scholarly journals Nnedi Okorafor: Trajectories of an African Futurism

Il Tolomeo ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Teresa Colliva
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
New World ◽  
Speculative Fiction ◽  
African Continent ◽  
Social Transformations ◽  
American Writer ◽  
Far Future

This article presents an analysis of the new category of Africanfuturism coined by the Nigerian American writer (or Naijamerican, as she defines herself) Nnedi Okorafor in 2019, after years of questions about the limits that the category of Afrofuturism has put over the receptions of her works. Okorafor felt the urgency to open this new horizon to better insist on the importance of stories and narratives profoundly rooted in the African continent, thus abandoning the Western models and canons of science fiction and creating new ways of looking towards the far future. Through the analysis of Okorafor’s novels (Who Fears Death?, Lagoon and Binti), interviews and posts on her blog, the article explores the potentialities of Okorafor’s speculative fiction to deal with technologies, traditions, cultures, social transformations, and how these issues inform a future Africa that could possibly be an entirely new world, in which the concept of ‘West’ and ‘colonialism’ do not have any meaning.

Reimagining the colonial wilderness: ‘Africa’, imperialism and the geographical legerdemain of the Vorrh

2018 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 177-194 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert A. Saunders
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Joseph Conrad ◽  
Speculative Fiction ◽  
African Continent ◽  
Empirical Examination ◽  
Garden Of Eden ◽  
Dark Continent ◽  
Western Imagination ◽  
Popular Geopolitics ◽  
And Performance

Novelists and other cultural producers have long employed the African continent as a palimpsest to construct fantastical tales. From Sir John Mandeville to Joseph Conrad, Africa’s blank spaces on the map have been filled with monstrous creatures that fuel the western imagination. As a consequence, this constant othering of the so-called ‘Dark Continent’ has had a deleterious impact for African states and their citizenries, as spectacularly evidenced in U.S. President Donald Trump’s now-infamous labelling of the entire continent as a host of ‘shithole countries’. This article wrestles with the continuation of this trend in popular culture via an empirical examination of the speculative fiction of the British novelist and performance artist, B. Catling. Publishing in 2015, The Vorrh is the first of the three novels set in a parallel Africa, specifically a former German colony that is home to remnants of the Garden of Eden. Focusing on the enchanted forest known as the Vorrh and the colony’s (fictional) capital, Essenwald, this article employs methods drawn from geocriticism and popular geopolitics to interrogate Catling’s built-world. This is done with the aim of connecting structures of iteration in the representation of fictional ‘Africas’ to the West’s imperially inflected geopolitical codes towards the actual physical and human geographies that constitute the world’s second largest and most populous continent.

scholarly journals Visions of Human Futures in Space and SETI

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason T. Wright ◽  
Michael P. Oman-Reagan
Keyword(s):  
Solar System ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
Dark Matter Particle ◽  
Short Term ◽  
National Science ◽  
The Galaxy ◽  
Near Future ◽  
Far Future ◽  
Made In

We discuss how visions for the futures of humanity in space and SETI are intertwined, and are shaped by prior work in the fields and by science fiction. This appears in the language used in the fields, and in the sometimes implicit assumptions made in discussions of them. We give examples from articulations of the so-called Fermi Paradox, discussions of the settlement of the Solar System (in the near future) and the Galaxy (in the far future), and METI. We argue that science fiction, especially the campy variety, is a significant contributor to the ‘giggle factor’ that hinders serious discussion and funding for SETI and Solar System settlement projects. We argue that humanity's long-term future in space will be shaped by our short-term visions for who goes there and how. Because of the way they entered the fields, we recommend avoiding the term ‘colony’ and its cognates when discussing the settlement of space, as well as other terms with similar pedigrees. We offer examples of science fiction and other writing that broaden and challenge our visions of human futures in space and SETI. In an appendix, we use an analogy with the well-funded and relatively uncontroversial searches for the dark matter particle to argue that SETI's lack of funding in the national science portfolio is primarily a problem of perception, not inherent merit.Also on arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/1708.05318Please cite this version:Wright, Jason T., and Michael P. Oman-Reagan. “Visions of Human Futures in Space and SETI.” International Journal of Astrobiology, 2017, 1–12. doi:10.1017/S1473550417000222.

