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459028/original/file-20220421-15-9uua7w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459028/original/file-20220421-15-9uua7w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459028/original/file-20220421-15-9uua7w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459028/original/file-20220421-15-9uua7w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459028/original/file-20220421-15-9uua7w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Steve Toltz: an exceptional comic writer.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Nigel Bluck/Penguin Books Australia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/in-the-candy-house-jennifer-egan-delivers-an-inventive-novel-for-a-digital-age-181151">In The Candy House, Jennifer Egan delivers an inventive novel for a digital age</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>An incomplete world</h2>
<p>While inventive and thematically on point, Toltz’s afterlife feels frustratingly incomplete when viewed through the lens of speculative fiction. On one hand, it is too tangible to be taken as an allegorical conception of last things; on the other, it is not fleshed out enough to work as a fully realised secondary world. </p>
<p>Some aspects are described in elaborate detail – like the wonderfully clunky diesel-punk technology that is used in one sequence to propel Mooney’s spectre back into the world of the living – but its geography and culture are vague, and its politics and history are not satisfyingly explored. </p>
<p>Mooney is told, for example, that the afterlife has an indigenous population, who exist alongside the newly arrived deceased, but this is never mentioned again. We also never learn how so many familiar artefacts from our world can be present in the afterlife, where arrivals simply appear naked in a flash of light the moment after their death. </p>
<p>Mooney finds a stash of classic literature at one point – so do the dead somehow transcribe these books from memory? What happens to people who die from old age? Do they just die again after a few months living in the new world? </p>
<p>The lack of clear answers is partially justified in the novel. Mooney is not particularly interested in specifics and skips his orientation session. But this does occasionally feel like a bit of shortcut. In any case, the nature of the afterlife is a secondary concern, as Toltz is more interested in how his protagonists will respond to its disappointing reality than he is in exploring its exact workings. </p>
<p>While Here Goes Nothing doesn’t quite match the depth and wildness of Toltz’s extraordinary debut <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/a-fraction-of-the-whole-9780143009528">A Fraction of the Whole </a>(2008), it does feel refreshingly focused when compared to his somewhat shapeless second novel <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/quicksand-9780143573838">Quicksand</a> (2015). </p>
<p>Where Quicksand was structured as a loosely connected string of comic episodes in the life of its hapless protagonist, Here Goes Nothing is more purposeful. Despite the scale of the events and revelations that surround them, Toltz maintains a tight focus on his three central characters and their shifting relationships. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/review-richard-flanagans-the-living-sea-of-waking-dreams-considers-griefs-big-and-small-147105">Review: Richard Flanagan's The Living Sea of Waking Dreams considers griefs big and small</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Unfairness and inexplicability</h2>
<p>The conflict between Mooney and Owen – which persists across life and death, right through the end of days and out the other side – reveals them as two characters who illustrate different responses to the unfairness and inexplicability of life and death. </p>
<p>Mooney, abandoned as a child and neglectfully raised within the Australian foster care system, embraces a weary, protective cynicism. He is incurious about the mysteries of life and afterlife. Owen, by contrast, is a bitter and often hilarious misanthrope, who enjoys watching things fall apart. Where Mooney is largely passive, Owen is defined by his restless questioning, gleefully probing at the boundaries of accepted belief, custom and behaviour. </p>
<p>Ironically, the only thing that keeps both men beyond the grip of nihilism is their shared fixation with Gracie, who provides them both with a sense of meaning and purpose. While it is initially quite easy to side with Mooney over Owen in their rivalry – Owen murdered him, after all – the events of the novel work to complicate this. </p>
<p>Once he has moved on to the afterlife, Mooney’s attempts to transcend the boundaries between the worlds and reconnect with Gracie – which could be framed as heroic and romantic – only serve to imperil her and their child, whereas Owen’s care for her ultimately positions him on something of a redemptive arc, one where he becomes somewhat capable of expressing sympathy and remorse, albeit in warped and disturbing ways. </p>
<p>As worlds and realities erode, Angus’s certainty of his superiority over his murderer becomes questionable, particularly regarding the possibly selfish claims that he attempts to make over Gracie from beyond the grave.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/witchcraft-and-fascism-collide-in-jane-rawsons-imaginative-new-novel-175641">Witchcraft and fascism collide in Jane Rawson's imaginative new novel</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Against the bleakness of existence</h2>
<p>Gracie is the focal point not only for Mooney and Owen, but also for the novel itself. She functions as something of a rebuttal to the cynicism of the other characters and the bleakness of existence. </p>
<p>A bluntly spoken, iconoclastic marriage celebrant, who becomes an unlikely social media personality during the nightfall of humanity, Gracie persists in looking for meaning in the face of disappointment and disaster, apocalypse and tragedy. It is telling that though their wry perspectives dominate the tone of the novel, both Mooney and Owen are essentially orbital characters. Gracie’s actions and choices drive the plot. </p>
<p>Her perpetual struggle – with loss and grief, with pregnancy and the end of the world, and with Mooney and Owen – provides the novel with a faint, yet crucial thread of optimism, that mitigates the darkness of its absurd humour. This attitude is exemplified in her final decision at the climax of the novel, which resolves the cosmic love triangle between the three characters in a way that is simultaneously horrifying and oddly upbeat. Gracie’s refusal to accept the fact of a grim and uncaring reality is not presented as naivety, but as tough-minded and ultimately admirable defiance.</p>
<p>Here Goes Nothing will likely work to cement Toltz’s reputation as an exceptional comic writer. He is still, perhaps, a little too willing sacrifice consistent plotting and characterisation for the sake of a good line, and the universally sardonic, deadpan voices of his characters occasionally blur together. But the mordant humour is worth it. </p>
<p>Here Goes Nothing is very distinctively a Steve Toltz novel; its pleasures and flaws, and the trade-offs between them, will feel intimately familiar to existing fans of his work. For new readers, it may provide a more accessible entry point than his sprawling, ambitious earlier novels. If you are going to read just one new Australian novel this year – like me, possibly, at this rate – you could probably do a lot worse.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/178882/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julian Novitz does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
In his latest novel, Steve Toltz cements his reputation as an exceptional comic writer.
Julian Novitz, Senior Lecturer, Writing, School of Media and Communication, Swinburne University of Technology
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/175641
2022-04-06T20:00:52Z
2022-04-06T20:00:52Z
Witchcraft and fascism collide in Jane Rawson’s imaginative new novel
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/455124/original/file-20220330-15-135l9xt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Witch - Luis Ricardo Falero (1882)</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Public domain</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In an age of polarisation, it’s instructive to return to the late 1930s, in the lead up to World War II, when the far left and far right were energised and prominent. In Australia, we tend to think that Nazi sympathisers didn’t exist, or were never significant, but in fact there were <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/feb/05/happy-birthday-hitler-how-australias-nazis-got-away-with-the-whole-rotten-show">documented events</a> in Adelaide and Katoomba that revealed fervent support for Hitler’s rise to power. </p>
<hr>
<p><em>Review: A History of Dreams - Jane Rawson (Brio Books)</em></p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/455115/original/file-20220329-25-1gr0e37.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/455115/original/file-20220329-25-1gr0e37.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/455115/original/file-20220329-25-1gr0e37.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455115/original/file-20220329-25-1gr0e37.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455115/original/file-20220329-25-1gr0e37.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455115/original/file-20220329-25-1gr0e37.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1153&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455115/original/file-20220329-25-1gr0e37.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1153&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455115/original/file-20220329-25-1gr0e37.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1153&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
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</figure>
<p>Contemporaneous left-wing papers suggested, sensationally, that there were 10,000-20,000 Nazis in Australia. There were, at least, 177 paid up members of the Australian Nazi Party and many more sympathisers across the country, with an enthusiastic group in South Australia. </p>
<p>A German Club in Adelaide celebrated Hitler’s 50th birthday in 1939 and support continued throughout the war, with multiple parties held for Hitler’s birthday in 1945, just weeks before the Nazi defeat. </p>
<p><a href="https://briobooks.com.au/products/a-history-of-dreams">A History of Dreams</a> was inspired to some extent by Nazi enclaves in South Australia, but as Rawson has said “<a href="https://twitter.com/frippet/status/1489737098596737028?cxt=HHwWiICjqfH_zawpAAAA">it’s also really about here and now</a>”. It is a surprising, uncategorisable book: part historical novel, part speculative fiction. </p>
<p>In this, it resembles Rawson’s second novel From the Wreck (2017), which was also set in South Australia. The plot of From the Wreck circles around the SS Admella, which sank in 1859 and was famously eulogised by poet <a href="https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/gordon-adam-lindsay-3635">Adam Lindsay Gordon</a>. Rawson took a real event and grafted a sci-fi narrative onto it – namely, the story of a shape-shifting alien, who becomes a life-long obsession for one of the shipwreck survivors.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/455999/original/file-20220404-25-b2i471.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/455999/original/file-20220404-25-b2i471.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455999/original/file-20220404-25-b2i471.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455999/original/file-20220404-25-b2i471.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455999/original/file-20220404-25-b2i471.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455999/original/file-20220404-25-b2i471.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455999/original/file-20220404-25-b2i471.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Admella wrecked, Cape Banks 4th August 1849 - James Shaw.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Public domain</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Shrews and suffragettes</h2>
<p>A History of Dreams begins on a train in December 1937, when sisters Esther and Margaret and their colourful friend Audrey are in their teens. The young women are bothered by entitled young men bombarding them with questions and rifling through Esther’s possessions, holding up a sanitary pad and a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/georgette-heyer">Georgette Heyer</a> novel to ridicule. Esther is called a “feisty little suffragette” and a “shrew”. They are all accused of being “witches” who should be burned. </p>
<p>The young women are far from a coherent group at first. Their class disparities keep them distant. But Esther, Margaret and Audrey unite with their former schoolmate Phyl against such abusive encounters. </p>
<p>Margaret and Esther are from a more prosperous background than Phyl, who lives precariously with her mother, her violent father and her uncle Pip in the bad part of town, near the Valvoline factory. A scene in which Phyl drags a burning mattress outside with her mother – and sells it to a neighbour for his fighting dogs – shows the family’s level of desperation. </p>
<p>After the loss of her bed, Phyl sits by the river and reads <a href="https://gutenberg.ca/ebooks/wrenpc-beauideal/wrenpc-beauideal-00-h.html">Beau Ideal</a> (1927) by Percival Christopher Wren, in which two buddies join the French Foreign Legion. Trapped by circumstance, she dreams of cutting off her hair, strapping her chest, and writing columns about the desert for the English papers.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/in-loveland-robert-lukins-explores-a-womans-experience-of-abuse-but-at-times-loses-his-way-177620">In Loveland, Robert Lukins explores a woman's experience of abuse, but at times loses his way</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Toppling the bourgeoise with magic</h2>
<p>A History of Dreams is concerned with the intersection of gender inequality and authoritarianism. It shows how quotidian incidents – like taunting on a train – may herald dramatic shifts of political power.</p>
<p>Audrey’s father is a left-wing unionist, therefore political struggle is second nature to him. Margaret and Esther’s more comfortable suburban background leaves them ill-prepared when their father becomes progressively hardened towards them. Their dreams of achievement in aviation and the arts become impossible, forcing them into subversive manoeuvres that go against all their conditioning.</p>
<p>Audrey cuts a dashing figure, especially when she wears a coat with nothing underneath and easily “routs a company of rude young men”. Dubbed “Red Audrey” by her enemies – echoing the nickname “<a href="https://www.mup.com.au/books/the-red-witch-hardback">The Red Witch</a>” given to communist writer Katharine Susannah Prichard – Audrey does secret experiments with magic, inherited from her great aunt Delia and a long line of witches from Yorkshire. </p>
<p>Audrey has been using her magic to “topple the bourgeoisie”, but she doesn’t introduce magic to her friends until their feelings of fury come to the fore. As the bearer of magic, she is the driver of the witches’ actions, with Phyl as her bolshie sidekick. </p>
<p>The magical dreams they conjure and share with others – often through refreshments – function as a kind of nocturnal storytelling. They encourage sleepers to take action in their waking lives of a sort that is sometimes wildly out of character. </p>
<p>When Margaret is invited to a literary salon by her childhood friend Matt Sands, she and Phyl plan to spike their wine with dreams. They are distinctly underwhelmed by “a pale bunch of pimply-faced, slack limbed city boys”, who read their terrible poetry aloud. </p>
<p>“If this was a prototype for some kind of master race, Australia was in trouble,” Margaret thinks. </p>
<p>When Matt reads his poem “The Spear”, Margaret is shocked by his lack of talent and patronising attitude towards Indigenous people. Phyl disrupts the event, questioning their certainty about what it means to be Australian, saying that she prefers to be a citizen of the entire world, arguing that women’s freedom is “the sign of social freedom”. </p>
<p>The men counter that “the chief business of women must be maternity”, which turns out to be one of central tenets of the incoming government. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/trauma-and-loss-define-mandy-beaumonts-unapologetically-feminist-debut-novel-177150">Trauma and loss define Mandy Beaumont's unapologetically feminist debut novel</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Galvanised by inequality</h2>
<p>Galvanised by the rampant inequality underlying the veneer of Anglo civility, the witches vow to remain unmarried while they explore the potential of their magic. In a debate about the ethics of deploying their gifts, Audrey suggests that there are no physical limits to what they can do, but there are definitely moral limits. </p>
<p>Esther resists limits, declaring: “I’m going to spread beauty and terror any way I can and whatever the consequences.” </p>
<p>Audrey warns: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>your magic should never be used to make the powerful more powerful, to make the strong stronger or the weak weaker. This is Robin Hood magic: it takes from the rich and gives to the poor. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>“Maid Marion magic, more like,” says Phyl. </p>
<p>This “Maid Marion” or “red” magic can only work on individuals or small groups, at least the way Audrey practices it. A good spell is built on observation and imagination – it does not work unless the witches empathise with the “mark”, no matter how despicable they may be. The spectre of corruption is signposted, suggesting that ruthless forces might co-opt their magic to make the powerless more miserable.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/456000/original/file-20220404-15-nwr6jd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/456000/original/file-20220404-15-nwr6jd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/456000/original/file-20220404-15-nwr6jd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456000/original/file-20220404-15-nwr6jd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456000/original/file-20220404-15-nwr6jd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456000/original/file-20220404-15-nwr6jd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=571&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456000/original/file-20220404-15-nwr6jd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=571&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456000/original/file-20220404-15-nwr6jd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=571&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">German Club celebration of Adolf Hitler’s 50th birthday, Adelaide, South Australia, 20 April 1939.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Public domain</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Creeping authoritarianism</h2>
<p>For most people living under autocratic governments, the full horror of their circumstances tends to creep up on them gradually. As in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (1985) and the accompanying television series, freedom is taken away by physical incarceration, but also through the denial of literacy and the forbidding of mobility and communication between women. </p>
<p>Phyl’s poverty drives her out to work, providing valuable intelligence about what is really going on. Working at the Foy & Gibson department store cosmetics counter, she learns about the predicament of her workmate Ruth’s family. Some of them are stuck in Germany; others had moved to Tanunda before being forced to relocate due to the proximity of “too many bad people”. </p>
<p>Tanunda was actually the home of Australia’s <a href="https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/ipad/barossa-lied-about-war-injustice/news-story/f26123c051196bf355ca526fabb85737">Gestapo chief</a> in the 1930s, making it especially dangerous for people of Jewish origin. In Rawson’s parallel universe, fascist sympathisers need not hide themselves, because the government is on their side.</p>
<p>Despite these scattered allies, one of the most insidious effects of this totalitarian culture is that trust is eroded, straining human bonds and making people more vulnerable to manipulation. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/455157/original/file-20220330-17-v6k9zf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/455157/original/file-20220330-17-v6k9zf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/455157/original/file-20220330-17-v6k9zf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455157/original/file-20220330-17-v6k9zf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455157/original/file-20220330-17-v6k9zf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455157/original/file-20220330-17-v6k9zf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1133&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455157/original/file-20220330-17-v6k9zf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1133&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455157/original/file-20220330-17-v6k9zf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1133&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Jane Rawson.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Image supplied.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Working as an underground resistance, the friends each make their own contributions, even when torn from each other by the patriarchy. They suspect one of them is behind the compelling dreams that are broadcast to the minds of all South Australians. To counteract the state-sanctioned ones, Esther dedicates herself to making magical capsules that produce a deep nocturnal blackness instead. </p>
<p>This might be read as a metaphor for the effort needed to resist the mental toll of such a regime – nothingness is preferable to lies. </p>
<p>The weaponising of sleep and dreaming is reminiscent of Ambelin Kwaymullina’s <a href="https://www.austlit.edu.au/austlit/page/C828469">The Interrogation of Ashala Wolf</a> (2012), in which a powerful “Sleepwalker” can do anything in her dreams, but an official tries to break her with “the machine”, which seeks to invade her memories and reveal her secrets.</p>
<p>At times, the men who inhabit A History of Dreams seem like caricatures, too impossibly dreadful to be believable. Thankfully, there are a few male figures who offer nuance. The first is Walt – a queer dance teacher who is sent overseas on a suicidal mission. His partner Benjamin is another warm presence, but he gives up hope when Walt is press-ganged into the army. Later, a “fake husband”, organised by a gay resistance that dare not speak its name, turns out to be a decent human who covertly supports the work of the witches.</p>
<p>The extremity of the novel’s scenario allows Rawson to explore received ideas about family, identity and belonging. Only people operating outside of hetero-normative cultural rules seem able to resist the men in charge. Notably, the witches must renounce matrimony to practice their art and almost all organised resistance comes from the queer community. </p>
<p>Esther’s miserable experience of unwanted pregnancy stands starkly against the ideology of perfect motherhood propounded by the perpetrator of her assault and his cronies. Her ability to parent her daughter Amelia is further shaken by imprisonment and torture, but her allies rally around the raise Amelia collectively, allowing her to carry their magic inheritance into the future. </p>
<p>Rawson’s novel reminds us that although fascism is always with us, so is our capacity for solidarity – and powerful dreaming.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/175641/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brigid Magner does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Part historical novel, part speculative fiction, A History of Dreams examines the themes of inequality and authoritarianism from the perspective of a coven of witchy young women.
