Science Fiction Futures and (Re)visions of the Anthropocene

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia D. Gibson ◽  
Kyle Powys Whyte
Keyword(s):  
Technological Change ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
Philosophy Of Technology ◽  
Future Generations ◽  
Climate Justice ◽  
Mass Extinctions ◽  
Technological Risk ◽  
History Of ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
Climate Crisis

This chapter discusses how humans envision futures, especially environmental futures, including the climate crisis, the Anthropocene, and mass extinctions. Although the philosophy of technology has traditionally examined the forecasting of technological risk and arguments about whether to embrace or reject the growth of technological mediation of human lives, the field has yet to fully investigate environmental futurisms and imagination. To begin a conversation for the philosophy of technology, philosophies of science fiction narrative discuss the different roles that imagination plays in projecting our concerns with the present onto futures that have not occurred and future generations who are not yet living. One of the key issues that the chapter explores is how science fiction imagination is based on assumptions and values about the history of technological change, including industrialization, capitalism, and colonialism. These issues reveal ways in which technology, future narrative, and climate justice are related.

In search of possible causes of mass extinctions

2004 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tony Hallam
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
High Rate ◽  
Mass Extinctions ◽  
Geological Time ◽  
Steven Spielberg ◽  
Geological Past ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Cretaceous Period ◽  
Land Vertebrates

When the subject of extinctions in the geological past comes up, nearly everyone’s thoughts turn to dinosaurs. It may well be true that these long-extinct beasts mean more to most children than the vast majority of living creatures. One could even go so far as to paraphrase Voltaire and maintain that if dinosaurs had never existed it would have been necessary to invent them, if only as a metaphor for obsolescence. To refer to a particular machine as a dinosaur would certainly do nothing for its market value. The irony is that the metaphor is now itself obsolete. The modern scientific view of dinosaurs differs immensely from the old one of lumbering, inefficient creatures tottering to their final decline. Their success as dominant land vertebrates through 165 million years of the Earth’s history is, indeed, now mainly regarded with wonder and even admiration. If, as is generally thought, the dinosaurs were killed off by an asteroid at the end of the Cretaceous, that is something for which no organism could possibly have been prepared by normal Darwinian natural selection. The final demise of the dinosaurs would then have been the result, not of bad genes, but of bad luck, to use the laconic words of Dave Raup. In contemplating the history of the dinosaurs it is necessary to rectify one widespread misconception. Outside scientific circles the view is widely held that the dinosaurs lived for a huge slice of geological time little disturbed by their environment until the final apocalypse. This is a serious misconception. The dinosaurs suffered quite a high evolutionary turnover rate, and this implies a high rate of extinction throughout their history. Jurassic dinosaurs, dominated by giant sauropods, stegosaurs, and the top carnivore Allosaurus, are quite different from those of the Cretaceous period, which are characterized by diverse hadrosaurs, ceratopsians, and Tyrannosaurus. Michael Crichton’s science-fiction novel Jurassic Park, made famous by the Steven Spielberg movies, features dinosaurs that are mainly from the Cretaceous, probably because velociraptors and Tyrannosaurus could provide more drama.

Conclusion

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gary Westfahl
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
History Of Science ◽  
Future Generations ◽  
Space Travel ◽  
William Gibson ◽  
The Future ◽  
History Of

This conclusion reflects on the reputation that William Gibson will likely enjoy in the future, based on his publications to date. Gibson has earned a permanent place in the history of science fiction, and he will always be remembered for his seminal contributions in the 1980s. Despite the stylishly cynical attitude said to characterize cyberpunk, Gibson has shown himself to be unfashionably optimistic fiction tropes of space travel and alien life. But he even more assiduously avoids creating apocalyptic futures such as Alas, Babylon and similar science fiction visions that terrified him as a child. This chapter argues that Gibson does not worry about what future generations might say about him; for Gibson, anyone thinking about the future is really thinking about the present, precluding genuine speculation about the future, so there is no reason to worry about the unknowable judgments of posterity.

