Speculative Fictions: Possible Futures for the Planet
Speaker(s): Wai Chee Dimock (Yale), Colin Milburn (Davis), John Plotz (Brandeis)
What does literature have to tell us about the future of the earth in the Age of the Anthropocene? Join us at CSN for “Speculative Fictions: Possible Futures for the Planet.” On this panel, critics Wai Chee Dimock, Colin Milburn and John Plotz examine science fiction novels that take us to fantastic worlds to refresh our perspective on our own. Futuristic technologies, aliens and non-linear histories are just a few among the many extravagant devices of adventure they will discuss in novels and media from across time and from around the world, ranging from Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels (1726) to Cixin Lu’s Three-Body Problem (2006), in its beautifully-crafted translation by Ken Liu. We invite you to engage our speakers on topics ranging widely from subjects within literary studies, such as how narratives create imaginary worlds to interdisciplinary issues in environmentalism and the significance for the humanities of science and technology.