Brigid Magner, Senior Lecturer in Literary Studies, RMIT University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/165933
2021-10-06T12:30:45Z
2021-10-06T12:30:45Z
How stories about alternate worlds can help us imagine a better future: Don’t Call Me Resilient EP 7
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423639/original/file-20210928-22-1fo8ban.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=24%2C4%2C943%2C402&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The work of imagining alternate futures is also about re-casting alternative pasts, as is done in the award-winning novel, 'Washington Black' by Esi Edugyan and adapted for the screen by podcast guest Selwyn Seyfu Hinds. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Washington Black/Random House</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe height="200px" width="100%" frameborder="no" scrolling="no" seamless="" src="https://player.simplecast.com/add6ca9a-00ee-4443-b95b-e20204f36a6f?dark=true"></iframe>
<p><iframe id="tc-infographic-572" class="tc-infographic" height="100" src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/infographics/572/661898416fdc21fc4fdef6a5379efd7cac19d9d5/site/index.html" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>Stories are a powerful tool to resist oppressive situations. They give writers from marginalized communities a way to imagine alternate realities — and to critique the one we live in. </p>
<p><a href="https://dont-call-me-resilient.simplecast.com/episodes/ep-7-how-stories-about-alternate-worlds-can-help-us-imagine-a-better-future">In this episode of <em>Don’t Call Me Resilient</em></a>, two storytellers who offer up wondrous “otherworlds” for Indigenous and Black people speak about the crucial role storytelling has played in their lives. </p>
<p>Daniel Heath Justice is a Colorado-born member of the Cherokee Nation and Canada Research Chair and professor in Indigenous literature and expressive culture at the University of British Columbia. He is the author of <em>Why Indigenous Literatures Matter</em>, as well as the epic trilogy, <em>The Way of Thorn and Thunder: The Kynship Chronicles</em>. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/425011/original/file-20211006-21-dct5j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/425011/original/file-20211006-21-dct5j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=897&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425011/original/file-20211006-21-dct5j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=897&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425011/original/file-20211006-21-dct5j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=897&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425011/original/file-20211006-21-dct5j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1127&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425011/original/file-20211006-21-dct5j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1127&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425011/original/file-20211006-21-dct5j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1127&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cover of Esi Eduygan’s award-winning novel, Washington Black, Canadian edition.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Harper Collins</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Also joining the conversation is Selwyn Seyfu Hinds, an L.A.-based screenwriter and producer. He has been writing comic books and screenplays for a decade, including episodes for Jordan Peele’s <em>The Twilight Zone</em>. Hinds is currently adapting the award-winning fantasy novel <em>Washington Black</em> by Esi Edugyan, which won the Scotiabank Giller Prize in 2018. </p>
<p>A full transcript of the episode is available <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-stories-about-alternate-worlds-can-help-us-imagine-a-better-future-dont-call-me-resilient-ep-7-transcript-167520">here</a>.</p>
<p>Each week we highlight articles related to the topics we discuss in the episode. This week, Lina Nasr El Hag Ali from OCAD University writes about <a href="https://theconversation.com/afrofuturism-and-its-possibility-of-elsewhere-the-power-of-political-imagination-166002">Afrofuturism and the power of political imagination</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/381818/original/file-20210201-13-1g0n3ld.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/381818/original/file-20210201-13-1g0n3ld.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381818/original/file-20210201-13-1g0n3ld.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381818/original/file-20210201-13-1g0n3ld.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381818/original/file-20210201-13-1g0n3ld.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381818/original/file-20210201-13-1g0n3ld.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381818/original/file-20210201-13-1g0n3ld.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://theconversation.com/ca/podcasts">Click here to listen to Don’t Call Me Resilient</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>You can listen or subscribe on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/dont-call-me-resilient/id1549798876">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5zaW1wbGVjYXN0LmNvbS9qZFg0Ql9DOA">Google Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/37tK4zmjWvq2Sh6jLIpzp7">Spotify</a> or <a href="https://dont-call-me-resilient.simplecast.com/">wherever you listen to your favourite podcasts</a>. <a href="mailto:theculturedesk@theconversation.com">We’d love to hear from you</a>, including any ideas for future episodes. Join The Conversation on <a href="https://twitter.com/ConversationCA">Twitter</a>, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/TheConversationCanada">Facebook</a> and <a href="https://www.instagram.com/theconversationdotcom/">Instagram</a> and use #DontCallMeResilient.</p>
<p><em>Don’t Call Me Resilient is a production of The Conversation Canada. This podcast was produced with a grant for Journalism Innovation from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. The series is produced and hosted by Vinita Srivastava. Our producer is Susana Ferreira. Our associate producer is Ibrahim Daair. Reza Dahya is our sound producer. Our consulting producer is Jennifer Moroz. Lisa Varano is our audience development editor and Scott White is the CEO of The Conversation Canada. Zaki Ibrahim wrote and performed the music we use on the pod. The track is called Something in the Water.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/165933/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Stories about alternative worlds can be a powerful way of critiquing the problems of our own world.
Vinita Srivastava, Host + Producer, Don't Call Me Resilient
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/135513
2020-05-11T11:50:55Z
2020-05-11T11:50:55Z
Science fiction builds mental resiliency in young readers
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/333753/original/file-20200508-49556-2riaio.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C14%2C3190%2C1782&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Science fiction offers readers a way to rethink social dilemmas. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/alien-cyborg-landing-on-a-green-planet-royalty-free-image/613023394?adppopup=true">MATJAZ SLANIC/Via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Young people who are “hooked” on watching fantasy or reading science fiction may be on to something. Contrary to a common misperception that reading this genre is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/apr/18/it-drives-writers-mad-why-are-authors-still-sniffy-about-sci-fi">an unworthy practice</a>, reading science fiction and fantasy may <a href="https://www.unicef.org/coronavirus/how-teenagers-can-protect-their-mental-health-during-coronavirus-covid-19">help young people cope</a>, especially with the stress and anxiety of living through the COVID-19 pandemic.</p>
<p>I am <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=S763T1AAAAAJ&hl=en">a professor</a> with research interests in the social, ethical and political messages in science fiction. In my book “<a href="https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9781137520609">Medicine and Ethics in Black Women’s Speculative Fiction</a>,” I explore the ways science fiction promotes understanding of human differences and ethical thinking. </p>
<p>While many people may not consider science fiction, fantasy or speculative fiction to be “literary,” research shows that all fiction can generate <a href="https://hbr.org/2020/03/the-case-for-reading-fiction">critical thinking skills and emotional intelligence</a> for young readers. Science fiction may have a power all its own. </p>
<h2>Literature as a moral mirror</h2>
<p>Historically, parents have considered literature “good” for young people if it provides moral guidance that reflects their own values. This belief has been the catalyst for many movements to <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/27657052?seq=1">censor particular books</a> for nearly as long as <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/4307574?seq=1">books have been published</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330255/original/file-20200424-47815-rbefo8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330255/original/file-20200424-47815-rbefo8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330255/original/file-20200424-47815-rbefo8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=801&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330255/original/file-20200424-47815-rbefo8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=801&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330255/original/file-20200424-47815-rbefo8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=801&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330255/original/file-20200424-47815-rbefo8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1006&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330255/original/file-20200424-47815-rbefo8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1006&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330255/original/file-20200424-47815-rbefo8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1006&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The controversy of Huck Finn.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/cover-of-the-book-adventures-of-huckleberry-finn-by-mark-news-photo/50947963?adppopup=true">Hulton Archive via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>“<a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/banned-adventures-huckleberry-finn/">The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn</a>,” published in 1885, was the first book to be banned in the U.S. It was thought to corrupt youth by teaching boys to swear, smoke and run away from home.</p>
<p>In the latter part of the 20th century, the book has come under fire for the Mark Twain’s prolific use of the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/dec/14/school-stops-teaching-huckleberry-finn-community-costs-n-word">N-word</a>. Many people are concerned that the original version of the book normalizes an unacceptable racial slur. Who can say the N-word and in what context is an ongoing social and political debate, <a href="http://www.ijscl.net/article_32639_ca7a040f687e95845369690778a0fdea.pdf">reflecting wounds in American society</a> that have yet to heal. </p>
<p>The question is, how does literature of any genre – whether popularly perceived as “serious literature” or “escapist nonsense” – perform its educational function. This is central to the conflict between parents and educators about what kids should read, especially as it pertains to “escapist” fiction.</p>
<h2>Why science fiction gets a bad rap</h2>
<p>Historically, those who read science fiction have been <a href="https://theconversation.com/fan-of-sci-fi-psychologists-have-you-in-their-sights-131342">stigmatized as geeks</a> who can’t cope with reality. This <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4651513/">perception persists</a>, particularly for those who are unaware of the changes to this genre in the past several decades. A <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/spc3.12274">2016 article</a> in Social and Personality Psychology Compass, a scholarly journal, argues that “connecting to story worlds involves a process of ‘dual empathy,‘ simultaneously engaging in intense personal processing of challenging issues, while ‘feeling through’ characters, both of which produce benefits.” </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330457/original/file-20200424-163067-7raak6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330457/original/file-20200424-163067-7raak6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330457/original/file-20200424-163067-7raak6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=626&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330457/original/file-20200424-163067-7raak6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=626&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330457/original/file-20200424-163067-7raak6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=626&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330457/original/file-20200424-163067-7raak6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=786&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330457/original/file-20200424-163067-7raak6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=786&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330457/original/file-20200424-163067-7raak6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=786&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Eagle Nebula’s Pillars of Creation, an image from the Hubble Space Telescope.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Giant-Telescope/ebf945613b7346d08369e624089fb06d/87/0">AP Images/NASA, ESA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While science fiction has become more <a href="https://www.wired.com/2015/11/geeks-guide-sci-fi-fantasy-mainstream/">mainstream</a>, one study claimed that science fiction makes readers <a href="https://thepatronsaintofsuperheroes.wordpress.com/2017/10/30/science-fiction-makes-you-stupid/">stupid</a>. A subsequent study by the same authors later refuted this claim when the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/oct/01/sci-fi-makes-you-stupid-study-refuted-by-scientists-behind-original-research">quality of writing</a> was taken into account.</p>
<p>This ongoing ambivalence towards the genre contributes to the stereotype that such works are of little value because they presumably don’t engage <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/apr/18/it-drives-writers-mad-why-are-authors-still-sniffy-about-sci-fi">real human dilemmas</a>. In actuality, they do. Such stereotypes assume that young people can only learn to cope with human dilemmas by engaging in mirror-image reflections of reality including what they read or watch. </p>
<h2>The mental health of reading</h2>
<p>Reading science fiction and fantasy can help readers <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-science-fiction-and-fantasy-can-help-us-make-sense-of-the-world-110044">make sense of the world</a>. Rather than limiting readers’ capacity to deal with reality, exposure to outside-the-box creative stories may expand their ability to engage reality <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2158244018780946">based on science</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330456/original/file-20200424-163077-gtw1fr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330456/original/file-20200424-163077-gtw1fr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330456/original/file-20200424-163077-gtw1fr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330456/original/file-20200424-163077-gtw1fr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330456/original/file-20200424-163077-gtw1fr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330456/original/file-20200424-163077-gtw1fr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330456/original/file-20200424-163077-gtw1fr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330456/original/file-20200424-163077-gtw1fr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Fantasy literature opens the door to imaginative worlds.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/cute-little-asian-girl-reading-a-book-in-the-living-royalty-free-image/1183349245?adppopup=true">Six_Characters/via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177%2F2158244018780946">2015 survey</a> of science fiction and fantasy readers found that these readers were also major consumers of a wide range of other types of books and media. In fact, the study noted a connection between respondents’ consumption of varied literary forms and an ability to understand science. </p>
<p>With increasing rates of anxiety, depression and <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/theory-knowledge/201811/the-college-student-mental-health-crisis-update">mental health issues</a> for youth in the past two decades, it may be the case that young people, no different from American society generally, are suffering from reality overload. Young people today have unprecedented access to information about which they may have <a href="https://theconversation.com/with-teen-mental-health-deteriorating-over-five-years-theres-a-likely-culprit-86996">little power to influence or change</a>.</p>
<h2>The powerful world of science fiction</h2>
<p>Science fiction and fantasy do not need to provide a mirror image of reality in order to offer compelling stories about serious social and political issues. The fact that the setting or characters are extraordinary may be precisely why they are powerful and where their value lies. </p>
<p>My contribution in the forthcoming essay collection “Raced Bodies, Erased Lives: Race in Young Adult Speculative Fiction” discusses how race, gender and mental health for black girls is portrayed in speculative fiction and fantasy. My essay describes how contemporary writers take an aspect of what is familiar and make it “odd” or “strange” enough to give the reader psychic and emotional distance to understand mental health issues with fresh eyes.</p>
<p>From the “<a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/harry-potter/oclc/1085412199&referer=brief_results">Harry Potter</a>” and “<a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/hunger-games/oclc/1101426163&referer=brief_results">Hunger Games</a>” series to novels like Octavia Butler’s “<a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/parable-of-the-sower/oclc/1136059307&referer=brief_results">Parable of the Sower</a>” and “<a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/parable-of-the-talents/oclc/1113840548&referer=brief_results">Parable of the Talents</a>” and Nancy Kress’ “<a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/beggars-in-spain/oclc/702615186&referer=brief_results">Beggars in Spain</a>,” youths see examples of young people grappling with serious social, economic, and political issues that are timely and relevant, but in settings or times that offer critical distance. </p>
<p>This distance gives readers an avenue to grapple with complexity and use their imagination to consider different ways of managing social challenges. What better way to deal with the uncertainty of this time than with forms of fiction that make us comfortable with being uncomfortable, that explore uncertainty and ambiguity, and depict young people as active agents, survivors and shapers of their own destinies? </p>
<p>Let them read science fiction. In it, young people can see themselves – coping, surviving and learning lessons – that may enable them to create their own strategies for resilience. In this time of COVID-19 and physical distancing, we may be reluctant for kids to embrace creative forms that seem to separate them psychologically from reality. </p>
<p>But the critical thinking and agile habits of mind prompted by this type of literature may actually produce resilience and creativity that everyday life and reality typically do not. </p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/135513/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Esther Jones does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Fantasy fiction provides more than escapism for young readers.
