What Is Fiction’s Role in Imagining Better Social Policies?
Science fiction often concerns itself with grand technological systems and nifty scientific innovations in future worlds far from our own. But speculative fiction can be a full-service “laboratory of the mind”—as useful for imagining alternate social, political, and community structures as it is new gadgets and their time warps. Social science gives us a lens to understand whether speculated futures are aspirational or ominous, and to determine the values and visions we want to prioritize.
In this conversation, editors of the new anthology We Will Rise Again: Speculative Stories and Essays on Protest, Resistance, and Hope and guests will discuss the role of social science in science fiction and how social scientists, advocates, and policymakers can use fiction to blueprint the futures they want to work toward.
Panelists
- Karen Lord is a Barbadian author and editor who has worked as a physics teacher, diplomat, part-time soldier, and academic. Her novel Redemption in Indigo won the Frank Collymore Literary Award, the Carl Brandon Parallax Award, the William L. Crawford Award, the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature, and the Kitschies Golden Tentacle. She is also the author of Unraveling, The Best of All Possible Worlds, The Galaxy Game, and The Blue, Beautiful World.
- Annalee Newitz is a science journalist who also writes science fiction. They are the author of several books, including Automatic Noodle, an instant USA Today bestseller, The Terraformers, which was nominated for the Nebula Award, and Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age. They have a monthly column in New Scientist magazine, and are the co-host of the Hugo-winning podcast Our Opinions Are Correct.
- Malka Older is a writer, aid worker, and sociologist. She is the Executive Director of Global Voices, and the author of Infomocracy, a science-fiction political thriller named among the best books of 2016 by Kirkus, the Washington Post, and Book Riot. She is also the author The Mimicking of Known Successes, The Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles, and The Potency of Ungovernable Impulses. She is a faculty associate and senior global futures scientist at Arizona State University, and she is the host of Issues’ recent podcast miniseries Now Now, But Soon.
- Craig Calhoun is University Professor of Social Sciences at Arizona State University, where he focuses on strengthening the ability of the social sciences, working together with the natural sciences, engineering and humanities, to address the most complex challenges facing society. Prior to joining ASU, Calhoun served as director and president of the London School of Economics and Political Science and president of the Social Science Research Council.
- Ed Finn (moderator) is the founding director of the Center for Science and the Imagination at Arizona State University, where he is an associate professor with a joint appointment in the School for the Future of Innovation in Society and the GAME School. He also serves as the academic director of Future Tense. His research and teaching explore digital narratives, creative collaboration, and the intersection of the humanities, arts and sciences.
Watch the Recording
Chat Transcript
This transcript has been edited. Please also note that the opinions and perspectives of commenters, writers, interviewees and guests do not represent an official statement, policy or perspective from Arizona State University.
Kimberly Quach: Welcome everyone! Thank you for joining us! We’ll get started in a few minutes. While we wait, visit Future Tense Fiction to read the latest in our speculative fiction series. We have a big crowd today! What’s your favorite speculative fiction story?
Mia Armstrong-Lopez: Hi everyone! I’m Mia, managing editor at ASU Media Enterprise, calling in from Arizona. I also wanted to share the link to Malka’s new podcast miniseries, Not Now, But Soon. The podcast is about disasters and how we can use speculative fiction to create better futures and policies.
Jennifer Achaval: I can’t pick a favorite because it’s always changing but alternate histories have been calling me lately.
Andrea Galinski: Hello all- Excited to get more ideas for fun reads (and maybe some holiday gifts 🙂)!
Gionni Ponce: Reading Three Body Problem right now! =)
Tom Abate: Recent reads but 50 years old, Left Hand of Darkness
Nic DiPalma: Hello! My most recent favorite speculative fiction is Exhalation: Stories by Ted Chiang.
Jim Isaak: I’m an advocate of predictive fiction — sci fi in the near term that helps us envision future challenges and prepare for these. I”ve published some SF and some is online — Also involved with my professional society policy committees looking at AI, Social Media, etc. — all predicted in various ways.
Dan Franklin: So many possible favorites. Becky Chambers’ stories at the moment
Aaron Thompson: Dystopian Science Fiction. ASU Sociology Grad. Student. Sup.
