Reading Science Fiction Politically: Envision the Future We Seek
Mon, January 6, 2025 @ 5:00 PM - 6:30 PM
Free
Mondays, Monthly, at 5:00 pm US ET, next on January 6, with additional Mondays also added
“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.
We now read and discuss one book a month. Based on interest, we will add optional Mondays during the month to continue the discussion. For those, we may recommend include related fiction, non-fiction–including essays from Fredric Jameson’s Archaeologies of the Future–and film.
- The Fifth Season, Book 1 of The Broken Earth Trilogy, N.K. Jemisin’s path-breaking examination of race and climate crisis
- Obelisk Gate, Book 2 The Broken Earth Trilogy
Join the group now, and help choose our next titles for 2025. Books under consideration–mostly current favorite titles, mostly political fiction–include:
- Paul Lynch, Prophet Song (2023 Booker Prize)
- Cory Doctorow, the lost cause
- Martin McGinnis’s In Ascension, Arthur C. Clarke Book of the Year, also explores climate crisis and the limits of human understanding (tentative selection).
- Annalee Newitz, The Terraformers
- Jeff VanderMeer, Annihilation
- Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed, tracing a post-capitalist future (read this fall)