Esther Jones, Associate Professor of English, affiliate with Africana Studies and Women's & Gender Studies, Clark University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/135944
2020-04-30T11:24:10Z
2020-04-30T11:24:10Z
After the plague: Lauren Beukes’ new book is about a world without men
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/331116/original/file-20200428-110748-yxdhrt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tabitha Guy</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Based in 2023, South African writer <a href="https://laurenbeukes.com/about/">Lauren Beukes</a>’ novel <em><a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.co.za/book/afterland/9781415210598">Afterland</a></em> captures the devastating effects of a global pandemic. </p>
<p>A highly contagious virus, called HCV, has killed around four billion men. Society is in disrepair and, with no cure in sight, women are barred from procreation. The few males who have proven immune have become hot commodities for various agendas. And the odds are stacked against the protagonist Cole in her bid to return home to Johannesburg from America with her young son Miles – who possesses the HCV-resistant gene.</p>
<p>Cole has lost her husband and been forced into a quarantine facility so that the government can conduct experiments on Miles. She is relieved when her sister, Billie, shows up to help them break out. Yet, ever duplicitous, Billie has been enticed by the price of black market sperm. </p>
<p>Nedine Moonsamy interviewed Beukes about the book.</p>
<hr>
<p><strong>Nedine Moonsamy:</strong> How does it feel to have written this novel now that <a href="https://theconversation.com/africa/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=COVID-19">COVID-19</a> is here?</p>
<p><strong>Lauren Beukes:</strong> The book isn’t about the pandemic, but the aftermath, and how Cole and Miles navigate this radically changed world in which boys are suddenly precious commodities. But it’s not a <a href="https://www.masterclass.com/articles/what-is-dystopian-fiction-learn-about-the-5-characteristics-of-dystopian-fiction-with-examples#what-is-the-significance-of-dystopian-fiction">dystopia</a>, it’s not a total apocalypse. I did want to model a society that still functions. </p>
<p>In the world of <em>Afterland</em>, most of the male population has died, leaving only 35-50 million men and boys on the whole planet. It was challenging and hella fun to explore what sectors would be hardest hit, especially in what the novel calls PMdI (Previously Male-dominated Industries), such as satellite technicians, undersea cable maintenance divers, truckers and pilots and engineers and mine workers and mechanics; and what measures the women in charge would have taken to manage that. </p>
<p>It mainly comes down to a whole lot of upskilling, but there are also some political shenanigans in the book: the US, for example, offers lucrative immigration deals to citizens from Egypt and Qatar and India where they have more women software engineers. The president of Colombia shuts down coffee exports until America legalises drugs because women don’t want to lose another single person to the violent narco trade. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/331118/original/file-20200428-110779-2kx6ok.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/331118/original/file-20200428-110779-2kx6ok.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/331118/original/file-20200428-110779-2kx6ok.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=758&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/331118/original/file-20200428-110779-2kx6ok.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=758&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/331118/original/file-20200428-110779-2kx6ok.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=758&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/331118/original/file-20200428-110779-2kx6ok.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=952&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/331118/original/file-20200428-110779-2kx6ok.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=952&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/331118/original/file-20200428-110779-2kx6ok.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=952&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lauren Beukes.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tabitha Guy</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There are religious groups that believe this is God’s punishment, and terrorist groups setting oil fields alight to bring about the true end times. But that’s all mostly background. </p>
<p>Cole and Miles do run into an anarchist community in Salt Lake City who are mobilising – hacking hotel cards to give people access to housing, for example. It’s been fascinating, and inspiring, to see South Africa’s own <a href="https://www.groundup.org.za/article/how-cape-town-group-helping-neighbourhoods-fight-covid-19/">Community Action Networks</a> reaching out across our huge divides to partner with under-resourced neighbourhoods. </p>
<p><strong>Nedine Moonsamy:</strong> How did you approach the research for the book?</p>
<p><strong>Lauren Beukes:</strong> I interviewed a lot of experts: I spoke to my friend <a href="https://www.hanselman.com">Scott Hanselman</a> about female coders, economist <a href="https://www.journalismfestival.com/speaker/hannes-grassegger">Hannes Grassegger</a> about what this new imagined economy might look like, and scientist friends like <a href="https://www.csir.co.za/dr-janine-scholefield">Janine Scholefield</a> explained viruses and keyholes and x-linked genetic variances to me. I asked Cape Town metro police officers on the ride-alongs I did, what would happen to the drugs and gangs if all the men disappeared: would they grind to a halt? “Are you kidding?” they said. They maintain it would continue in much the same way, maybe worse: “The most ruthless leader of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/oct/21/only-we-can-change-things-life-in-gang-ridden-other-side-cape-town">the Americans</a> was Mama American because she had more to prove.”</p>
<p>As Billie says in the novel, “Power is a fickle slut” – and yeah, absolutely, many of the old power structures are going to hold. Even in a world where 99% of the male population is dead, patriarchy is still a very comfortable pair of shoes and very easy to slip into. </p>
<p>It’s inspiring to see people talking about how we’re all going to reinvent the world post-COVID, go full socialism, bring in universal basic income, healthcare for all, proper minimum wage, income protection, continued bonds of support and care between wealthy neighbourhoods and disadvantaged ones. But capitalism is an old god, and it’s going to be very difficult to overthrow completely. </p>
<p>And of course there will be backlashes; epidemics are often terrible for women’s rights. Look at where women are the primary caregivers at cost to their careers, and vulnerable to violent partners. Plus they don’t go back to work and girls don’t go back to school in nearly the same numbers as men and boys. </p>
<p>I hope this has already been such a system shock that we will have no choice but to make significant changes to the way the world works now. But I’m afraid of what the cost to us is going to be. </p>
<p><strong>Nedine Moonsamy:</strong> I can see that you steered away from a radical feminist novel in order to tell a story about the best version of familial love. From this angle, the novel seems to converse with Cormac McCarthy’s <em><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2006/nov/04/featuresreviews.guardianreview4">The Road</a></em> where father and son travel through post-apocalyptic America to get to the coast. In <em>Afterland</em> the journey has a more optimistic spin. Were you attempting to rework this “great American novel” in some way? </p>
<p><strong>Lauren Beukes:</strong> It depends on what you mean by radical. I didn’t want to tell a story that was all about the world, or the characters changing it, à la <a href="https://www.jkrowling.com/writing/">Harry Potter</a> or <em><a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/86535/the-children-of-men-by-pd-james/">Children of Men</a></em>, but rather about the ordinary people caught up in that world. <em>The Road</em> was definitely a reference point, and again, something I was writing in conversation with (like <em><a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/6125/the-handmaids-tale-by-margaret-atwood/">The Handmaid’s Tale</a></em>). I hated the ending of <em>The Road</em>. (Spoilers!) As a parent, I would never, ever let my kid go out into a world full of cannibals and rapists on their own. What kind of hope is that? It was blind luck that the next people he stumbled across were good. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/331068/original/file-20200428-110752-zofpca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/331068/original/file-20200428-110752-zofpca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/331068/original/file-20200428-110752-zofpca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=919&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/331068/original/file-20200428-110752-zofpca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=919&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/331068/original/file-20200428-110752-zofpca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=919&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/331068/original/file-20200428-110752-zofpca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1154&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/331068/original/file-20200428-110752-zofpca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1154&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/331068/original/file-20200428-110752-zofpca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1154&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Penguin Random House</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>From the feminist perspective, there were two ideas I wanted to play with: flipping the narrative, where suddenly Miles’s bodily autonomy and agency are under threat because people are treating him as a commodity, a reproductive resource, a sex object, a matter of “future security”. And exploring the idea of how a world of women is not necessarily going to be a kinder, gentler, friendship-bracelet-and-communal-gardens kinda place, where we can all go walking at night on our own and the country’s national women’s football team <a href="https://www.safa.net/banyana-banyana/">Banyana Banyana</a> gets to play the huge stadiums. </p>
<p>I’m not big on the binary idea of masculine versus feminine, and I wanted to interrogate that. A world of women is a world of people, still, with full human capacity for good or evil. Because women are just as capable of being power-hungry, violent, self-interested, abusive and evil as men can be, especially when we’re still living through the same society, but maybe in different ways. </p>
<p>Likewise, men are just as capable of being compassionate, nurturing, primary caregivers – and making friendship bracelets. </p>
<p><em>To buy a copy of Afterland visit Penguin Random House over <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.co.za/book/afterland/9781415210598">here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/135944/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nedine Moonsamy does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Even in a world where 99% of the male population is dead, patriarchy is still a very comfortable pair of shoes and very easy to slip into.
Nedine Moonsamy, Senior Lecturer, University of Pretoria
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/130974
2020-02-18T20:59:02Z
2020-02-18T20:59:02Z
How afrofuturism gives Black people the confidence to survive doubt and anti-Blackness
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/315833/original/file-20200218-11017-uyt7sg.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=77%2C8%2C1032%2C540&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Afrofuturism, like the kind seen in Marvel's Black Panther, allows Black people to imagine themselves into the future</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Marvel Studios</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In 2018, Black people globally got a signal of hope when director Ryan Coogler and Marvel Studios released the critically acclaimed movie, <a href="https://time.com/black-panther/"><em>Black Panther</em></a>. While few knew of the Black Panther as a superhero despite the comic being released in the 1960s, millions now know of him because of <a href="https://variety.com/2018/film/box-office/black-panther-surpasses-avengers-highest-grossing-superhero-movie-1202735863/">the film’s overwhelming success</a>.</p>
<p>Its success can be due, in part, because of what it tells us about Black people’s futures. Many Black people — seeking belonging and better outcomes for their lives — have turned to afrofuturism as the source of optimism. According to <a href="https://www.decolonizemars.org/ytasha-womack">afrofuturist expert and author Ytasha Womack</a>, afrofuturism refers to “an intersection of imagination, technology, the future and liberation … <a href="https://books.google.ca/books?id=pTXVAAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=afrofuturism+ytasha&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjm0rqC28fnAhVDiFkKHSCsBzUQ6AEIKDAA#v=onepage&q=afrofuturism%20ytasha&f=false">Afrofuturists redefine culture and notions of Blackness for today and the future</a> by combining elements of science fiction, historical fiction, speculative fiction, fantasy, afrocentricity and magic realism with non-western beliefs.”</p>
<p><em>Black Panther</em> had Black people chanting “Wakanda Forever,” while many imagined that they too could put on the Black Panther suit to gain a sense of belonging. Black people, including Canadians, <a href="https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/vb5mjm/black-panthers-wakanda-is-real-and-its-in-chicago">believed that Wakanda, the utopian city where the Black Panther resides, is a real place</a>. For Black Canadians, Wakanda offers a place that exists outside the harsh reality of an anti-Black white settler narrative that is anti-Black.</p>
<p>Black legal scholar <a href="https://www.smu.edu/Law/Faculty/Profiles/Inniss-Lolita-Buckner">Lolita Buckner Inniss</a> says <a href="http://doi.org/10.15779/Z38J899">anti-Black racism is deeply enmeshed in the Canadian social fabric</a>. Anti-Black racism cuts deep enough so that many, if not all, Black Canadians feel there is no hope for a better future. </p>
<h2>Leaving family but not tradition</h2>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/315834/original/file-20200218-11011-14vg45i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/315834/original/file-20200218-11011-14vg45i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=960&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315834/original/file-20200218-11011-14vg45i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=960&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315834/original/file-20200218-11011-14vg45i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=960&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315834/original/file-20200218-11011-14vg45i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1206&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315834/original/file-20200218-11011-14vg45i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1206&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315834/original/file-20200218-11011-14vg45i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1206&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Nnedi Okorafor’s Binti must deal with racism and isolation as she traverses a universe that does not value her people’s knowledge.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Tor Books)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Afrofuturism in cinema is but one source. Writer Nnedi Okorafor’s 2015 science fiction novella, <em>Binti</em>, features a Black woman protagonist named Binti Ekeopara Zuzu Dambu Kaipka. Binti is an intelligent woman leader of the Himba tribe whose genius gets her into to the prestigious Oomza University, which floats about the galaxy. Binti is the first member of the Himba ethnic people to attend the school. Her decision to attend is met with ridicule, laughter and threats to her life due to the fear and insecurities of her people. </p>
<p>Her people have never been allowed to imagine futures beyond their traditional way of life and identification with the land. Binti states:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We Himba don’t travel. We stay put. Our ancestral land is life; move away from it and you diminish. We even cover our bodies with it. Otjize is red land. Here in the launch port, most were Khoush and a few other non-Himba. Here, I was an outsider; I was outside.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>She echoes the social challenges that Black people face when embarking upon new ways of living <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1521025119841030">after leaving traditional family and cultural contexts</a>. Often, their families and cultures pressure them to remain entrenched within the known confines of family, culture and community, rather than explore the new and unknown.</p>
<p>One of us, Anthony, was the first member of his immediate family to attend post-secondary education and graduate school. He wanted to apply to graduate school but had to fight internalized feelings of low self-worth that insisted he did not belong in academia. Indeed, a lack of self-confidence influenced the choice to avoid applying to programs that required a high grade-point average with a full scholarship because he did not believe he would be accepted. </p>
<h2>Blazing a trail to a Black future</h2>
<p>In her village, Binti had been one of the few who used knowledge to create peace in her tribe, so she had to overcome pressure to remain in the village in order to embrace new learning. On a spaceship, travelling from her village to the Oomza University, Binti as the only Himba at the university encounters another obstacle: the false assumption that people from her land are evil, dirty and primitive. </p>
<p>In one moment, one of the Khoush (a different lighter-skinned tribe) students touches Binti’s braids out of curiosity and without consent. Her hair is mixed with sweet smelling red clay and perfume called Otijze, which is connected to her cultural heritage. One of the Khoush students responds that it has a horrible smell, suggesting a passive discriminatory logic of sanitation. </p>
<p>One can observe strong echoes of the attitudes of privileged whites towards high-priority Black neighbourhoods whose inhabitants are stereotyped as criminal, irrational, impoverished and unintelligent. The book suggests that <a href="https://doi.org/10.2747/0272-3638.32.8.1238">there is no such thing as neutral space</a> and that structural inequities and racial inequalities make space and place difficult to navigate, <a href="https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789463007351">especially in elitist environments</a>.</p>
<p>But Binti is gripped by the challenge of the new. Her journey of self-discovery begins when she decides to leave village life, defying her ancestors’ dedication to their land and cultural identity. Binti explains that tribal knowledge was handed down orally as her father had taught her 300 years of oral lessons “about astrolabes including how they worked, the art of them, the true negotiation of them, the lineage … circuits, wire, metals, oils, heat, electricity, math current and sand bar.” Her mother had also transmitted mathematical insights and gifts, but never in formal educational settings. Family unity and protection were paramount.</p>
<p>Binti symbolizes the trailblazer who encounters politics, racism, stereotypes, ignorance, systemic inequalities, gender inequities, classism and so on. Additionally, she faces the strong pull of past traditions since she is the first member of her family and tribe to attend a formal educational institute. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_NMLz042NHk?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Afrofuturism offers a way for Black people to envision their futures, as Missy Elliot’s futuristic music videos exemplify.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Some Black individuals living such stories will inevitably encounter <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13676261.2017.1394997">feelings of isolation, lack of belonging and self-doubt</a>. Their internal battles will pit self-trust and the drive towards the new against the safety and security of the past. They will have to develop a secure sense of self and an understanding that it does not matter how far they travel among the galaxies because everyone has unique gifts they can contribute to the universe.</p>
<p>Against the pull of anxieties and insecurities, Anthony graduated with a master’s degree and a PhD; he currently has a post-doctoral fellowship — yet is in another galaxy of his own among the stars.</p>
<p>Afro-Caribbean Black people living in white settler, colonized nations such as Canada face discrimination and negative stereotypes. Afrofuturism can enable Black communities to reimagine new possibilities, especially when the future trajectory for Black Canadians is at times uncertain.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/130974/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anthony Q. Briggs PhD., is a Faculty Fellow at Oakland University, Rochester, Michigan </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Warren Clarke is a Ph.D. candidate and a contract instructor for Carleton University </span></em></p>
Afrofuturism allows Black people to not only imagine their distant futures but also how to survive the anti-Black present.