Design Ideation Through Speculative Fiction: Foundational Principles and Exploratory Study

2021 ◽  
Vol 143 (8) ◽  
Author(s):  
Maulik C. Kotecha ◽  
Ting-Ju Chen ◽  
Daniel A. McAdams ◽  
Vinayak Krishnamurthy
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Engineering Design ◽  
User Interfaces ◽  
Divergent Thinking ◽  
Idea Generation ◽  
Speculative Fiction ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Practical Case ◽  
Generation Process ◽  
Design Ideation

Abstract The objective of this study is to position speculative fiction as a broader framework to stimulate, facilitate, and study engineering design ideation. For this, we first present a comprehensive and detailed review of the literature on how fiction, especially science fiction, has played a role in design and decision-making. To further strengthen the need for speculative fiction for idea stimulation, we further prototype and study a prototype workflow that utilizes excerpts from speculative fiction books as textual stimuli for design ideation. Through a qualitative study of this workflow, we gain insights into the effect of textual stimuli from science fiction narratives on design concepts. Our study reveals that the texts consisting of the terms from the design statement or closely related to the problem boost the idea generation process. We further discover that less directly related stimuli may encourage out-of-the-box and divergent thinking. Using the insights gained from our study, we pose critical questions to initiate speculative fiction-based design ideation as a new research direction in engineering design. Subsequently, we discuss current research directions and domains necessary to take the technical, technological, and methodological steps needed for future research on design methodologies based on speculative fictional inspiration. Finally, we present a practical case to demonstrate how an engineering design workflow could be operationalized by investigating a concrete example of the design of automotive user interfaces (automotive-UI) through the lens of speculative fiction.

Beyond Borders with Miéville, Borges, Wolfe, Ligotti, and Numenera

Dread Trident ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 195-222
Author(s):  
Curtis D. Carbonell
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Literary Studies ◽  
Dungeons And Dragons ◽  
Far Future

This chapter examines a final case study, the TRPG Numenera. It finds in writers such as China Miéville and Gene Wolfe precursors of how literary studies can inform and understanding of the imaginary worlds found in a game like Numenera. Miéville, for example, finds roots for his Bas Lag trilogy in elements from TRPGs like Dungeons and Dragons, articulating a granular style of textured detail like that found in the best of Lovecraft. With Wolfe, this chapter reads his blending of science fiction and fantasy elements, especially how he embraces a magical impulse. Numenera incorporates these elements into a post-anthropocene setting that imagines a post-human far future. Its cosmicism, though, lacks the pessimism of Lovecraft or a writer like Thomas Ligotto, who this chapter sees as moving beyond Lovecraft, yet retaining much of his insistence in resisting drawing the ultimate horror. This chapter ends by arguing that realized worlds such as those inspired by Lovecraft, e.g. Numenera, can also be seen in the first season of the HBO series True Detective, a series that valorized a pulp fantasism, yet refused to acknowledge it in the end.

scholarly journals The Blackness of Liet-Kynes: Reading Frank Herbert’s Dune Through James Cone

Religions ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (9) ◽  
pp. 281
Author(s):  
Peter Herman
Keyword(s):  
Solar System ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
White Identity ◽  
Ethical Considerations ◽  
The Social ◽  
Far Future

Frank Herbert’s landmark science fiction novel Dune has received numerous sequels, prequels, and film treatments. Detailing the saga of humanity’s far future beyond our present solar system, the work plays successfully with religious, political, and ecological themes. This essay deals with the social/theological implications of two figures within the story-world of Dune: Its protagonist and visible hero, Paul Atreides/Muad’Dib and the lesser figure of the “Imperial Planetologist” Dr. Kynes, also known to the Fremen as “Liet”. By reading these two figures through the theology of James Cone, we discover that the obvious hero is not a messianic figure but a demonic one. Further, it is the lesser character of Liet-Kynes who actually fulfills the messianic role in Cone’s theological system. This essay is preceded by and makes use of Jeremy Ian Kirk’s work with the film Avatar that provides similar analysis. Where Kirk’s principal concern is with the ethical considerations of Avatar, this essay will more closely bear on Cone’s dynamic of redemption and conversion, specifically his notion of dying to white identity to be reborn in blackness.