Mia Armstrong-Lopez: This event was inspired by Karen, Malka, and Annalee’s latest book, We Will Rise Again. You can see the beautiful cover in Karen’s frame, and read more about the coedited anthology here.
Kimberly Quach: Also check out Annalee’s recent near-future novella about a crew of leftover robots opening their very own noodle shop.
Jon Schubert: Jon, here for SF and social sciences (and lots of faves — recently Embassytown, Project Hail Mary, also enjoying Malka’s Mossa & Pleiti series)
Kimberly Quach: My favorite recent read is The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett.
Joey Eschrich: Hi everyone! Joey Eschrich, managing editor at ASU’s Center for Science and the Imagination here, dialing in from the US Midwest. I recently re-read the weird fiction/climate fiction short story “Polynia,” by China Miéville, from his anthology Three Moments of an Explosion, and highly recommend it.
Ashley Rayner: People saying that any type of art isn’t political is WILD to me. I love Mossa and Pleiti and I’ve been rereading the Murderbot series because the show just came out. But really too many to name.
Zareen Dinet: My favorite fiction is Borne by Jeff Vandermeer. I’m here because of my love for Annalee’s Terraformers.
Dan Franklin: Disaster response: movies show panicking because it’s more theatrical. People standing in line is boring 🙂
Mia Armstrong-Lopez: Folks may also be interested in Annalee’s Future Tense Fiction story, “When Robot and Crow Saved East St. Louis.” In the story, they imagine a future pandemic, and how a friendly robot works together with a community to address a health crisis.
Gwen Ottinger: I share that love of Terraformers! I’m also a fan of Future Tense fiction in general. Joining from Drexel U in Philadelphia, where I teach political theory and (avocationally) write speculative fiction.
Jim Isaak: Movies and stories need dramatic tension, which leans towards dystopian scenarios
Sameem Siddiqui: Recent favorite book: Vanished Birds by Simon Jimenez
Tom Abate: @Jim Isaak with great screenwriting dramatic tension can be story-based. Gattaca, for instance, stands to this day as thought provoking. Can speculative fiction inspire better scripts without screaming?
Andrea Galinski: Building on the book to film mentions, I wondered if folks had any suggestions for films (contemporary or classic) that address these themes in a nuanced and thought provoking manner? I am thinking about developing a science fiction film series for students at UF College of Design, Construction, and Planning. Something fun, and gets people thinking about designing for the future, especially in the context of disasters. 🙂
Isa Leshko: Articles relevant to this discussion: https://gizmodo.com/why-we-need-utopian-fiction-now-more-than-ever-1830260945
https://adriennemareebrown.net/2014/02/11/science-fiction-and-social-justice-beginner-reading-list/
https://bookriot.com/what-are-hopepunk-books-and-where-should-i-get-started/
Mia Armstrong-Lopez: Happy to see some Future Tense Fiction fans in the chat! For those unfamiliar with the project, you can read our archive of stories and accompanying response essays (and art!) here. Annalee and Malka have both written for the project, as have authors like E.G. Condé, Charlie Jane Anders, Premee Mohamed, Andrea Chapela, Matt Bell, Monica Byrne, Janelle Shane, Madeline Ashby, Justina Ireland, Scott Sherman, and many, many others!
Malaika Cheney-Coker: Hello everyone! I’m a fiction writer whose day job is in the international development and US nonprofit sector and would add that regardless of the specific policy vision being promoted, the fundamental idea that social reality is malleable, is one of the greatest gifts of fiction.
Dan Franklin: Even fiction has its early readers to potentially improve the story
Mia Armstrong-Lopez: To Craig’s point about enlarging the imagination, people may also be interested in Ed Finn’s piece, “Step Into the Free and Infinite Laboratory of the Mind.” The piece includes ideas about how to use science fiction in science policy.
Mia Armstrong-Lopez: Annalee wrote extensively about this in their book Stories Are Weapons: Psychological Warfare and the American Mind:
Tom Abate: @Annalee Newitz Stories have already and always been about social “programming” even before the idea came into being. No offense to religion, but what are these. That said your fandom, group effort notion is phenomenal and the future of creation that is authentic and persuasive.