Anthony Q. Briggs, Research Fellow, Department of Sociology, Anthropology, Social Work and Criminal Justice, Oakland University
Warren Clarke, PhD student, Department of Sociology, Carleton University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/124924
2019-10-16T08:57:21Z
2019-10-16T08:57:21Z
Extinction Rebellion’s car-free streets showcase the possibility of a beautiful, safe and green future
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/297199/original/file-20191015-98648-1ud6z4m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">© James McKay</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Standing in the middle of a usually busy central London street during Extinction Rebellion’s protests, the air noticeably cleaner, the area quieter, I was struck by the enormity of the challenge ahead of us. We need to create a transport system that is zero carbon in only a few years. Despite London’s <a href="https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/driving/ultra-low-emission-zone">Ultra Low Emission Zone</a>, the daily reality is still toxic traffic fumes, unjustifiable road deaths and high levels of <a href="https://friendsoftheearth.uk/climate-change/we-need-transport-revolution-uk-passes-net-zero-emissions-law">transport carbon emissions</a> (up to one-third of all emissions in many places). There are over <a href="https://data.gov.uk/dataset/52b7f9ec-f7fa-46ea-ab88-dc30e0752061/understanding-health-impacts-of-air-pollution-in-london">9,000</a> extra deaths a year in London due to illegal air toxicity, much of which is from road transport.</p>
<p>But some cities have created more car-free, healthy and safe places. <a href="https://www.visitcopenhagen.com/copenhagen/sightseeing/copenhagens-bike-culture">Copenhagen</a> and <a href="https://www.amsterdamtips.com/cycling-in-amsterdam">Amsterdam</a> are known for their amazing cycling culture. <a href="https://www.reimaginerpe.org/curitiba-bus-system">Curitiba</a>, in Brazil, has an amazing bus transit system that functions like a subway network. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2014/jul/10/helsinki-shared-public-transport-plan-car-ownership-pointless">Helsinki</a> has committed to going car-free as soon as possible. Tokyo has some of the <a href="https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/02/13/business/japan-losing-drive-get-behind-wheel/#.XaXejH97m9w">lowest levels</a> of car ownership in the world. And Venice hasn’t seen a car in its history. </p>
<p>As I’ve shown in <a href="http://unlockingsustainablecities.org/home.html">my latest book</a>, creating the car-free city is possible, and urgently necessary, right now. We have all the technical and policy know-how. But we lack a vision of how it could be different, and the recognition that far from a sacrifice, it will bring mainly improvements, rather than constraints, to our lives. Such visions are necessary. The best way to demonstrate this is by using a bit of speculative fiction. So bear with me while we jump into an imagined near future.</p>
<h2>What 2025 could look like</h2>
<p>After the government capitulated to mass public unrest in 2020, citizen’s assemblies met to plan the future of the country. One of them outlined what they called “The Great Transport Turning”, an ambitious new mobility plan for the country that would unlock us from the car and create beautiful, safe and clean places for people. I can’t believe it’s only been five years, but our neighbourhoods have been completely transformed into beautiful, clean, safe places for everyone. I see my kids smiling every day as they safely rush off on their bikes and scooters to meet friends or go to school.</p>
<p>So how did it all happen? On the recommendation of the People’s Assembly, the Department for Transport was renamed the Department for People’s Mobility. It was given a remit to implement a “climate safe and socially just mobility plan” by 2025. It cost around £300 billion – about a third of the <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/036a5596-87a7-11e9-a028-86cea8523dc2">total cost</a> of the UK’s transition to zero carbon – funded by a combination of a windfall from closing tax avoidance loop holes, a hike in corporation tax, and a citizen’s transport levy.</p>
<p>An army of newly trained people’s mobility officers started to implement the people’s plan. The UK’s big cities got a huge makeover, with dozens more suburban train stations and extensive electrified mass transit networks comprising trolley buses and trams that were connected to surrounding small towns. That took a huge slug of cars off the roads straight away. Even though it’s not all quite finished, enormous progress has been made towards creating a zero carbon transport infrastructure, along with a green jobs bonanza in the construction industry.</p>
<p>Regional co-operatives, owned and managed by workers and users, were set up to run it all. Across the UK, everyone gets 14 free tickets each week, with any extra journeys costing a flat rate of just a £1 for travel within their locality. <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/make-new-yorks-school-bus-fleet-eco-friendly-union-staffed-and-cooperatively-run/">Employee-owned bus companies</a> with fully electric fleets, cycle storage on the front and more access for wheelchair users than current buses, were set up. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296711/original/file-20191011-96252-cf9222.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296711/original/file-20191011-96252-cf9222.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=849&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296711/original/file-20191011-96252-cf9222.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=849&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296711/original/file-20191011-96252-cf9222.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=849&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296711/original/file-20191011-96252-cf9222.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1066&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296711/original/file-20191011-96252-cf9222.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1066&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296711/original/file-20191011-96252-cf9222.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1066&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Car-free city.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© James McKay</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Once public transport was working properly, diesel and petrol cars were <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/13/labour-pledges-to-ban-sale-of-petrol-diesel-cars">banned</a> in urban areas. The UK went from a car owning nation, with about <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/800502/vehicle-licensing-statistics-2018.pdf">40m</a> cars, to around a million – in just five years. The old ones were sent back to the corporations that made them under <a href="http://www.recoup.org/p/196/european-legislation-and-strategy">new circular economy legislation</a>. Free electric shared taxis were introduced for people with mobility issues and shared electric mini-buses for long distances or rural connections.</p>
<p>But the biggest change is to the reasons we move around. School days have been shortened, allowing all schools and universities to undertake community-based <a href="https://www.permaculture.org.uk/research/52-climate-actions">climate action sessions</a>. All <a href="http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---ed_protect/---protrav/---travail/documents/publication/wcms_170720.pdf">workplaces stagger</a> their starting times to avoid congestion spikes and rush hour, and the <a href="https://citizensincome.org/">Citizen’s Income</a> means most people have gone part-time and travel less anyway. The 20-minute neighbourhood <a href="https://theculturevulture.co.uk/all/the-20-minute-neighbourhood/">idea</a> was introduced, meaning that within cities all basic goods and services needed for a good daily life are never any more than a 20-minute walk away; and for those with mobility issues, community minibuses constantly circulate.</p>
<p>Neighbourhoods look and feel completely different. Some roads remain, reclassified as service roads for buses, trams, or for electric vehicles for trade or health workers. But all other roads are now neighbourhood mobility routes. Two lanes have been reduced to one, creating active travel corridors for walking and cycling. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296912/original/file-20191014-135529-1m78rws.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296912/original/file-20191014-135529-1m78rws.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296912/original/file-20191014-135529-1m78rws.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296912/original/file-20191014-135529-1m78rws.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296912/original/file-20191014-135529-1m78rws.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296912/original/file-20191014-135529-1m78rws.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296912/original/file-20191014-135529-1m78rws.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Street skate part.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://search.creativecommons.org/photos/2b8ddbd7-2152-46b8-9e6d-f416b6b6f093">kjbax/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the space freed up, life and activity flourishes. Independent traders, community businesses, green spaces, pocket parks, micro gardening, allotments and playgrounds have appeared like mushrooms. The noise of traffic has been replaced by the constant hubbub of laughing, playing and chatting. Nature and wildlife have found ways back in through biodiversity corridors. All urban areas now have a 20mph limit, which has reduced road deaths and serious injuries by <a href="https://www.brake.org.uk/facts-resources/15-facts/1256-speed-communities">nearly a half</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.sdforward.com/mobility-planning/mobilityhubs">Micro-mobility hubs</a> are found at intersections. Owned by each neighbourhood and accessed through a flat monthly fee, there is a stock of electric mobility scooters, bikes, trailers, Dutch-style box bikes, and e-scooters. Families can pop down and grab a selection and go off for the day around the city visiting parks, shops and museums. </p>
<p>In the city centre, multi-storey car parks have been turned into <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sport/gallery/2014/oct/06/parkour-ride-in-pictures">bike racing tracks</a> and rooftop gardens. Along all dual carriageways, surplus lanes have been turned into sports pitches for football, cricket, rugby, cycling. The UK has become a healthy, sporting nation. Kids are no longer warehoused around in cars, stuck in front of video games, or entertained in corporate suburban retail parks. They are free, happy and healthy, playing in the roads that used to kill, maim, poison and pollute.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/297204/original/file-20191015-98653-xz3261.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/297204/original/file-20191015-98653-xz3261.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297204/original/file-20191015-98653-xz3261.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297204/original/file-20191015-98653-xz3261.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297204/original/file-20191015-98653-xz3261.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297204/original/file-20191015-98653-xz3261.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297204/original/file-20191015-98653-xz3261.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Kids play on bikes at Lilac co-housing community, Leeds.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Paul Chatterton</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This massive shift hasn’t been anti-car. Our need for the car just evaporated. And with the end of <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/we-banned-cigarette-ads-now-we-should-ban-car-ads-too-20180312-p4z3y8.html">auto advertising</a>, we stopped wanting them. People look back and wonder why we were so obsessed with them. And for those still addicted to cars, community racing tracks have been set up so people can get their speed and adrenaline fix. </p>
<h2>Back to 2019</h2>
<p>From the perspective of today’s polluted and dangerous streets, this vision of the near future may seem like a pipe dream. But in fact it’s a collection of examples that are already happening somewhere in the world, or research ideas that, with political will and financial incentives, could be implemented. </p>
<p>And what’s not to love? The effects of such a transportation revolution would be incredible. There would be thousands less deaths or serious injuries from traffic accidents, respiratory and coronary diseases every year, reduced depression and social isolation, and an increase in independent traders and a more vibrant local economy. We would no longer have toxic illegal air, carbon emissions from transport would be practically zero and everyone would be able to get around where they live regardless of how rich or poor they are. </p>
<p>It would also drastically help rebuild communities. People would be less lonely, out and about rather than sitting in private vehicles. People would talk more and figure stuff out face to face. Tackling carbon emissions in transport genuinely is a win-win situation.</p>
<p>Getting there won’t be easy. It will require a strong citizen’s movement on the streets, as well as in committee meetings, court rooms and research centres. We will need officials, elected representatives, business leaders, inventors and researchers to become activists and rebel against the current transport status quo. </p>
<p>Time is short to get transport emissions and toxic air under control. But the benefits that transforming transport in this way could offer are huge. We must not miss this moment.</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/263883/original/file-20190314-28475-1mzxjur.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/263883/original/file-20190314-28475-1mzxjur.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263883/original/file-20190314-28475-1mzxjur.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263883/original/file-20190314-28475-1mzxjur.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263883/original/file-20190314-28475-1mzxjur.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=176&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263883/original/file-20190314-28475-1mzxjur.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=176&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263883/original/file-20190314-28475-1mzxjur.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=176&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption"></span>
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</figure>
<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/imagine-newsletter-researchers-think-of-a-world-with-climate-action-113443?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=Imagineheader1124924">Click here to subscribe to our climate action newsletter. Climate change is inevitable. Our response to it isn’t.</a></em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/124924/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul Chatterton receives funding from the UK Government's Economic and Social research Council.</span></em></p>
We need to create a transport system that is zero carbon – and socially just – in only a few years. We just need to recognise that it’s possible.
Paul Chatterton, Professor of Urban Futures, University of Leeds
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/110044
2019-04-18T09:22:03Z
2019-04-18T09:22:03Z
How science fiction and fantasy can help us make sense of the world
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/269582/original/file-20190416-147502-1btfb3v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Costumes from the dystopian novel The Handmaid's Tale.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jim Lo Scalzo</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The world’s a mess. How do thoughtful people make sense of it all? In this series we’ve asked a number of our authors to suggest a book, philosopher, work of art – or anything else, for that matter – that will help to make sense of it all.</em> </p>
<p>Back in the 1990s, some speculative fiction bookshops sold a T-shirt with the slogan, “Reality is for people who can’t cope with fantasy”. Today, bookshops are almost extinct, while fantasy geeks can link to 3-D printers to fabricate their T-shirts. </p>
<p>Speculative fiction consists of multiple varieties, with fantasy and science fiction the two major streams. It has often anticipated new technologies – but that may be the least important reason why reading speculative fiction helps us make sense of the world.</p>
<p>Some writers deny their work belongs in either fantasy or science fiction. Among them, ironically, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/aug/10/speculative-or-science-fiction-as-margaret-atwood-shows-there-isnt-much-distinction">Margaret Attwood</a>, whose own 1985 “Handmaid’s Tale” time-travelled to the site of some of its own dystopian speculations when Donald Trump became US President in 2017.</p>
<p>While science fiction and fantasy ask that most powerful question “What if?” – they also deal with “This, now”: reflecting it, interrogating it and satirising it. </p>
<h2>Global warming</h2>
<p>Speculative writers flesh out our passing thoughts into complete, functioning societies and explore how they might unfold. For example Kim Stanley Robinson looked in <a href="http://www.kimstanleyrobinson.info/content/new-york-2140">“New York 2140”</a> at what if global warming flooded Manhattan.</p>
<p>Or, what if a world without gender shaped a language to match, as in Ann Leckie’s award winning <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/may/01/science-fiction-novel-ancillary-justice-ann-leckie-arthur-c-clarke-award">“Ancillary Justice”</a>? Leckie, considering her linguistic experiment – all her characters take “she” – <a href="https://medium.com/@femfreq/freq-17-ann-leckie-imagines-a-world-without-gender-648479a4915d">notes</a> how this writing tactic affects not only on imagination, but also on the experience of readers in the here and now:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… because it doesn’t use the default gender pronouns, a lot of readers found themselves very aware of the fact that a default was being used, and it wasn’t the normal one… a really interesting experience. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Linked to this, speculative fiction is free to unleash the full power of metaphor. Richard Morgan in <a href="https://www.richardkmorgan.com/books/market-forces/">“Market Forces”</a>, for example, makes literal the rhetorical assertion that global investment bankers have blood on their hands.</p>
<p>Commenting on NK Jemisin’s Hugo-winning Broken Earth trilogy, <em>The Guardian</em> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/24/the-guardian-view-on-science-fiction-the-broken-earth-deserves-its-hugo">says</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It is the particular gift of genre fiction to assume a different background to the mainstream and so delineate character from a different angle. Science fiction carries this change of perspectives to extremes. By changing what counts as figure and what as background, the characters can be seen in ways otherwise impossible – and so, ultimately, we can understand ourselves in ways that would otherwise be impossible.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>And the borders of “understanding ourselves” are widening. <a href="http://nnedi.com/">Nnedi Okorafor</a>, <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/author/tadethompson/">Tade Thompson</a>, Jemisin and many others provide examples of Afro-futurism <a href="https://africasacountry.com/2018/02/africa-is-a-country-in-wakanda">freed</a> from the ethnographic distorting mirror of <a href="https://www.marvel.com/movies/black-panther">Black Panther</a>. They follow on from predecessors like <a href="https://www.nypl.org/blog/2018/06/22/where-start-octavia-butler">Octavia Butler</a>, <a href="https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/6088/samuel-r-delany-the-art-of-fiction-no-210-samuel-r-delany">Samuel R. Delany</a> and <a href="https://www.allmusic.com/artist/sun-ra-mn0000924232/biography">Sun Ra</a>. </p>
<p>Just as Okorafor in “Lagoon” and Thompson in “Rosewater” take us to Nigeria to illuminate the “what-ifs” of that society for Nigerians themselves, so the works of Liu Cixin, Xia Jia and multiple other Chinese speculative writers unfold Chinese concerns. </p>
<p>Translator Ken Liu frequently warns against crude interpretations of Chinese speculative fiction as simply veiled criticism of current regimes. He <a href="https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/2046108/how-sci-fi-translator-ken-liu-helps-chinese-writers">cites</a> Xia’s short story “Tongtong’s Summer”: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>It’s not about better plans from the government or magical fairies coming down to save us. Change comes from (…) trying to convert the tools of cold, impersonal technology, of globalised capitalism, into our own freedoms.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Eurocentric massacres</h2>
<p>Sometimes, critics reduce speculative fiction to the dystopian visions of past and future presented in the macho and often Eurocentric massacres and rapes of <a href="https://www.tor.com/2015/11/02/is-it-grimdark-or-is-it-horror/">Grimdark</a> military fantasy. Or, they conflate the genre with the thinly disguised right-wing survivalism of much post-apocalyptic SF. But that isn’t all there is.</p>
<p>Advocates of both sub-genres employ defences citing “realism”: war really is hell; people really are engaged in a Darwinian struggle for survival; white men really always rule. </p>
<p>Yet fiction writers make conscious choices about what elements they abstract from the real – and how to use them. There are multiple scholarly explorations of these arguments. Let’s just say here that engaging in fabrication and simultaneously arguing that what has been fabricated is “real” rests on very shaky terrain.</p>
<p>Further, as science fiction author Kameron Hurley <a href="http://aidanmoher.com/blog/featured-article/2013/05/we-have-always-fought-challenging-the-women-cattle-and-slaves-narrative-by-kameron-hurley/">argues</a> in her riposte to the tropes of military fantasy sometimes the veracity of the elements writers select is itself shaky. Sometimes they represent arbitrarily Eurocentric picks from a near-infinite landscape. </p>
<p>For a writer such as Aliette de Bodard, of Vietnamese heritage, it’s Annamese dragons that pervade her steampunk, <em>fin de siecle</em> Paris. It’s emblematic of the corrupting history of French colonialism. Introducing such new tropes challenges conservative myth-making. She <a href="https://aliettedebodard.com/2015/09/17/on-colonialism-evil-empires-and-oppressive-systems/">says</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Because we only talk about heroes, we like to think that, back then, we would be among them. And the truth is – most of us wouldn’t. Actually, most of us aren’t, today (…) we buy cheap clothes, cheap electronics made with labour in horrific conditions.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Get together</h2>
<p>The potential to contest is even more striking for those supremacist extrapolations from present to future. Much research <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/21/books/21book.html">suggests</a> that after disasters, people actually get together to help one another. </p>
<p>Speculative writers such as Cory Doctorow react against the way this is under-reported. What if, Doctorow <a href="https://www.sciencefriday.com/articles/just-topia-moving-beyond-the-tropes-of-dystopia/">asks</a>, post-apocalypse,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>instead of your neighbour coming over with a shotgun, they come over with a covered dish? </p>
</blockquote>
<p>His novel “Walkaway” (and Robinson’s “New York 2140”) look forward to just such futures. </p>
<p>Speculative fiction provides vivid cases to provoke debate about such issues and thus helps us “make sense”. Maybe it’s time to wear the T-shirt again, but with a new slogan:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Reality isn’t what you think it is.</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/110044/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gwen Ansell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Speculative writers flesh out our passing thoughts into complete, functioning societies and explore how they might unfold.
