Reading Science Fiction Politically: Envision the Future We Seek
Mon, September 23 @ 4:00 PM - 5:30 PM
Free
Eight Mondays at 4:00 pm US ET, beginning September 23.
“To build a better future, we have to envision it first.” Reading science fiction, discussing it together, and reading it politically, offers one tool for “envisioning” a future worth building. This fall, we continue our explorations of diverse points of view of social conflict and resolution, possible and imagined just worlds, here on Earth and perhaps afar.
Whether you have always read science fiction or never given it a second thought, consider spending a season with the MEP Science and Visionary Fiction book group. This fall, we will start a new series exploring climate and political crisis from new vantage points.
In a change of format, we will read and meet to discuss one novel (or equivalent in shorter fiction) each month, your main commitment in joining the group. We will get together optionally on some off weeks for additional discussion of related reviews, literary criticism, blog posts, and more of interest to the group.
Our list for the fall includes:
- Ursula K. Le Guin’s classic The Dispossessed, tracing post-capitalist and capitalist futures.
- N.K. Jemisin’s path-breaking examination of climate crisis The Broken Earth Trilogy: we are reviewing book 1 (The Fifth Season) and reading book 2 (Obelisk Gate)
- Martin McGinnis’s In Ascension, this year’s Arthur C. Clarke Book of the Year, also explores climate crisis and the limits of human understanding (tentative selection).
Join the group now, and help choose our winter set of titles. Books under consideration–mostly current favorite titles, mostly highly political fiction–include:
- Paul Lynch’s 2023 Booker Prize-winning Prophet Song
- Iain M Banks‘s Use of Weapons or selection from his Culture series
- Cory Doctorow’s the lost cause
- Jeff VanderMeer’s Annihilation
- Annalee Newitz’s The Terraformers
- Kim Stanley Robinson’s Red Mars
Related readings we have in mind for off weeks include essays from Fredric Jameson’s Archaeologies of the Future.