Science Fictionality
From speculative futures to possible presents.
About the project
In today's world, the relationship between humans and nature is increasingly viewed as antagonistic, due to concerns about global warming, ocean acidification, biodiversity loss and so on.
The future continually appears as a closed horizon in popular culture, where we have passed the point of no return, our actions in the present have no greater purpose, and change seems impossible.
Science Fiction uses science fiction as the starting point for an inquiry into the cultural pre-requisites underlying societal imaginaries of possible change. The appeal of science fiction is that it enables us to speculate on, imagine, and anticipate possible futures, including future societies, future technologies, and future knowledge.
Yet, because this link between science fiction and the future is taken for granted, perhaps we are less conscious of how these imagined futures affect how we live and act in the present.
Objectives
The societal challenge is to find pathways to possible presents: In other words, use the cultural imaginary of multiple possible futures to be able to see, live and act in an open-ended, multiplicity of presents.
By means of studying a global corpus of climate fiction, from the Global North, Anglophone Literature, as well as the Global South, the project seeks to find these pathways. This is the aim of Science Fictionality.
Work packages for the project include:
WP1: Theory and Methods
WP2: Ideaweb
WP3 & 4: Comparative Studies
WP5: Environmental Humanities Integrations
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Cooperation
CoFutures: Pathways to Possible Presents
Financing
The Research Council of Norway , Fripro Young Research Talent (300931)
Duration
01.09.2020 - 31.08.2024