Gwen Ansell, Associate of the Gordon Institute for Business Science, University of Pretoria
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/102568
2018-11-01T19:08:21Z
2018-11-01T19:08:21Z
Friday essay: how speculative fiction gained literary respectability
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/243383/original/file-20181101-78447-11kbg3c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Biologists are gathering evidence of green algae (pictured here in Kuwait) becoming carbohydrate-rich but less nutritious, due to increased carbon dioxide levels. As science fiction becomes science fact, new forms of storytelling are emerging.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Raed Qutena</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>I count myself lucky. Weird, I know, in this day and age when all around us the natural and political world is going to hell in a handbasket. But that, in fact, may be part of it.</p>
<p>Back when I started writing, realism had such a stranglehold on publishing that there was little room for speculative writers and readers. (I didn’t know that’s what I was until I read it in a reader’s report for my first novel. And even then I didn’t know what it was, until I realised that it was what I read, and had always been reading; what I wrote, and wanted to write.) Outside of the convention rooms, that is, which were packed with less-literary-leaning science-fiction and fantasy producers and consumers.</p>
<p>Realism was the rule, even for those writing non-realist stories, such as popular crime and commercial romance. Perhaps this dominance was because of a culture heavily influenced by an Anglo-Saxon heritage. Richard Lea has <a>written in The Guardian</a> of “non-fiction” as a construct of English literature, arguing other cultures do not distinguish so obsessively between stories on the basis of whether or not they are “real”. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242854/original/file-20181030-76413-egap2j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242854/original/file-20181030-76413-egap2j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242854/original/file-20181030-76413-egap2j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=746&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242854/original/file-20181030-76413-egap2j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=746&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242854/original/file-20181030-76413-egap2j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=746&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242854/original/file-20181030-76413-egap2j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=937&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242854/original/file-20181030-76413-egap2j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=937&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242854/original/file-20181030-76413-egap2j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=937&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">China Miéville in 2010.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Pan MacMillan Australia/AAP</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>Regardless of the reason, this conception of literary fiction has been widely accepted – leading self-described “weird fiction” novelist China Miéville to identify the Booker as <a>a genre prize for specifically realist literary fiction</a>; a category he calls “litfic”. The best writers Australia is famous for producing aren’t only a product of this environment, but also role models who perpetuate it: Tim Winton and Helen Garner write similarly realistically, albeit generally fiction for one and non-fiction for the other. </p>
<p>Today, realism remains the most popular literary mode. Our education system trains us to appreciate literatures of verisimilitude; or, rather, literature we identify as “real”, charting interior landscapes and emotional journeys that generally represent a quite particular version of middle-class life. It’s one that may not have much in common these days with many people’s experiences – middle-class, Anglo or otherwise – or even our exterior world(s). </p>
<p>Like other kinds of biases, realism has been normalised, but there is now a growing recognition – a re-evaluation – of different kinds of “un-real” storytelling: “speculative” fiction, so-called for its obviously invented and inventive aspects. </p>
<p>Feminist science-fiction writer Ursula K. Le Guin <a>has described this diversification</a> as: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>a much larger collective conviction about who’s entitled to tell stories, what stories are worth telling, and who among the storytellers gets taken seriously … not only in terms of race and gender, but in terms of what has long been labelled “genre” fiction.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Closer to home, author Jane Rawson – who has written short stories and novels and co-authored a <a href="http://www.survivingclimatechange.net/">non-fiction handbook on “surviving” climate change</a> – has described the stranglehold realistic writing has on Australian stories in <a href="https://overland.org.au/previous-issues/issue-230/essay-jane-rawson">an article for Overland</a>, yet her own work evidences a new appreciation for alternative, novel modes. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242851/original/file-20181030-76399-1rwrngb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242851/original/file-20181030-76399-1rwrngb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242851/original/file-20181030-76399-1rwrngb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=913&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242851/original/file-20181030-76399-1rwrngb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=913&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242851/original/file-20181030-76399-1rwrngb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=913&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242851/original/file-20181030-76399-1rwrngb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1148&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242851/original/file-20181030-76399-1rwrngb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1148&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242851/original/file-20181030-76399-1rwrngb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1148&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<p>Rawson’s latest book, From the Wreck, intertwines the story of her ancestor George Hills, who was shipwrecked off the coast of South Australia and survived eight days at sea, with the tale of a shape-shifting alien seeking refuge on Earth. In an Australian first, it was long-listed for the Miles Franklin, our most prestigious literary award, after having won the niche Aurealis Award for Speculative Fiction. </p>
<p>The Aurealis awards were established in 1995 by the publishers of Australia’s longest-running, small-press science-fiction and fantasy magazine of the same name. As well as recognising the achievements of Australian science-fiction, fantasy and horror writers, they were designed to distinguish between those speculative subgenres.</p>
<p>Last year, five of the six finalists for the <a href="https://aurealisawards.org/about/">Aurealis awards</a> were published, promoted and shelved as literary fiction. </p>
<h2>A broad church</h2>
<p>Perhaps what counts as speculative fiction is also changing. The term is certainly not new; it was first used in an 1889 review, but came into more common usage after genre author Robert Heinlein’s 1947 essay <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Writing_of_Speculative_Fiction">On the Writing of Speculative Fiction</a>. </p>
<p>Whereas science fiction generally engages with technological developments and their potential consequences, speculative fiction is a far broader, vaguer term. It can be seen as an offshoot of the popular science-fiction genre, or a more neutral umbrella category that simply describes all non-realist forms, including fantasy and fairytales – from the epic of Gilgamesh through to The Handmaid’s Tale.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/guide-to-the-classics-the-epic-of-gilgamesh-73444">Guide to the classics: the Epic of Gilgamesh</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>While critic James Wood argues that “everything flows from the real … it is realism that allows surrealism, magic realism, fantasy, dream and so on”, others, such as author Doris Lessing, believe that everything flows from the fantastic; that all fiction has always been speculative. I am not as interested in which came first (or which has more cultural, or commercial, value) as I am in the fact that speculative fiction – “spec-fic” – seems to be gaining literary respectability.
(Next step, surely, mainstream popularity! After all, millions of moviegoers and television viewers have binge-watched the rise of fantastic forms, and audiences are well versed in unreal onscreen worlds.)</p>
<p>One reason for this new interest in an old but evolving form has been <a href="https://sydneyreviewofbooks.com/writing-on-the-precipice-climate-change/">well articulated</a> by author and critic James Bradley: climate change. Writers, and publishers, are embracing speculative fiction as an apt form to interrogate what it means to be human, to be humane, in the current climate – and to engage with ideas of posthumanism too. </p>
<p>These are the sorts of existential questions that have historically driven realist literature. </p>
<p>According to the World Wildlife Fund’s <a href="https://wwf.panda.org/knowledge_hub/all_publications/living_planet_report_2018/">2018 Living Planet Report</a>, 60% of the world’s wildlife disappeared between 1970 and 2012. The year 2016 was declared the <a href="http://www.climatecentral.org/gallery/graphics/the-10-hottest-global-years-on-record">hottest on record, echoing the previous year and the one before that</a>. People under 30 have never experienced a month in which average temperatures are below the long-term mean. Hurricanes register on the Richter scale and the Australian Bureau of Meteorology has added a colour to temperature maps as the heat keeps on climbing. </p>
<p>Science fiction? Science fact.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/243108/original/file-20181030-76408-4mq92x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/243108/original/file-20181030-76408-4mq92x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/243108/original/file-20181030-76408-4mq92x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/243108/original/file-20181030-76408-4mq92x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/243108/original/file-20181030-76408-4mq92x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/243108/original/file-20181030-76408-4mq92x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/243108/original/file-20181030-76408-4mq92x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/243108/original/file-20181030-76408-4mq92x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A baby Francois Langur at Taronga Zoo in June. François Langurs are a critically endangered species found in China and Vietnam.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP Image/Supplied by Taronga Zoo</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>What are we to do about this? Well, <a href="https://www.the-trouble.com/content/2018/10/14/what-must-we-do-to-live">according to writer and geographer Samuel Miller-McDonald</a>, “If you’re a writer, then you have to write about this.” </p>
<p>There is an <a href="https://brilliantmaps.com/climate-australia/">infographic doing the rounds</a> on Facebook that shows sister countries with comparable climates to (warming) regions of Australia. But it doesn’t reflect the real issue. Associate Professor Michael Kearney, Research Fellow in Biosciences at the University of Melbourne, points out that no-one anywhere in the world has any experience of our current CO<sub>2</sub> levels. The changed environment is, he says – using a word that is particularly appropriate for my argument – a “novel” situation. </p>
<p>Elsewhere, <a href="https://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2017/09/13/food-nutrients-carbon-dioxide-000511">biologists are gathering evidence</a> of algae that carbon dioxide has made carbohydrate-rich but less nutritious. So the plankton that rely on them to survive might eat more and more and yet still starve.</p>
<p>Fiction focused on the inner lives of a limited cross-section of people no longer seems the best literary form to reflect, or reflect on, our brave new outer world – if, indeed, it ever was. </p>
<p>Whether it’s a creative response to catastrophic climate change, or an empathic, philosophical attempt to express cultural, economic, neurological – or even species – diversification, the recognition works such as Rawson’s are receiving surely shows we have left Modernism behind and entered the era of Anthropocene literature.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242852/original/file-20181030-76390-qss7x8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242852/original/file-20181030-76390-qss7x8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242852/original/file-20181030-76390-qss7x8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=916&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242852/original/file-20181030-76390-qss7x8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=916&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242852/original/file-20181030-76390-qss7x8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=916&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242852/original/file-20181030-76390-qss7x8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1152&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242852/original/file-20181030-76390-qss7x8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1152&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242852/original/file-20181030-76390-qss7x8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1152&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
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</figure>
<p>And her book is not alone. Other wild titles achieving similar success include Krissy Kneen’s An Uncertain Grace, shortlisted for the Aurealis, the Stella prize and the <a href="https://asff.org.au/new/awards/hemming-award/">Norma K. Hemming award</a> – given to mark excellence in the exploration of themes of race, gender, sexuality, class or disability in a speculative fiction work. </p>
<p>Kneen’s book connects five stories spanning a century, navigating themes of sexuality – including erotic explorations of transgression and transmutation – against the backdrop of a changing ocean. </p>
<p>Earlier, more realist but still speculative titles (from 2015) include Mireille Juchau’s <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26022403-the-world-without-us?from_search=true">The World Without Us</a> and Bradley’s <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23307015-clade?from_search=true">Clade</a>. These novels fit better with Miéville’s description of “litfic”, employing realistic literary techniques that would not be out of place in Winton’s books, but they have been called “cli-fi” for the way they put climate change squarely at the forefront of their stories (though their authors tend to resist such <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/mireille-juchau-and-the-world-without-us-20150902-gjdheu.html">generic categorisation</a>).</p>
<p>Both novels, told across time and from multiple points of view, are concerned with radically changed and catastrophically changing environments, and how the negative consequences of our one-world experiment might well – or, rather, ill – play out. </p>
<p>Catherine McKinnnon’s <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32334784-storyland?from_search=true">Storyland</a> is a more recent example that similarly has a fantastic aspect. The author describes her different chapters set in different times, culminating – Cloud Atlas–like, in one futuristic episode – as “timeslips” or “time shifts” rather than time travel. Yet it has been received as speculative – and not in a pejorative way, despite how some “high-art” literary authors may feel about “low-brow” genre associations.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/243409/original/file-20181101-173913-1dku149.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/243409/original/file-20181101-173913-1dku149.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/243409/original/file-20181101-173913-1dku149.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/243409/original/file-20181101-173913-1dku149.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/243409/original/file-20181101-173913-1dku149.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/243409/original/file-20181101-173913-1dku149.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/243409/original/file-20181101-173913-1dku149.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/243409/original/file-20181101-173913-1dku149.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Kazuo Ishiguro in 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Neil Hall/AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Kazuo Ishiguro, for instance, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/20/books/for-kazuo-ishiguro-the-buried-giant-is-a-departure.html">told The New York Times</a> when <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22522805-the-buried-giant?ac=1&from_search=true">The Buried Giant</a> was released in 2015 that he was fearful readers would not “follow him” into Arthurian Britain. Le Guin was quick to call him out on his obvious attempt to distance himself from the fantasy category. Michel Faber, around the same time, told a Wheeler Centre audience that his <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20697435-the-book-of-strange-new-things?from_search=true">Book of Strange New Things</a>, where a missionary is sent to convert an alien race, was “not about aliens” but alienation. Of course it is the latter, but it is also about the other.</p>
<p>All these more-and-less-speculative fictions – these not-traditionally-realist literatures – analyse the world in a way that it is not usually analysed, to echo <a href="https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2014/01/09/fascinating-fearless-distinctly-odd/">Tim Parks’s criterion for the best novels</a>. Interestingly, this sounds suspiciously like science-fiction critic Darko Suvin’s famous conception of the genre as a literature of “cognitive estrangement”, which inspires readers to re-view their own world, think in new ways, and – most importantly – take appropriate action.</p>
<h2>A new party</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242853/original/file-20181030-76411-5towti.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242853/original/file-20181030-76411-5towti.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242853/original/file-20181030-76411-5towti.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242853/original/file-20181030-76411-5towti.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242853/original/file-20181030-76411-5towti.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242853/original/file-20181030-76411-5towti.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1153&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242853/original/file-20181030-76411-5towti.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1153&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242853/original/file-20181030-76411-5towti.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1153&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<p>Perhaps better case studies of what local spec-fic is or does – when considering questions of diversity – are Charlotte Wood’s The Natural Way of Things and Claire Coleman’s Terra Nullius. </p>
<p>The first is a distinctly Aussie Handmaid’s Tale for our times, where “girls” guilty by association with some unspecified sexual scenario are drugged, abducted and held captive in a remote outback location.</p>
<p>The latter is another idea whose time has come: an apocalyptic act of colonisation. Not such an imagined scenario for Noongar woman Coleman. It’s a tricky plot to tell without giving away spoilers – the book opens on an alternative history, or is it a futuristic Australia? Again, the story is told through different points of view, which prioritises collective storytelling over the authority of a single voice.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-science-fictions-women-problem-58626">Friday essay: science fiction's women problem</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>“The entire purpose of writing Terra Nullius,” <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/australia-books-blog/2017/aug/22/speculative-fiction-is-a-powerful-political-tool-from-war-of-the-worlds-to-terra-nullius">Coleman has said</a>, “was to provoke empathy in people who had none.”</p>
<p>This connection of reading with empathy is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/oct/15/neil-gaiman-future-libraries-reading-daydreaming">a case Neil Gaiman made</a> in a 2013 lecture when he told of how China’s first party-approved science-fiction and fantasy convention had come about five years earlier. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/243384/original/file-20181101-78447-1ckroku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/243384/original/file-20181101-78447-1ckroku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/243384/original/file-20181101-78447-1ckroku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=851&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/243384/original/file-20181101-78447-1ckroku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=851&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/243384/original/file-20181101-78447-1ckroku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=851&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/243384/original/file-20181101-78447-1ckroku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1070&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/243384/original/file-20181101-78447-1ckroku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1070&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/243384/original/file-20181101-78447-1ckroku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1070&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Neil Gaiman.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Julien Warnand/EPA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Chinese had sent delegates to Apple and Google etc to try to work out why America was inventing the future, he said. And they had discovered that all the programmers, all the entrepreneurs, had read science fiction when they were children. </p>
<p>“Fiction can show you a different world,” said Gaiman. “It can take you somewhere you’ve never been.” </p>
<p>And when you come back, you see things differently. And you might decide to do something about that: you might change the future.</p>
<p>Perhaps the key to why speculative fiction is on the rise is the ways in which it is not “hard” science fiction. Rather than focusing on technology and world-building to the point of potential fetishism, as our “real” world seems to be doing, what we are reading today is a sophisticated literature engaging with contemporary cultural, social and political matters – through the lens of an “un-real” idea, which may be little more than a metaphor or errant speculation.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/102568/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rose Michael does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
As we enter the age of the Anthropocene, there is a growing recognition of different kinds of ‘un-real’ storytelling.