A Story of the Days to Come: H.G. Wells and the Language of Science Fiction

2003 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 199-212 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sylvia Hardy
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
New World ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Time Machine ◽  
World Language ◽  
Language Of Science ◽  
Fiction Writers ◽  
Individual Citizen ◽  
To Come ◽  
The Individual

This article argues that, unlike most other science fiction writers, H.G. Wells gives considerable attention to language and language change in his futuristic writing; this is because he was, from the beginning of his career, fascinated by the ways in which language had shaped human lives and cultures. In many of the early scientific romances, particularly The Time Machine and The Island of Dr Moreau, failures in communication play an important part in the events of the story. In the later utopias such as The World Set Free and The Shape of Things to Come, Wells makes English the basis of a new world language, which plays an essential part in establishing social cohesion and extending the cognitive powers of the individual citizen.

Fictional Directions

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
George Slusser
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
New World ◽  
Formative Period ◽  
Creative Activity ◽  
Character Type ◽  
Single Character ◽  
Brave New World

This chapter considers how Gregory Benford became a scientist-writer by focusing on the two directions that his subsequent fiction will take. As a writer, Benford came up through the science fiction pathway. The goal from the outset was to write serious fiction about the new world that science offered to mankind, and to present, in fictional works, the role of scientists in shaping and understanding that brave new world. Benford published his first novel in 1970, to be followed by a formative period of intense creative activity from the early 1970s to the early 1980s. This chapter examines how the interweaving of fictional directions in Benford's career as a scientist-writer find their common focus in the defining of a single character type—the scientist, or person of scientific vision, at work doing science. To this end, the chapter analyzes two “bookend” novels: Deeper than the Darkness (1970) and Against Infinity (1983).

Afronauts: On Science Fiction and the Crisis of Possibility

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 273-290 ◽  
Author(s):  
Magalí Armillas-Tiseyra
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
World System ◽  
African Continent ◽  
Visual Artists ◽  
Critical Function ◽  
Technological Advances ◽  
The World ◽  
Raymond Williams ◽  
Fredric Jameson

This essay investigates the critical function of science fiction (SF) tropes in SF and non-SF works by and about Africans. It begins with the assertion that works that invoke SF tropes, even if they are not properly speaking SF, can productively be read within the frame of SF. It then analyzes the ways in which writers and visual artists use speculative technological advances to explore the systematic marginalization of the African continent in the world-system. Drawing on Darko Suvin, Raymond Williams, and Fredric Jameson, it illustrates how these works use the cognitive estrangement characteristic of SF to posit a break in established systems of thought; this is, ultimately, a utopian gesture. Works discussed include Deji Bryce Olukotun’sNigerians in Space, Sony Labou Tansi’sLife and a Half, Ngugi wa Thiong’o’sWizard of the Crow, Cristina de Middel’sThe Afronauts, and Frances Bodomo’sAfronauts.

The Social Conditions for Nanomedicine: Disruption, Systems, and Lock-In

2006 ◽  
Vol 34 (4) ◽  
pp. 733-740 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Best ◽  
George Khushf
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
New World ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Social ◽  
Policy Statements ◽  
Technological Developments ◽  
Brave New World ◽  
Molecular Manufacturing ◽  
Lock In ◽  
Self Replication

Many believe that nanotechnology will be disruptive to our society. Presumably, this means that some people and even whole industries will be undermined by technological developments that nanoscience makes possible. This, in turn, implies that we should anticipate potential workforce disruptions, mitigate in advance social problems likely to arise, and work to fairly distribute the future benefits of nanotechnology. This general, somewhat vague sense of disruption, is very difficult to specify – what will it entail? And how can we responsibly anticipate and mitigate any problems? We can't even clearly state what the problems are anticipated to be. In fact, when we move from sweeping policy statements to more concrete accounts, nanotechnology seems to bifurcate into two divergent streams: one is fairly continuous with current developments, extending extant science in a quantitative way; the other is radically new, and includes science fiction-like dreams of molecular manufacturing and assemblers, with their utopian (or dystopian) scenarios of absolute plenty (or runaway self-replication). In these cases, “disruption” takes on the valence of Huxley's brave new world.

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