Stories about alternative worlds can be a powerful way of critiquing the problems of our own world.
Articles on Speculative fiction
Displaying 21 - 33 of 33 articles
Fantasy fiction provides more than escapism for young readers.
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.
Afrofuturism allows Black people to not only imagine their distant futures but also how to survive the anti-Black present.
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.
Speculative writers flesh out our passing thoughts into complete, functioning societies and explore how they might unfold.
As we enter the age of the Anthropocene, there is a growing recognition of different kinds of ‘un-real’ storytelling.
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.
The future and the past, money, technology and politics documented and imagined in fact and fiction, in an economist’s recommended reading.
Astronomer Bryan Gaensler picks five speculative and science fiction novels worth reading, including Omar El Akkad’s American War.
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.
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.
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.
Top contributors
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Assistant Researcher, School of Languages and Culture, The University of Queensland
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Professor of Urban Futures, University of Leeds
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Senior lecturer in Games and Visual Effects, University of Staffordshire
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Professor of English and Comparative Literature, Monash University
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Professor of Strategic Management, University of Toronto
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Senior Lecturer, School of Humanities Arts and Social Sciences, University of New England
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Senior Lecturer, Writing & Publishing, RMIT University
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Associate professor, Flinders University
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Director of AustLit, Associate Professor in Digital Cultural Heritage, The University of Queensland
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Associate professor, University of Johannesburg
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PhD Candidate, Department of English, Concordia University
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Lecturer in Creative Writing, The University of Melbourne
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Associate Professor in Literary Studies, RMIT University
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Research Assistant Professor NYU Langone Health, Grossman School of Medicine, Department of Neurology, Oakland University
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Dean of Science, University of California, Santa Cruz