Rose Michael, Lecturer, Writing & Publishing, RMIT University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/93623
2018-03-23T12:17:01Z
2018-03-23T12:17:01Z
Ready Player One: we are surprisingly close to realising just such a VR dystopia
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/211699/original/file-20180323-54872-cilvw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Warner Bros.</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>I was fortunate enough to catch a preview screening of <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/15/books/ready-player-one-by-ernest-cline-review.html">Ready Player One</a>, Steven Spielberg’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSp1dM2Vj48">adaptation</a> of Ernest Cline’s futuristic novel. It blew me away. What really caught my attention wasn’t just the awesome references to 1980s pop culture, or the mind-blowing set pieces. It was also the sub-text of the philosophical and cultural impact of gaming and related technologies.</p>
<p>The film is set in a world where humanity is in real crisis. The environment has collapsed, the economy has collapsed. Essentially, society as we know it has collapsed. And what is humanity’s response to these crises? Escapism. Much of human life is spent in a virtual simulation called The Oasis.</p>
<p>In this vision of the future, everything that we currently do in the real world – going to school, going to work, socialising, leisure – is done in this vast virtual environment. This may seem wildly speculative and unlikely – but as my research in gaming shows, we are much nearer to such a reality than it may seem.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/211696/original/file-20180323-54881-1lgn1gz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/211696/original/file-20180323-54881-1lgn1gz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=251&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/211696/original/file-20180323-54881-1lgn1gz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=251&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/211696/original/file-20180323-54881-1lgn1gz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=251&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/211696/original/file-20180323-54881-1lgn1gz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/211696/original/file-20180323-54881-1lgn1gz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/211696/original/file-20180323-54881-1lgn1gz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The real world.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Warner Bros.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The reality of VR</h2>
<p>The main underpinning theme of Ready Player One is mankind’s reliance on a simulated world – The Oasis – which is accessed through virtual reality equipment. While virtual reality has been a concept that has been around <a href="https://www.vrs.org.uk/virtual-reality/history.html">since the 1950s</a>, it has never been more available to the average consumer. Technologies such as Oculus Rift and other mobile based technologies are starting to allow users to further immerse themselves in computer generated alternate realities. This has wonderful applications in the gaming world, but there are some more serious applications that are being researched and are even in use.</p>
<p>For example, Augmented Reality – a kind of virtual reality that mixes what we see around us with overlaid computer-generated imagery – can now enable doctors to <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/01/180124172408.htm">see into a human body</a> without cutting it open. This technology combines CT scans and MRI data, and projects them onto the relevant area of a patient’s body. This has fantastic implications in the medical world, as it means that explorative diagnosis can avoid any unnecessary invasive procedures.</p>
<p>The goal of virtual reality research is to render as realistic an experience as possible. This includes vision through higher and higher definition VR goggles, sound through noise cancelling high definition earpieces, touch through feedback technologies such as the <a href="https://vrgluv.com/">VRgluv</a>, and even <a href="https://www.wareable.com/vr/senses-touch-taste-smell-immersion-7776">taste and smell</a>.</p>
<p>Total immersion is the key and, as you can see, we are already encroaching on this territory.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/cSp1dM2Vj48?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
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<h2>Social computer games</h2>
<p>If we are starting to see technology that could potentially give us access to virtual worlds like The Oasis, we might need to consider how that kind of immersion will affect humanity. We are already aware that immersion into game systems can have a detrimental affect on health. People have even <a href="https://www.thegamer.com/15-people-who-have-died-playing-video-games/">died playing them</a>.</p>
<p>As technology advances to simulate the world with ever higher levels of fidelity, we need to ask whether these virtual worlds could ever become preferable to the standard everyday reality we were born into. If we listen to people like Mark Zuckerberg, who <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/mark-zuckerberg-virtual-reality-better-real-world-comments-vr-a7995546.html">claims</a> that virtual reality could eventually be made better than reality, then this might lead people to spend more time plugged into VR in their daily lives.</p>
<p>This being the case, would society end up turning its back on the problems of the real world? And would this necessarily be a bad thing? After all, that might also mean that human environmental impact could be reduced.</p>
<p>Another aspect alluded to by the premise of Ready Player One are the effects of social media. In the film, society spends much of their waking lives online, leaving only to eat and sleep. In this sense, the Oasis represents a kind of full immersion social media platform with a multitude of applications.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/211702/original/file-20180323-54872-1qe68rn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/211702/original/file-20180323-54872-1qe68rn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=249&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/211702/original/file-20180323-54872-1qe68rn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=249&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/211702/original/file-20180323-54872-1qe68rn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=249&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/211702/original/file-20180323-54872-1qe68rn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=313&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/211702/original/file-20180323-54872-1qe68rn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=313&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/211702/original/file-20180323-54872-1qe68rn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=313&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Avatar life.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Warner Bros.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We only need to look around the next crowded area we go to in order to see people browsing social media platforms on their ubiquitous mobile devices. Individuals are spending <a href="https://www.socialmediatoday.com/marketing/how-much-time-do-people-spend-social-media-infographic">more and more time</a> on social media platforms and it is easy to conclude that, if something like The Oasis was released today, the impulse we are seeing in society would very easily translate to this more immersive platform.</p>
<h2>How we place value</h2>
<p>Early in Ready Player One, we discover that the founder of The Oasis has passed away, with no heirs. And so he states in his will that the keys to the controlling stock of The Oasis and his company can be found somewhere in his creation. This sparks a whole new movement in society called “The Hunt” which sees huge numbers of people trawling for clues that might reveal the location of this hidden “Easter Egg”. Indeed, so serious are the implications of this that entire companies are formed just to crack the puzzles left by the founder of The Oasis, and the devious tricks and efforts even spill over into the real world.</p>
<p>And so the film also sheds an interesting light on what we, as human beings, see as valuable. Traditionally, we are used to attaching value to tangible things that we can touch. But we are moving into an age when people are spending money on artefacts that are entirely digital. We only need to look at millionaires like <a href="http://fortune.com/2006/11/27/anshe-chung-first-virtual-millionaire/">Anshe Chung</a> (real name: Ailin Graef), who got rich by selling virtual land and property, to see that people can make millions just by trading in 1s and 0s.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/211698/original/file-20180323-54903-xkof4h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/211698/original/file-20180323-54903-xkof4h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=249&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/211698/original/file-20180323-54903-xkof4h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=249&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/211698/original/file-20180323-54903-xkof4h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=249&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/211698/original/file-20180323-54903-xkof4h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=313&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/211698/original/file-20180323-54903-xkof4h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=313&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/211698/original/file-20180323-54903-xkof4h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=313&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Plugged in.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Warner Bros.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Additionally, games companies use in-game purchases, as well as <a href="http://www.spilgames.com/game-design/11-monetization-strategies-for-game-developers/">other monetisation strategies</a>, to increase income from products initially distributed for free. And it would be remiss not to mention <a href="https://blockgeeks.com/guides/what-is-cryptocurrency/">cryptocurrencies</a> when we are discussing the fact that value systems are becoming more and more digital.</p>
<p>As our lives become more digital, so are the things that can assist us in this new world that we are prepared to invest in.</p>
<p>Perhaps, then, Ready Player One isn’t as fantastical as you may think. There is plenty of evidence to show that the realisation of this alternate, fully accessible, virtual world may be just a matter of time.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/93623/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Craig Weightman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
In this vision of the future, everything that we currently do in the real world – going to school, going to work, socialising, leisure – is done in a vast virtual environment.
Craig Weightman, Lecturer in Games and Visual Effects, Staffordshire University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/82306
2017-08-17T23:03:14Z
2017-08-17T23:03:14Z
Worth reading: Bitcoin, BlackBerry, time travel and other outcomes
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/182500/original/file-20170817-28160-zg3tnr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Editor’s note: The Conversation Canada asked our academic authors to share some recommended reading. In this instalment, Joshua Gans, an economist who wrote about how an <a href="https://theconversation.com/energy-fuels-star-trek-economy-78484">energy revolution will transform the economy and our lives</a>, offers up new picks along with a few of his favourite books.</em> </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/182488/original/file-20170817-10986-67igt9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/182488/original/file-20170817-10986-67igt9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/182488/original/file-20170817-10986-67igt9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=925&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182488/original/file-20170817-10986-67igt9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=925&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182488/original/file-20170817-10986-67igt9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=925&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182488/original/file-20170817-10986-67igt9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1163&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182488/original/file-20170817-10986-67igt9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1163&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182488/original/file-20170817-10986-67igt9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1163&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"><em>Before Babylon, Beyond Bitcoin</em> by David Birch.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Handout</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35480869-before-babylon-beyond-bitcoin"><em>Before Babylon, Beyond Bitcoin</em></a></h2>
<p>By David Birch (Non-fiction. Hardcover, 2017. London Publishing Partnership)</p>
<p>David Birch’s previous book, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22227908-identity-is-the-new-money"><em>Identity is the New Money</em></a>, was fantastic in the way it drew a relationship between the money you have and your identity in society. This follow-up includes an analysis of <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=cryptocurrency">cryptocurrencies</a> such as <a href="https://bitcoin.org/en/faq#what-is-bitcoin">Bitcoin</a>. Money is a deeper issue than many economists appreciate. Indeed, it is something economists ignore by assumption: Money sits in the background without an impact itself on real economic decisions. That’s why I always value alternative perspectives that make me think. I’m looking forward to reading this one but it will have to wait until I have a good chunk of time to get the most out of it. </p>
<p> </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/182495/original/file-20170817-2389-1tz4tau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/182495/original/file-20170817-2389-1tz4tau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/182495/original/file-20170817-2389-1tz4tau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=906&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182495/original/file-20170817-2389-1tz4tau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=906&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182495/original/file-20170817-2389-1tz4tau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=906&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182495/original/file-20170817-2389-1tz4tau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1139&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182495/original/file-20170817-2389-1tz4tau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1139&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182495/original/file-20170817-2389-1tz4tau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1139&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"><em>Losing the Signal</em> by Jacquie McNish and Sean Silcoff.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Handout</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25602451-losing-the-signal"><em>Losing the Signal</em></a></h2>
<p>By Sean Silcoff and Jacquie McNish (Non-fiction. Hardcover, 2015. Flatiron Books.)</p>
<p>This book, written by two Canadian journalists, is the definitive business history of BlackBerry, maker of what was once a must-have namesake smartphone. It traces the history of the Canadian technology giant’s “extraordinary rise and spectacular fall,” to quote the subtitle. For example, the book offers unparalleled insight into how disruption can be caused by internal decisions. I believe it’s a must-read for anyone seeking to understand disruption and why successful firms fail. </p>
<p> </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/182489/original/file-20170817-28160-1aqx0ym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/182489/original/file-20170817-28160-1aqx0ym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/182489/original/file-20170817-28160-1aqx0ym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=945&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182489/original/file-20170817-28160-1aqx0ym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=945&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182489/original/file-20170817-28160-1aqx0ym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=945&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182489/original/file-20170817-28160-1aqx0ym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1187&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182489/original/file-20170817-28160-1aqx0ym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1187&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182489/original/file-20170817-28160-1aqx0ym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1187&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"><em>On Intelligence</em> by Jeff Hawkins.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Handout</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27539.On_Intelligence"><em>On Intelligence</em></a></h2>
<p>By Jeff Hawkins with Sandra Blakeslee (Non-fiction. Hardcover, 2004. St. Martin’s Press.)</p>
<p><a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/jeff_hawkins_on_how_brain_science_will_change_computing">Jeff Hawkins</a> is the inventor of the PalmPilot electronic assistant that made a pocket computer an essential personal tool and paved the way for the BlackBerry, iPhone and other mobile computers. His book is 13 years old but has <a href="https://www.wired.com/brandlab/2015/05/jeff-hawkins-firing-silicon-brain/">new relevance</a> as its central thesis — that intelligence is all about predictive ability — is now at the centre of the recent explosion in machine learning and artificial intelligence.</p>
<p> </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180245/original/file-20170728-23788-7gyilq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180245/original/file-20170728-23788-7gyilq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180245/original/file-20170728-23788-7gyilq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180245/original/file-20170728-23788-7gyilq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180245/original/file-20170728-23788-7gyilq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180245/original/file-20170728-23788-7gyilq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1138&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180245/original/file-20170728-23788-7gyilq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1138&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180245/original/file-20170728-23788-7gyilq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1138&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"><em>All Our Wrong Todays</em> by Elan Mastai.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Handout</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27405006-all-our-wrong-todays"><em>All Our Wrong Todays</em></a></h2>
<p>By Elan Mastai (Fiction. Hardcover, 2017. Doubleday Canada.)</p>
<p>An interesting time travel journey wrapped up in a family drama where consequences remain consequences. It is also mostly set in Toronto, making it nicely familiar for Canadian readers. One of the things I appreciated about this book is that it deals with a big time travel problem: How can you go back in time and end up in the same physical place you started when the Earth is always moving through space — on its axis, around the sun, in the solar system, in the Milky Way — while the galaxy itself is moving through the universe? That alone makes <em>All Our Wrong Todays</em> more thoughtful than the usual offerings on this subject. [<em>Editor’s note: <a href="https://theconversation.com/worth-reading-future-visions-of-women-war-time-and-space-81658">Bryan Gaensler also recommended</a> this book in his reading list.</em>] </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/182504/original/file-20170817-28151-1bmfkdu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/182504/original/file-20170817-28151-1bmfkdu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=925&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182504/original/file-20170817-28151-1bmfkdu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=925&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182504/original/file-20170817-28151-1bmfkdu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=925&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182504/original/file-20170817-28151-1bmfkdu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1163&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182504/original/file-20170817-28151-1bmfkdu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1163&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182504/original/file-20170817-28151-1bmfkdu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1163&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/703.The_Plot_Against_America"><em>The Plot Against America</em></a></h2>
<p>By Philip Roth (Fiction. Hardcover, 2004. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.)</p>
<p>An alternative history in which <a href="https://www.biography.com/people/charles-lindbergh-9382609">Charles Lindbergh</a>, the famous aviator, wins the presidency in 1940 and keeps the United States out of the Second World War. Suffice to say, for anyone living in 2016 and 2017 observing U.S. politics today, there is something chilling about this book given that Roth wrote it a decade ago. You will recognize the trends and concerns that perhaps make up the American mindset that leave its democracy vulnerable to populism.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/82306/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joshua Gans has received funding from the Sloan Foundation.</span></em></p>
The future and the past, money, technology and politics documented and imagined in fact and fiction, in an economist’s recommended reading.
Joshua Gans, Professor of Strategic Management, University of Toronto
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/81658
2017-08-03T00:04:13Z
2017-08-03T00:04:13Z
Worth reading: Future visions of women, war, time and space
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180090/original/file-20170727-8492-1uz4jp3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3000%2C1998&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Former Globe and Mail newspaper reporter turned novelist Omar El Akkad contemplates his debut book _American War_ in his publisher's Toronto office in this 2017 file photo. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.cpimages.com/fotoweb/cpimages_details.pop.fwx?position=3&archiveType=ImageFolder&sorting=ModifiedTimeAsc&search=omar%20and%20el%20and%20akkad&fileId=7ED4E565C8CEED276553137C3F07278F0211563F5E7047DF3AAB663AE59BB0CF1642B0B80D34257E6710EC2568FB7698B59B4D70A14C35A58152C97161CDE0D6B04E7CE9AA485A90E4AEC54C277A369E3B7CAC16A4D3910C42F841C1FF39A6F82A1B1FF576DC98DF2CBC8470DC9E2A6ECB3FE13564EA8A05F21FEEB4402E3B87313C2338D9C9BAFAFBE8F7FDA2D826E5">(THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young)</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Editor’s note: The Conversation Canada asked our academic authors to share some recommended reading. In this instalment, Bryan Gaensler, an astronomer who wrote about how an <a href="https://theconversation.com/humans-in-2167-internet-implants-and-no-sleep-79402">life will change for people in 150 years</a>, highlights a few of his recent picks.</em> </p>
<p>My passion is science fiction. Here are my favourite sci-fi books that I’ve read this year:
</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180248/original/file-20170728-1529-562oq2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180248/original/file-20170728-1529-562oq2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180248/original/file-20170728-1529-562oq2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=949&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180248/original/file-20170728-1529-562oq2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=949&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180248/original/file-20170728-1529-562oq2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=949&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180248/original/file-20170728-1529-562oq2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1192&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180248/original/file-20170728-1529-562oq2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1192&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180248/original/file-20170728-1529-562oq2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1192&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"><em>The Power</em> by Naomi Alderman.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Handout</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29751398-the-power"><em>The Power</em></a></h2>
<p>by Naomi Alderman (Fiction. Hardcover, 2016. Penguin.)</p>
<p>Women around the globe spontaneously develop the ability to deliver electric shocks through their fingertips. As they begin to use this power to intimidate, control and kill, the world order is turned upside down.</p>
<p>A spectacular novel, and surely the favourite to sweep all the sci-fi book awards for 2017. People can be both cruel and good-intentioned, often at the same time. Introduce a new power imbalance, and society is abruptly transformed. Wonderful writing, and a whopper of a story twist. Turns <em>The Handmaid’s Tale</em> on its head.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180097/original/file-20170727-8516-3e4mh8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180097/original/file-20170727-8516-3e4mh8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180097/original/file-20170727-8516-3e4mh8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=912&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180097/original/file-20170727-8516-3e4mh8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=912&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180097/original/file-20170727-8516-3e4mh8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=912&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180097/original/file-20170727-8516-3e4mh8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1146&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180097/original/file-20170727-8516-3e4mh8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1146&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180097/original/file-20170727-8516-3e4mh8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1146&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"><em>American War</em> by Omar El Akkad.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Handout</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32283423-american-war"><em>American War</em></a></h2>
<p>by Omar El Akkad (Fiction. Hardcover, 2017. McClelland & Stewart.)</p>
<p>A hundred years from now, Florida has vanished under the seas, the Bouazizi Empire is the new world superpower, and the United States has begun its second civil war. In the South, a young woman ends up in a refugee camp and is slowly radicalized into terrorism.</p>
<p>An intense, moving portrait of a future America that maybe isn’t the future after all. The characters are complex and the story is all too real. A spectacular debut.</p>
<p> </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180245/original/file-20170728-23788-7gyilq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180245/original/file-20170728-23788-7gyilq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180245/original/file-20170728-23788-7gyilq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180245/original/file-20170728-23788-7gyilq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180245/original/file-20170728-23788-7gyilq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180245/original/file-20170728-23788-7gyilq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1138&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180245/original/file-20170728-23788-7gyilq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1138&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180245/original/file-20170728-23788-7gyilq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1138&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"><em>All Our Wrong Todays</em> by Elan Mastai.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Handout</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27405006-all-our-wrong-todays"><em>All Our Wrong Todays</em></a></h2>
<p>by Elan Mastai (Fiction. Hardcover, 2017. Doubleday Canada.)</p>
<p>Tom Barren travels back in time, accidentally alters the course of history, and returns to a horrifically changed, dystopian present day. The catch? Tom grew up in a utopia of flying cars and moon bases, and the dystopia that he finds himself trapped in is <em>our</em> timeline, warts and all.</p>
<p>A gem of a story that provides several new twists on time travel. If you’ve screwed up the timeline, should you fix it? What if there were two different ways to travel through time, with different rules and different consequences? And under all of this is the classic sci-fi question writ on the scale of billions of lives: Do the needs of the many outweigh the needs of a few? Hard to put down, with a lovable lead character.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180414/original/file-20170731-22175-qpxhub.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180414/original/file-20170731-22175-qpxhub.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180414/original/file-20170731-22175-qpxhub.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=912&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180414/original/file-20170731-22175-qpxhub.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=912&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180414/original/file-20170731-22175-qpxhub.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=912&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180414/original/file-20170731-22175-qpxhub.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1146&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180414/original/file-20170731-22175-qpxhub.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1146&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180414/original/file-20170731-22175-qpxhub.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1146&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"><em>4 3 2 1</em> by Paul Auster.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Handout</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30244626-4-3-2-1"><em>4 3 2 1</em></a></h2>
<p>by Paul Auster (Fiction. Hardcover, 2017. McClelland & Stewart.)</p>
<p>The life story of Archibald Isaac Ferguson, born in 1947 in Newark, N.J. Except that this is the story of four identical Fergusons, each of whom take divergent paths as their lives play out.</p>
<p>A tour de force story of adolescence and the path not taken. It’s hard to believe a single author could possibly cram so many real-life details, emotions and characters into a single book. Extraordinarily memorable and engaging.</p>
<p> </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180094/original/file-20170727-8516-1thea9f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180094/original/file-20170727-8516-1thea9f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180094/original/file-20170727-8516-1thea9f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=906&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180094/original/file-20170727-8516-1thea9f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=906&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180094/original/file-20170727-8516-1thea9f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=906&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180094/original/file-20170727-8516-1thea9f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1139&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180094/original/file-20170727-8516-1thea9f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1139&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180094/original/file-20170727-8516-1thea9f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1139&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"><em>The Collapsing Empire</em> by John Scalzi.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Handout</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30282601-the-collapsing-empire"><em>The Collapsing Empire</em></a></h2>
<p>by John Scalzi (Fiction. Hardcover, 2017. Tor.)</p>
<p>Humans have spread throughout a galactic empire, our worlds interconnected by faster-than-light wormholes. But what happens to trade, the economy and civilisation itself when the wormholes start to break down?</p>
<p>A fun and fast-spaced space opera, centred on some forthright women and some fresh ideas. In the spirit of Asimov’s <em>Foundation</em>, Scalzi explores the theme of the downfall of empire on a galaxy-spanning scale.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/81658/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bryan Gaensler receives funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and from the Canada Research Chairs Program.</span></em></p>
Astronomer Bryan Gaensler picks five speculative and science fiction novels worth reading, including Omar El Akkad’s American War.
