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Uneven Futures

Name: Uneven Futures
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ISBN: 9780262543941

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About Uneven Futures

Essays on speculative/science fiction explore the futures that feed our most cherished fantasies and terrifying nightmares, while helping diverse communities devise new survival strategies for a tough millennium.

The explosion in speculative/science fiction (SF) across different media from the late twentieth century to the present has compelled those in the field of SF studies to rethink the community’s identity, orientation, and stakes. In this edited collection, more than forty writers, critics, game designers, scholars, and activists explore core SF texts, with an eye toward a future in which corporations dominate both the means of production and the means of distribution and governments rely on powerful surveillance and carceral technologies.

The essays, international in scope, demonstrate the diversity of SF through a balance of popular mass-market novels, comics, films, games, TV shows, creepypastas, and more niche works. SF works explored range from Riot Baby by Tochi Onyebuchi, 2084: The End of the World by Boualem Sansal, Terra Nullius by Claire Coleman, Watchmen and X-Men comics, and the Marvel film Captain America: The Winter Soldier, to the MaddAddam trilogy by Margaret Atwood, The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin, The Wandering Earth by Liu Cixin, and the Wormwood trilogy by Tade Thompson. In an era in which ecological disaster and global pandemics regularly expose and intensify deep political-economic inequalities, what futures has SF anticipated? What survival strategies has it provided us? Can it help us to deal with, and grow beyond, the inequalities and injustices of our times?

Unlike other books of speculative/science fiction criticism, Uneven Futures uses a think piece format to make its critical insights engaging to a wide audience. The essays inspire visions of better possible futures—drawing on feminist, queer, and global speculative engagements with Indigenous, Latinx, and Afro- and African futurisms—while imparting important lessons for political organizing in the present.

Contributors: Ben Abraham, Emmet Asher-Perrin, Brent Ryan Bellamy, Gerry Canavan, Andrew Ferguson, Fabio Fernandes, Dexter Gabriel, M. Elizabeth Ginway, Sean Guynes, Ouissal Harize, David M. Higgins, Veronica Hollinger, Allanah Hunt, Nicola Hunte, Nathaniel Isaacson, Ayana Jamieson, Darshana Jayemanne, Gwyneth Jones, Brendan Keogh, Sami Ahmad Khan, Cameron Kunzelman, Bryan Kamaoli Kuwada, Isiah Lavender III, Caryn Lesuma, Karen Lord, Sarah Marrs, Farah Mendlesohn, Cathryn Merla-Watson, Hugh Charles O’Connell, B. Pladek, John Rieder, Lysa Rivera, Kim Stanley Robinson, Steven Shaviro, Rebekah Sheldon, Alison Sperling, Alfredo Suppia, Bogi Takács, Taryne Jade Taylor, Sherryl Vint, Kirin Wachter-Grene, Ida Yoshinaga.

About Uneven Futures

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Rebecca Solnit

Trade Paperback

$18.00

Introduction: It’s the End of the World as We Know It—or So We Hope
Ida Yoshinaga, Sean Guynes, and Gerry Canavan xi

I Emergence 1

1 Samuel R. Delany, “The Star Pit” (1965) / Moving On, As Far as You Want 3
Kirin Wachter-Grene

2 Lionel Davidson, Under Plum Lake (1980) / YA Time Out of Joint 11
Rebekah Sheldon

3 Brian Henson and Rockne O’Bannon, Farscape (1999–2003) / Radical Compassion 19
Emmet Asher-Perrin

4 Shovon Chowdhury, The Competent Authority / CTRL+ALT+DELETE Humanity 27
Sami Ahmad Khan

5 Sofia Samatar, “How to Get Back to the Forest” (2014) / Shaping and Sharing Feelings 37
Steven Shaviro

6 Tade Thompson, Wormwood Trilogy (2016–2019) / Africanfuturism’s Salvage Utopianism 47
Hugh Charles O’Connell

7 Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij, The OA (2016–2019) / Science Fiction’s Affective Praxis 57
Sherryl Vint