SINGING THE SECOND CHIMURENGA (WAR OF LIBERATION): AN AFROCENTRIC ELUCIDATION OF SIMON CHIMBETU’S SELECTED SONGS

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 32-42
Author(s):  
Allan T Maganga ◽  
Charles Tembo ◽  
Peterson Dewah
Keyword(s):  
Reference Point ◽  
Future Generations ◽  
History Of ◽  
Liberation Struggle ◽  
Past Experiences

Oral sources such as proverbs, songs and folktales have been used to reconstruct people’s identities. As a primary ‘means of communication’ music is often used to capture or record peoples’ experiences in history. In Zimbabwe, Simon Chimbetu exemplifies one musician who is in search of his country’s past in as far as he uses his music to record the history of the liberation struggle. This paper provides an in-depth examination of Chimbetu’s selected songs. Singing after the war itself is over, it is argued, the music functions as a reference point to the citizens because it is a transcript of their past experiences something which is essential to the present and future generations. By insisting on educating his audiences on the liberation struggle, Chimbetu satisfies Sankofan approach. It is argued in this paper that Chimbetu’s musical reflections provide enriching experiences and reveals that it is historical music.

Popular Fiction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roslyn Weaver
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Historical Fiction ◽  
Popular Fiction ◽  
Crime Fiction ◽  
Historical Change ◽  
Fiction Writers ◽  
History Of

This chapter discusses the history of popular fiction in Australia. The question of place has always been central to Australian fiction, not only as a thematic element but also as a critical or political preoccupation. In part, this is because popular fiction writers, wanting to attract broad audiences, either exploited their Australian content to appeal to international readers or have excised the local to produce a generic and thus more readily accessible setting for outsiders. The chapter considers works by popular fiction writers who adopt a range of positions in relation to their focus on place, but often tackle many different aspects of Australian social and historical change. These novels cover various genres such as crime fiction, historical fiction and romance, science fiction and fantasy, and include Fergus Hume's The Mystery of a Hansom Cab (1886), Nevil Shute's On the Beach (1957), Damien Broderick's The Dreaming Dragons (1980), and Cecilia Dart-Thornton's The Ill-Made Mute (2001).

Genre Fiction since 1950

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Lawn
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
Domestic Fiction ◽  
Genre Fiction ◽  
History Of

This chapter discusses the history of genre fiction in New Zealand since 1950. Crime writers such as Vanda Symon and Paul Cleave exploit the phenomenon of ‘glocalization’ by locating an international genre in distinctively local settings. Others, like Nalini Singh and Phillip Mann, embrace the alternative worlds of science fiction and fantasy without any sense that a local referent is necessary or desirable. The chapter first considers how New Zealand crime writers add distinctively Kiwi twists to their work before turning to crime thrillers by Paul Thomas and others. It also examines fiction featuring female detectives, including those written by Vanda Symon, as well as genre hybrids such as historical crime and domestic fiction. Finally, it analyses examples of literary noir by Charlotte Grimshaw, Carl Nixon, and Chad Taylor and political dystopias from C. K. Stead to Bernard Beckett.

Other Biological Approaches to OCD

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicole C. R. McLaughlin ◽  
Benjamin D. Greenberg
Keyword(s):  
Deep Brain Stimulation ◽  
Brain Stimulation ◽  
Response To Treatment ◽  
History Of ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
Term Management ◽  
Deep Brain

Interest in psychiatric neurosurgery has waxed and waned since the 1930s. This chapter reviews the history of these methods, with a focus on OCD. This review of lesion procedures and deep brain stimulation includes neuropsychological and neuroimaging research in the context of putative neurocircuitry underlying symptoms and response to treatment. The chapter highlights how an abundance of caution is needed, as well as key issues in long-term management of patients so treated.

Salvage

2015 ◽  
Vol 49 (4) ◽  
pp. 845-859
Author(s):  
EVAN CALDER WILLIAMS
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Human Body ◽  
Insurance Law ◽  
Future Possibility ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Personal Risk ◽  
Critical Approaches ◽  
History Of

This essay develops a history of salvage both as particular activity and as concept, arguing that it has quietly become one of the fundamental structures of thought that shape how we envision future possibility. However, the contemporary sense of the word, which designates the recuperation or search for value in what has already been destroyed, is a recent one and represents a significant transformation from the notion of salvage in early modern European maritime and insurance law. In that earlier iteration, salvage denoted payment received for helping to avert a disaster, such as keeping the ship and its goods from sinking in the first place. Passing through the dislocation of this concept into private salvage firms, firefighting companies, military usage, avant-garde art, and onto the human body itself in the guise of “personal risk,” the essay argues that the twentieth century becomes indelibly marked by a sense of the disaster that has already occurred. The second half of the essay passes into speculative culture, including fiction, video games, and film, to suggest that the most critical approaches to salvage have often come under the sign of science fiction but that the last decade in particular has shown how recent quotidian patterns of gentrification and defused antagonism have articulated stranger shifts in the figure of salvage than any speculative imaginary can currently manage.

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