Bryan Gaensler, Director, Dunlap Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Toronto
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/80275
2017-07-19T20:00:53Z
2017-07-19T20:00:53Z
Explainer: ‘solarpunk’, or how to be an optimistic radical
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178929/original/file-20170719-13545-7rjaa1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Solarpunk imagines a sustainable future, and what it might be like to live in it.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Image from www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Punks (of the 70s and 80s kind) were not known for their optimism. Quite the opposite in fact. Raging against the establishment in various ways, there was “no future” because, according to the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02D2T3wGCYg">Sex Pistols</a>, punks are “the poison / In your human machine / We’re the future / Your future”. To be punk, was, by definition, to resist the future.</p>
<p>In contrast, the most basic definition of solarpunk — offered by musician and photographer <a href="https://thejaymo.tumblr.com/">Jay Springett</a> — is that it is a movement in speculative fiction, art, fashion and activism</p>
<blockquote>
<p>that seeks to answer and embody the question ‘<a href="https://medium.com/solarpunks/solarpunk-a-reference-guide-8bcf18871965">what does a sustainable civilization look like, and how can we get there</a>?’ </p>
</blockquote>
<p>At first pass, then, Solarpunk seems to turn the central tenet of punk on its head. Its business is imagining the future. Moreover, perform an online “image search” for the term “solarpunk” and you will find colourful, leafy metropolises, flowing neo-peasant fashions and, perhaps, a small child standing next to a solar panel in front of a yurt. </p>
<p>How, then, are the bright futures imagined by solarpunks, worthy of the “punk” suffix?</p>
<p>Solarpunk’s optimism towards the future is the first concept that needs complicating here. Along with the original punks, there is a wide body of scholarship that critiques positive thinking. Feminists like <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5um8QWWRvo">Barbara Ehrenreich</a> and <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=uOAPdbhSpksC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false">Sara Ahmed</a>, for instance, trace links between the capitalist establishment and happiness. They suggest that future-centred optimism serves the very system raged against by most punks of old. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/u5um8QWWRvo?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">An animated version of Barbara Ehrenreich’s criticisms of positivity.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Although optimistic, Solarpunk’s future imaginings do not fit neatly with current political regimes or economic systems. Self-described “researcher-at-large” Adam Flynn argues that the movement begins with “<a href="http://hieroglyph.asu.edu/2014/09/solarpunk-notes-toward-a-manifesto/">infrastructure as a form of resistance</a>”. Solarpunks are in the business of dreaming a totally different system of energy delivery, essential services and transport. Quite different to behemoth of roads and coal-fired power plants we live amongst today.</p>
<p>In other words, Solarpunks resist the present by imagining a future that requires radical societal change. Radical, perhaps, but not radically impossible. Indeed, many of the technologies and practices that solarpunks draw into their imaginings already exist: solar and other renewable energy, urban agriculture, or organic architecture and design. Like sci-fi authors, solarpunks remix the present to produce an alternative future.</p>
<h2>Apocalypse or utopia?</h2>
<p>In a fictional sense, solarpunk sits across the table from “cli-fi”. In recent years, the term cli-fi has moved from a fringe concept to a marketable genre of fiction. Coined in the first instance by <a href="http://cli-fi.net/">Dan Bloom</a>, it has grown so big that scholarly researchers are able to produce <a href="http://www.upress.virginia.edu/title/4777">studies of the conventions</a>. <a href="https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/kim-stanley-robinson/new-york-2140/9780316262347/">New novels</a> and <a href="https://climateimagination.asu.edu/everything-change/">short story collections</a> are now published in this category each year. </p>
<p>Cli-fi, in both film and fiction, tends towards dystopia. For film, watch <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0319262/">The Day After Tomorrow</a>, in which New York is flooded and frozen in climate mayhem, and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1706620/">Snowpiercer</a>, where efforts to control climate change go dramatically awry. For text, look for Paolo Baciagalupi’s <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23209924-the-water-knife">The Water Knife</a>, in which drought has devastated the south western US. These are stories of failure, disaster, and social collapse. Crucially they represent the apocalypse as catalyzed in some way by climatic or environmental change: wave, snowstorm, drought. Cli-fi has really just replaced earlier anxieties (such as <a href="https://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2007/june/1268876839/gideon-haigh/shute-messenger">nuclear war</a>) with new ones (such as <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qz8cjvKJLuw">out-of-control geoengineering</a>). </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/nX5PwfEMBM0?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>In the Australian context, Briohny Doyle’s <a href="http://www.briohny-doyle.com/the-island-will-sink/">The Island Will Sink</a> and James Bradley’s <a href="https://penguin.com.au/books/clade-9781926428659">Clade</a> take up these themes. Here too, cli-fi can be seen in novels written before the concept existed, in what Ken Gelder calls “<a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/After_The_Celebration.html?id=465BCwvKbLgC&redir_esc=y">rural apocalypse fiction</a>” such as Carrie Tiffany’s explorations of failed semi-arid land farming in <a href="http://www.panmacmillan.com.au/9781742611495/">Everyman’s Rules for Scientific Living</a>.</p>
<p>I teach “cli-fi” in a literary studies course, including Doyle’s and Tiffany’s novels, and I invite students to critique the apocalyptic nature of the genre. Is it a problem that the future is only imagined as spectacular disaster or slow decline? </p>
<p>Solarpunks argue that the problem with imagining such a dark future (or no future, for that matter) is that, while failure may be cathartic it thwarts the possibility of thinking about alternatives.</p>
<p>As a genre of writing, solarpunk has its predecessors. <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/80689.The_Fifth_Sacred_Thing">The Fifth Sacred Thing (1994)</a> by Starhawk and Ernest Callenbach’s <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4049576-ecotopia">Ecotopia: The Notebooks and Reports of William Weston (1975)</a> both imagine anti-capitalist, de-urbanised, garden-centric societies. Although Callenbach’s text is not a perfect utopia (<a href="http://www.bl.uk/learning/histcitizen/21cc/utopia/utopia.html">as if there is such a thing</a>), he is on record as stating the need for alternative future visions in a similar manner to solarpunks. In film, the work of Hayao Miyazaki provides a mainstream forerunner to the aesthetics and political challenges of the movement.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/4OiMOHRDs14?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The trailer of Miyazaki’s <em>Princess Mononoke</em></span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Discovering the rainbow</h2>
<p>As a category of fiction, solarpunk remains a fringe dweller. Its few self-identifying authors describe their additions to the genre as a positive reaction to grim science fiction. Examples in this vein are <a href="https://microcosmpublishing.com/catalog/books/6675">Biketopia: Feminist Bicycle Science Fiction Stories in Extreme Futures</a> and <a href="https://sunvaultantho.wordpress.com/">Sunvault: Stories of Solarpunk and Ecospeculation</a>. Solarpunk fiction is either self-published or supported by small independent presses, with <a href="http://portlandbookreview.com/2017/06/biketopia/">mixed reviews</a>. </p>
<p>On Instagram #solarpunk yields under 1,000 uses. Nevertheless, the aesthetic sensibilities of the subculture are starting to emerge. A few fashion enthusiasts post selfies experimenting with flowing fabrics, cool coloured lipstick and body piercings. If steampunk is when “<a href="https://twitter.com/otfrom/status/406841030815010816">goths discover brown</a>”, solarpunk is when they discover the rainbow. </p>
<p>On Twitter, the hashtag is more common. It groups together self-published tales, fashion statements and even instances wherein the solarpunk project might be seen to break through into the present day, as in the case of <a href="https://twitter.com/SolarPunked/status/844431694031675392">electric buses</a>. It also seems that, like its predecessors steam and cyberpunk, solarpunks do dabble in <a href="https://www.tumblr.com/search/solarpunk%20cosplay">costumes</a> (cosplay).</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176859/original/file-20170705-21500-1ddxh6j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176859/original/file-20170705-21500-1ddxh6j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176859/original/file-20170705-21500-1ddxh6j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176859/original/file-20170705-21500-1ddxh6j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176859/original/file-20170705-21500-1ddxh6j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176859/original/file-20170705-21500-1ddxh6j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176859/original/file-20170705-21500-1ddxh6j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176859/original/file-20170705-21500-1ddxh6j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sunvault: Stories of Solarpunk and Eco-Speculation is a collection of solarpunk short stories and art.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35235851-sunvault">Goodreads</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It’s also political. <a href="https://medium.com/solarpunks/on-the-political-dimensions-of-solarpunk-c5a7b4bf8df4">Andrew Dana Hudson</a> says that the subculture “posits a world of solar-energy abundance and then argues that we will still have need of punks. No magical tech fixes for us. We’ll have to do it the hard way: with politics.” To be solarpunk, then, is to mount a resistance to the <em>mainstream</em> present by imagining an alternative future.</p>
<p>The question that remains for me in all this is what differentiates a solarpunk from an <a href="https://theecosexuals.ucsc.edu/ecosex/">ecosexual</a>, or an <a href="https://journals.equinoxpub.com/index.php/POM/article/view/2072">ecofeminist technopagan</a>, or an <a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/327822750900209/?acontext=%7B%22ref%22%3A%223%22%2C%22ref_newsfeed_story_type%22%3A%22regular%22%2C%22action_history%22%3A%22null%22%7D">eco-afrofuturist</a> or even a <a href="https://medium.com/solarpunks/002-a-simple-set-of-tools-interview-with-jesse-grimes-pt1-832ebdcaad05">permaculturist</a>? Or, indeed, other colourfully clad, politically oriented utopian movements? </p>
<p>Similarities abound, but the focus on the cultural change that will necessarily accompany the full transition to renewable energy is the defining feature of solarpunk. </p>
<p>This is what I find deeply compelling about the subculture. We usually ask “can renewables <em>replace</em> fossil fuels?”. It is an <a href="http://reneweconomy.com.au/csiro-says-australia-can-get-100-per-cent-renewable-energy-86624/">important question</a>, but it does not grapple with the links between <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/Living_Oil.html?id=fXP1AQAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false">culture and energy</a>. Thus instead solarpunks ask “what kind of world will emerge when we <em>finally</em> transition to renewables?” and their writings, designs, blogs, tumblrs, music and hashtags are generating an intriguing answer.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>The lead image on this story was updated on July 20 to more accurately reflect the content of the article.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/80275/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jennifer Hamilton receives funding from The Seed Box: A Mistra+Formas Environmental Humanities Collaboratory, Linköping University, Sweden.</span></em></p>
Punks aren’t known for their positivity, but ‘solarpunks’ are all about optimism. A new movement of speculative fiction, art, fashion, and activism, it imagines a sustainable future that requires radical social change.