8 Craig Laurance Gidney, A Spectral Hue (2019) / #OwnVoices and Intergroup Solidarity 65
Bogi Takács

9 Jonathan Hickman, House of X and Powers of X (2019) / Ecological Activism and Radical Sovereignty 73
David M. Higgins

10 Rebecca Sugar, Steven Universe Future (2019–2020) / Camp Redemption 81
B. Pladek

II Rupture 89

11 Edwin A. Abbott, Flatland (1884) / Unflattening Scientific Worldviews 91
Karen Lord

12 Karel Capek, War with the Newts (1936) / Comic Jeremiad Journalism 99
John Rieder

13 Ursula K. Le Guin, The Tombs of Atuan (1970) / Remaking the Bond 105
Sean Guynes

14 Joan Slonczewski, A Door into Ocean (1986) / Peaceful Ecological Defiance 111
Gwyneth Jones

15 SCP Foundation (2008–) / Collaborative Canons 119
Andrew Ferguson

16 Kléber Mendonça Filho, Recife Frio (2009) / Visualizing Disparity in Brazil 127
Alfredo Suppia and M. Elizabeth Ginway

17 Virginia Grise, blu (2011) / Queer Latinx Aesthetics of Apocalypse 135
Cathryn Merla-Watson

18 Claire Coleman, Terra Nullius (2017) / Aboriginal SF’s Realities of the Imaginary 143
Allanah Hunt

19 Liu Cixin (2000) and Frant Gwo (2019), The Wandering Earth / Deimperializing Empire 153
Nathaniel Isaacson

Interlude 163

20 Science Fiction Studies 3.0: Re-networking Our Hive Mind 165
Ida Yoshinaga

III Transformation 177

21 Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed (1974) / Permanent Feminist Revolution 179
Kim Stanley Robinson

22 Joanna Russ, We Who Are About To… (1976) / There Is No Planet B 187
Farah Mendlesohn

23 Eleanor Arnason, Ring of Swords (1993) / Queer-Feminist Peace Work 193
Veronica Hollinger

24 Margaret Atwood, MaddAddam Trilogy (2003–2013) / Interspecies Coalition-Building 201
Alison Sperling

25 Buried without Ceremony, The Quiet Year (2013) and The Deep Forest (2014) / Mechanics of Resolution 207
Brent Ryan Bellamy

26 Undead Labs, State of Decay (2013) / Crafting Community at the End of the World 215
Cameron Kunzelman

27 Hideo Kojima, Death Stranding (2019) / Reconnecting in the Time of Climate Change 221
Darshana Jayemanne, Brendan Keogh, and Ben Abraham

28 Toshi Reagon and Bernice Johnson Reagon, Octavia E. Butler’s Parable of the Sower (2020) / Links to Our Future-Present 229
Ayana Jamieson

IV Revolution 239

29 Pauline Hopkins, Of One Blood (1902) / Antiracism and the Counternarrative of the Black Fantastic 241
Dexter Gabriel

30 Alan Moore, David Gibbons, and John Higgins, Watchment, no. 11 (1987) / Autonomous Collectivity against the State 249
Gerry Canavan

31 Tobias Buckell, Sly Mongoose (2008) / Inhabiting Hostile Futures 257
Nicola Hunte

32 Tochi Onyebuchi, Riot Baby (2019) / Black lives Matter SF 265
Isiah Lavender III

33 Rosaura Sánchez and Beatrice Pita, Lunar Braceros: 2125–2148 (2009) / Imagination against Resistance 275
Lysa Rivera

34 Boualem Sansal, 2084: The End of the World (2015) / Resisting Censorship 285
Ouissal Harize

35 The Russo Brothers, Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) and Captain America: Civil War (2016) / The Patriotism of Raising Hell 293
Sarah Marrs

36 Princess Nokia, “Brujas” (2016) / Santería’s Decolonial Futurisms 303
Taryne Jade Taylor

37 Lehua Parker, One Truth, No Lie (2016) / Indigenous Youth Activism through Mo’olelo and YA Literature 309
Caryn Lesuma

38 Kim Stanley Robinson, New York 2140 (2017) / Logistic Utopia 317
Fabio Fernandes

39 Na Kia’i Mauna, Ka Pu’uhonua o Pu’uhuluhulu at the Mauna Kea Access Road (2019) / An SF Sovereignty Story 325
Bryan Kamaoli Kuwada

Contributors 333
Index 343

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