Jennifer Hamilton, Postdoctoral Research Associate, Department of Gender and Cultural Studies, University of Sydney
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/75062
2017-04-12T20:12:52Z
2017-04-12T20:12:52Z
Guide to the Classics: Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale
<p>In 1985, Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, struck a chord with readers concerned about the conservative turn in US politics under President Ronald Reagan. The New Christian Right was leading the backlash against ‘60s and '70s feminism. Three decades later, the novel’s enduring popularity suggests that such concerns have never fully abated. </p>
<p>Earlier this year the book returned to bestseller lists, which Atwood attributed in part to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/feb/11/margaret-atwood-handmaids-tale-sales-trump">concerns about the election of President Trump</a>. In March, women donned the novel’s iconic red robes to <a href="http://www.avclub.com/article/women-don-handmaids-tale-robes-protest-texas-abort-252463">protest bills proposed in the US</a> that would infringe on fertility rights. </p>
<p>The Handmaid’s Tale has been the subject of numerous adaptations, including a <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099731/">1990 film</a> starring Natasha Richardson, as well as an opera, radio play, ballet and stage play. Most recently, the novel has been adapted into a <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5834204/">10-part television series</a> starring Elisabeth Moss, to be released by Hulu this month.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163074/original/image-20170329-1681-n233fa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163074/original/image-20170329-1681-n233fa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=914&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163074/original/image-20170329-1681-n233fa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=914&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163074/original/image-20170329-1681-n233fa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=914&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163074/original/image-20170329-1681-n233fa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1149&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163074/original/image-20170329-1681-n233fa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1149&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163074/original/image-20170329-1681-n233fa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1149&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Book cover for Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Abe Books, Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Dystopian fiction, such as The Handmaid’s Tale, imagines a society worse than our own. While Atwood herself has called the novel an “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/10/books/review/margaret-atwood-handmaids-tale-age-of-trump.html?_r=0">anti-prediction</a>”, it stands as a warning about where our own society might end up if individuals and communities fail to address similar dystopian tendencies in the present. </p>
<h2>A world gone mad</h2>
<p>Atwood’s novel can be seen as a response to the 1980s backlash against the hard-fought gains women had secured in the 1960s and 1970s including increased participation in formerly male-dominated occupations, increased access to higher education, and the legalisation of abortion. Her interest in women’s experiences under a totalitarian regime distinguishes The Handmaid’s Tale from other classic dystopian fiction such as Aldous Huxley’s <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5129.Brave_New_World">Brave New World</a> (1932) and George Orwell’s <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5470.1984">1984</a> (1949).</p>
<p>In The Handmaid’s Tale, set in the near-future, air and land pollution have led to a dramatic rise in sterility and babies being born with extreme physical abnormalities. A radical Christian conservative movement has staged a coup, shooting the US President and Congress and placing the blame on Islamic fanatics. This justifies declaring a state of emergency, suspending the constitution and censoring newspapers. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163075/original/image-20170329-1656-14jpp7u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163075/original/image-20170329-1656-14jpp7u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163075/original/image-20170329-1656-14jpp7u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163075/original/image-20170329-1656-14jpp7u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163075/original/image-20170329-1656-14jpp7u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163075/original/image-20170329-1656-14jpp7u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163075/original/image-20170329-1656-14jpp7u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Elisabeth Moss as Offred in the upcoming television series of The Handmaid’s Tale.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">MGM Television, imdb.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The radicals establish a Republic of Gilead in what was formerly Cambridge, Massachusetts. The theocratic military dictatorship uses the Old Testament and falling Caucasian birth rate to justify the extreme curtailment of women’s freedoms. Denied paid employment and the right to own property, women’s destiny is now determined by their reproductive potential, and assigned to several categories. </p>
<p>The Handmaids are women whose ovaries are still viable. Many have already proven their worth as “breeders” by giving birth to a healthy child. Reduced to their biological function, symbolised by the red habits they are forced to wear, Handmaids exist purely as breeding vessels. Each is the property of a male Commander, emphasised by their names. The narrator, Offred, is literally the property “of Fred.” </p>
<p>The Handmaids’ survival depends on conceiving a child. Denying the possibility that it is the men who are infertile, Handmaids who fail to conceive are shipped to the Colonies with other “Unwomen” to clean up toxic waste until they sicken and die.</p>
<p>Men who progress high enough in the hierarchy of Gilead are also assigned Wives (who wear blue) and Marthas (who wear green). Marthas, named after a Biblical character, serve as housemaids and cooks. Wives, who are usually sterile, enjoy a higher social status than both the Handmaids and the Marthas, but their lives are still subject to extreme restrictions including the ban on female literacy.</p>
<h2>Resistance: female voices and memories</h2>
<p>The Handmaid’s Tale is narrated by Offred, whose descriptions of her life as a Handmaid in Gilead are interspersed with memories of her previous life with her husband and daughter. Caught attempting to escape to Canada, Offred (we never discover her true name) was sent for re-education at the Handmaid Training Centre, and her memories are dominated by mourning for her lost family.</p>
<p>Despite such memories threatening to plunge her into despair, Offred recognises the crucial role they play in preventing her from completely succumbing to the control and demands of the new social system. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163077/original/image-20170329-1649-gqk8cf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163077/original/image-20170329-1649-gqk8cf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163077/original/image-20170329-1649-gqk8cf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163077/original/image-20170329-1649-gqk8cf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163077/original/image-20170329-1649-gqk8cf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163077/original/image-20170329-1649-gqk8cf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163077/original/image-20170329-1649-gqk8cf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Faye Dunaway (Serena Joy) and Natasha Richardson (Offred) in the 1990 film version of The Handmaid’s Tale.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Bioskop Film, imdb</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The male leaders of Gilead want women to forget their past freedoms, but Offred’s memories remind her that a different way of life is possible, and her loss and longing keeps alive her desire to resist the system that tore her family and identity away from her. Her memories of her Women’s liberation mother and feminist friend Moira are also crucial, inspiring Offred to her own small acts of resistance.</p>
<p>This makes The Handmaid’s Tale an example of a critical dystopia. As well as showing us how problems in the present can lead to a dark future, it also, crucially, insists that change is possible.</p>
<p>The Handmaid’s Tale includes an organised resistance movement which fights Gilead and smuggles escaped Handmaids and other subversives into Canada via an Underground Femaleroad (a nod to the <a href="https://www.cmich.edu/library/clarke/AccessMaterials/Bibliographies/UndergroundRailroad/Pages/default.aspx">Underground Railroad</a> by which runaway black slaves escaped north in the early 19th century).</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/bVNL6jX9Mm0?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The Royal Winnipeg Ballet perform The Handmaid’s Tale.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Offred herself is not a particularly active member of the organisation, though she does benefit from their intervention when her life is in danger. Nevertheless, she demonstrates her own form of resistance by seeking both knowledge and a voice in a system that would deny women either. Despite the best efforts of the Gilead elite to disempower women by segregating and silencing them, The Handmaid’s Tale celebrates the potential for female community and communication. </p>
<p>Such communication can have lethal consequences. The women’s determination to be heard, even if only in whispers, is a celebration of courage in the most extreme of circumstances. Finding a mock-Latin message, “Nolite te bastardes carborundorum” (“don’t let the bastards grind you down”) scratched in her cupboard by the Commander’s previous Handmaid, Offred reflects:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It pleases me to think I’m communing with her, this unknown woman … It pleases me to know that her taboo message made it through, to at least one other person. </p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163079/original/image-20170329-1637-1dngchz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163079/original/image-20170329-1637-1dngchz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163079/original/image-20170329-1637-1dngchz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=882&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163079/original/image-20170329-1637-1dngchz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=882&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163079/original/image-20170329-1637-1dngchz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=882&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163079/original/image-20170329-1637-1dngchz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1109&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163079/original/image-20170329-1637-1dngchz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1109&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163079/original/image-20170329-1637-1dngchz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1109&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Natasha Richardson as Offred (1990).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Bioskop Film, imdb</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The power of female storytelling is a central theme of the novel. Trapped in Gilead where women are prohibited from reading and writing, Offred nevertheless constructs her story in her mind. By imagining someone listening, she clings to the hope of a different world, a different life: “By telling you anything at all I’m at least believing in you, I believe you’re there, I believe you into being.”</p>
<p>By reading The Handmaid’s Tale, Atwood is making us a party to Offred’s resistance, emphasising our own responsibility to hear her words and heed her warnings.</p>
<h2>Reconstructing the past</h2>
<p>The Handmaid’s Tale does not end in Offred’s voice. Instead, in a section titled “Historical Notes”, we are told that audio recordings of Offred’s story have been discovered two centuries later. These recordings are the focus of the Twelfth Symposium of Gileadean Studies; and a partial transcript of the proceedings forms the last word in the novel. </p>
<p>On the one hand the “Historical Notes” are reassuring and inspiring, suggesting that Offred made it out of Gilead, at least long enough to commit her memories to record, and revealing that the Republic of Gilead has long ago ceased to exist.</p>
<p>But the section also stands as a warning. Offred’s story is transcribed, annotated and published by two male academics, who refuse to give her story the status of official history and dismiss it as “crumbs”. </p>
<p>Offred herself acknowledged in her narrative that any historical account – including her own – can only ever be a partial reconstruction, even if the narrator has personally experienced the events: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>It’s impossible to say a thing exactly the way it was, because what you say can never be exact, you always have to leave something out, there are too many parts, sides, crosscurrents, nuances; too many gestures, which could mean this or that, too many shapes which can never be fully described, too many flavours in the air or on the tongue, half-colours, too many. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Atwood emphasises that “official” versions of history are just as much a reconstruction. More importantly, they tend to dismiss women’s experiences and silence women’s voices in favour of so-called objective facts and figures. Offred’s voice is once again subjected to male control and critique. </p>
<p>The Professors’ weak puns and mockery at Offred’s expense, along with their reluctance to condemn those who oppressed such women, jar with Offred’s traumatic account of her struggle to survive in Gilead. </p>
<p>It’s a sting in the tail that asks us to think critically about the way women throughout history have been silenced, limited and consigned to the margins in numerous ways. Perhaps it is this insight that still speaks to so many readers, female and male alike, in the 21st century.</p>
<p><em>All quotations from the novel are from The Handmaid’s Tale published by Vintage Books in 2010.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/75062/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Linda Wight does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
With a new TV series based on the novel - and its bleak vision of women’s rights - The Handmaid’s Tale is riding a new wave of popularity.
Linda Wight, Senior Lecturer, Literature and Screen Studies, Federation University Australia
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/43107
2015-07-09T00:53:15Z
2015-07-09T00:53:15Z
Getting under the skin of speculative fiction, science fiction and scientific romance
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/86928/original/image-20150701-25059-1em359w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Khánh Hmoong</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Science fiction has always been a genre defined <em>ad hoc</em>. The term first appeared in American inter-war “<a href="http://www.pulpmags.org/books_page.html">pulp fiction</a>” magazines (so-called for the quality of their paper rather than their writing). But what of “speculative fiction”? And “scientific romance”? How do these terms, and genres, with a shared history and future, interract? </p>
<p>Pulp fiction publisher <a href="http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/gernsback_hugo">Hugo Gernsback</a> coined the word “scientifiction” in 1926 for the first issue of his <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1581075.Science_Fiction">Amazing Stories</a>. “Science fiction” itself – clearly, a distinct improvement - followed in 1929 in Gernsback’s <a href="http://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=35426">Wonder Stories</a>.</p>
<p>In his opening editorial in Amazing Stories, Gernsback traced this tradition back to <a href="http://www.biography.com/people/jules-verne-9517579">Jules Verne</a> in France, <a href="http://www.biography.com/people/hg-wells-39224">HG Wells</a> in England and <a href="http://www.biography.com/people/edgar-allan-poe-9443160">Edgar Allen Poe</a> in the USA. A common starting point in much recent commentary has, however, been Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/41445">Frankenstein</a>.</p>
<h2>Does speculative fiction exist?</h2>
<p>Despite Gernsbeck – and many critics and fans – clearly including Verne, Wells and Poe in the same category, a number of 20th-century writers have made a case for a new class of science fiction. </p>
<p>In 2011 Canadian novelist <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3472.Margaret_Atwood">Margaret Atwood</a> argued that her novels <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/46756.Oryx_and_Crake">Oryx and Crake</a> and <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6080337-the-year-of-the-flood">The Year of the Flood</a> (2009) were “speculative fiction”, not “science fiction”. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/86929/original/image-20150701-25047-1jtfdiy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/86929/original/image-20150701-25047-1jtfdiy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/86929/original/image-20150701-25047-1jtfdiy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=839&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/86929/original/image-20150701-25047-1jtfdiy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=839&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/86929/original/image-20150701-25047-1jtfdiy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=839&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/86929/original/image-20150701-25047-1jtfdiy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1054&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/86929/original/image-20150701-25047-1jtfdiy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1054&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/86929/original/image-20150701-25047-1jtfdiy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1054&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Felix Nadar portraits Jules Verne.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Félix Nadar 1820-1910 portraits Jules Verne/ Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>By “science fiction”, as Atwood explained in <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10356713-in-other-worlds">In Other Worlds: Science Fiction and the Human Imagination</a> (2011), she meant books descended from Wells, which deal with “things that could not possibly happen”. By “speculative fiction” she meant books descended from Verne, which deal with “things that really could happen but just hadn’t completely happened when the authors wrote”. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/205.Robert_A_Heinlein">Robert A. Heinlein</a> in the US and <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/16939.Michael_Moorcock">Michael Moorcock</a> in England used the term “speculative fiction” to denote a subset of science fictions where the central concerns are sociological speculation as distinct from scientific or technological innovation. </p>
<p>In 1969, the Canadian-American writer and critic, <a href="http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/merril_judith">Judith Merril</a>, argued in her regular column in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction that “speculative fiction” was a more accurate generic marker than “science fiction”.</p>
<p>But there is something very peculiar about this attempt to prise apart Verne and Wells: if there is one thing both scholarly and fan critics tend to agree upon, it is that the two masters of the “scientific romance” were committed to much the same enterprise. </p>
<h2>Science Romance</h2>
<p>This is not the first time authors have drawn a distinction between different kinds of genre novels. There are a whole range of near-synonyms for science fiction. The term used to market both Wells’ novels and English translations of Verne in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was “<a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/journals/modern_fiction_studies/v033/33.2.reed.html">scientific romance</a>” (in France, Verne’s stories were “<a href="https://www.epubbooks.com/series/1-voyages-extraordinaires">voyages extraordinaires</a>”). </p>
<p>Three decades ago, British author <a href="http://www.locusmag.com/Perspectives/2011/11/spotlight-on-brian-stableford-translator-and-author/">Brian Stableford</a> made a case, in <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4574854-scientific-romance-in-britain-1890-1950?from_search=true&search_version=service">Scientific Romance in Britain 1890-1950</a> (1985), for “scientific romance” that was very similar to the case made for “speculative fiction” (although he was geographically chauvinist). </p>
<p>Scientific romance, according to Stableford, was mostly British and concerned with intellectual speculation. Science fiction was generally American and full of adventures and technological gadgets. </p>
<h2>So what is speculative/science fiction/romance?</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/86931/original/image-20150701-25047-12kyqx2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/86931/original/image-20150701-25047-12kyqx2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/86931/original/image-20150701-25047-12kyqx2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=813&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/86931/original/image-20150701-25047-12kyqx2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=813&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/86931/original/image-20150701-25047-12kyqx2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=813&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/86931/original/image-20150701-25047-12kyqx2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1021&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/86931/original/image-20150701-25047-12kyqx2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1021&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/86931/original/image-20150701-25047-12kyqx2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1021&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Margaret Atwood in 2015.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Frankie Fouganthin/Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Whatever its origins, science fiction is, like myth, folktale and fantasy, a kind of fiction in which the entire narrative is dominated by what Canadian-Croatian academic <a href="http://www.strangehorizons.com/2014/20141124/1suvin-a.shtml">Darko Suvin</a>, calls the “novum”, that is, a fictional novelty or innovation not found in empirical reality.</p>
<p>But in science fiction, as distinct from myth, folktale and fantasy, this novum is depicted as compatible with the cognitive logic of science, as in, for example, rebelliously intelligent robots or time travel; in fantasy, it is not – as in vampires or werewolves. </p>
<p>Science fiction is thus a characteristically modern (and postmodern), post-Enlightenment type of imagining. And it is powerfully present across the entire field of contemporary culture, from the novel and short story to film, radio, comics, television, computer games and rock music.</p>
<h2>Sci-fi, dystopia and utopia</h2>
<p>In practice, moreover, speculative fiction, as understood by both Merril and Atwood, tends to come very close to what other writers mean by “utopian” or “dystopian” science fiction. Utopia is a much older genre than science fiction: the term was coined by <a href="http://www.biography.com/people/thomas-more-9414278">Thomas More</a> in 1516, but recognisably utopian societies have actually been staples of literary and philosophical imagining since classical antiquity. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/86942/original/image-20150701-25044-8ebhbl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/86942/original/image-20150701-25044-8ebhbl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/86942/original/image-20150701-25044-8ebhbl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=737&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/86942/original/image-20150701-25044-8ebhbl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=737&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/86942/original/image-20150701-25044-8ebhbl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=737&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/86942/original/image-20150701-25044-8ebhbl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=927&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/86942/original/image-20150701-25044-8ebhbl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=927&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/86942/original/image-20150701-25044-8ebhbl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=927&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mary Shelley, by Richard Rothwell, 1840.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Nonetheless, many scholars tend to see science fiction as in effect a continuation of the utopian/dystopian tradition. Suvin argued in his 1979 <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1651848.Metamorphoses_of_Science_Fiction">Metamorphoses of Science Fiction</a> that science fiction had retrospectively “englobed” utopia, thereby transforming it into “the socio-political subgenre of science fiction”. This view has been warmly endorsed by many other critics, notably Fredric Jameson in his 2005 book <a href="http://www.americansc.org.uk/Reviews/Archaeologies.htm">Archaeologies of the Future</a>. That is probably an overstatement, however. </p>
<p>Science fiction, utopia and dystopia are clearly cognate genres, but they are not coextensive. Science fictions may be utopian or dystopian, and utopias and dystopias may be science-fictional, but the genres remain analytically distinguishable, essentially by virtue of the presence or absence of science and technology. </p>
<h2>Utopias reflect the times</h2>
<p>Science fictional utopias and dystopias are nonetheless invariably “speculative”, since they are inspired by much the same hopes and fears that inspire politics in the real world. </p>
<p>So, late 19th century utopian fictions were very often socialistic (<a href="http://spartacus-educational.com/USAbellamy.htm">Edward Bellamy</a>, <a href="http://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/from-socialist-news-to-fine-art-printing-william-morriss-news-from-nowhere">William Morris</a>, Wells). </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/86943/original/image-20150701-25057-1pasw8m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/86943/original/image-20150701-25057-1pasw8m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/86943/original/image-20150701-25057-1pasw8m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=924&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/86943/original/image-20150701-25057-1pasw8m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=924&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/86943/original/image-20150701-25057-1pasw8m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=924&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/86943/original/image-20150701-25057-1pasw8m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1161&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/86943/original/image-20150701-25057-1pasw8m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1161&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/86943/original/image-20150701-25057-1pasw8m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1161&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">HG Wells.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Anti-capitalist dystopias, by contrast, were inspired by both socialism (<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1240.Jack_London">Jack London</a>) and liberalism (<a href="http://www.britannica.com/biography/Karel-Capek">Karel Čapek</a>, <a href="http://www.egs.edu/library/aldous-huxley/biography/">Aldous Huxley</a>). The middle decades of the 20th century also witnessed a number of important anti-totalitarian dystopias (<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/43298.Yevgeny_Zamyatin">Yevgeny Zamiatin</a>, <a href="http://www.biography.com/people/george-orwell-9429833">George Orwell</a>).</p>
<p>Late 20th century utopias and dystopias were often associated with anti-racism (<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3400721.Pierre_Boulle">Pierre Boulle</a>, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/01/books/01butler.html">Octavia Butler</a>), the movement for gay rights (<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/49111.Samuel_R_Delany">Samuel R. Delany</a>), feminism (Atwood, <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/874602.Ursula_K_Le_Guin">Ursula K. Le Guin</a>, <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/52310.Joanna_Russ">Joanna Russ</a>, <a href="http://margepiercy.com/">Marge Piercy</a>), environmentalism (<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1858.Kim_Stanley_Robinson">Kim Stanley Robinson</a>, <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1226977.Paolo_Bacigalupi">Paolo Bacigalupi</a>) and anti-capitalism (<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/33918.China_Mi_ville">China Miéville</a>). </p>
<p>Interestingly, these later utopias often contained significant dystopian motifs, and the dystopias significant utopian motifs. Indeed, it can be argued that one distinctive feature of late 20th and early 21st century science fiction is precisely its practical resolution of the opposition between utopia and dystopia, into what academic and author <a href="http://www3.ul.ie/llcc/prof-emeritus-tom-moylan/">Tom Moylan</a> and others <a href="http://science.jrank.org/pages/11551/Utopia-Expressions-Utopianism.html">have termed</a> “critical utopia” and “critical dystopia”. </p>
<p>The term “critical” here clearly carries much of the force intended by “speculative” in Merril and Atwood.</p>
<p>Whether “speculative” or “scientific”, “fiction” or “romance”, “utopian” or “dystopian”, this genre has increasingly become the prime location for imaginative representations of our culture’s deepest hopes and fears.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/43107/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Milner receives funding from the Australian Research Council. He is a member of the Australian Greens.</span></em></p>
Whatever name you give it, writing of this sort is increasingly becoming the prime location for imaginative representations of our culture’s deepest hopes and fears.
Andrew Milner, Professor of English and Comparative Literature, Monash University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.