Nefertiti Van der Riese: @Tom completely agree. Fiction has always been social technology. It was the great power of the storytellers from the very beginning.
Wendy Danto Ellis (Fox): @NV 100% we live in language and narrative(s)
Nic DiPalma: I recommend sci-fi flash fiction to those who want an easy, simple entry into the genre, or for those who just need a sci-fi “snack.”
Wendy Danto Ellis (Fox): Bravo Malka!!!!
Mia Armstrong-Lopez: One of the sci-fi stories centering relationships has really stuck with me is Malka’s Future Tense Fiction story Actually Naneen, which centers a robot nanny and explores how technology affects caregiving and parenting, and what values are central to caregiving:
Nefertiti Van der Riese: Yes, that is absolutely the other way around!
Tom Abate: I was not previously aware of @Annalee’s book on the potential misuse of stories. In his book, Nexus, Yuval Noah Harari closes with frightening insights about AI deliberately spinning manipulative stories, that take into account the potential for social analyses of which buttons push which hates, fears, behaviors in large groups. So, how does the rebel alliance confront and offset THAT possibility? Is it the Fandom, group effort that creates the possibility of positive vitality?
Malaika Cheney-Coker: One of the few examples I know of science fiction being actively brought into live policy debates is Kim Stanley Robinsons, Ministry of the Future. He was supposedly invited to speak at the U.N re. some of the ideas on combatting climate change that are depicted in his book.
Isa Leshko: Currently reading Sim Kern’s The Free People’s Village which is set in an alternative timeline in which Al Gore had won the 2000 election instead of Bush. Instead of waging a war on terror, President Gore declared a war on Climate Change. This alternative timeline though has not solved climate change and instead has approached the crisis in a way that intensified systemic racism and classism. Highly recommended read
Jim Isaak: Lets see – Major AI systems are released by companies that make their money by advertising (influencing decision making) – often with detailed personal data on each individual — so AIs creating stories to alter decision making are very likely
Ashley Rayner: @Isa I read that book and really enjoyed it!
Jerry Seufert: As a community of readers I think we tend to believe everyone reads, but we know that is not so. How do the tools of speculative fiction work in a work where reading is on the decline?
Howard Christiansen: As a long time (since 1988) student of climate science with an MS in analytical chemistry, I consider Kim Stanley Robinson a broad field scientist deeply conversant in climate science. He’s fantastic as a humanist scientist and must be on the highest level of policy influencers. Check him out. Read The Ministry for the Future.
Nefertiti Van der Riese: This zoom has made me realize that I am writing an alternate history. It is literary fiction that uses an 18th c euro classical musical scene to reimagine brilliance, gender, and the importance of good for the sake of good. I started an org in 2014 intended to help more folks understand the importance of fiction as technology. #fictionmatters.
I focus on literary devices and a specific literary device called manichean leitmotif, coined by Dr Arthur Graham, which talks about the origins of the misogynic and anti-Black literary device that drives our storytelling today. I have created my own device to answer/correct it, which I call SOSOADAE. Have always been looking for a writing group that thinks about fiction this way (as we are talking about it here in zoom).
Mia Armstrong-Lopez: Karen edited an anthology on speculative fiction from the Caribbean that folks may be interested in:
Jerry Seufert: Also … one of the reasons we all ‘know’ Frankenstein is that reading lists were generally given to us by teachers, but now all people have access to everything ever written in any place and at any time … how do we create cohesion in a world so atomized?
Gionni Ponce: Everyone definitely does not have access to all texts ever written. =/ It would be great if they did. It is significantly easier for people with money in industrialized countries to have access to many texts.
Jerry Seufert: Fair point … thanks.
Nefertiti Van der Riese: Definitely need a more educated readership, but education and the ability to educate others quickly and well is lacking in general today. I like the idea of fandom as a tool within the reality of propaganda (everything is propaganda) and have to think about this more.
Jim Isaak: Gaining visibility for content in the massive amount of content out there is a key challenge — all speculative fiction authors compete for readers with Stephen King, and that iss just on the book shelf — not to mention the net
Nefertiti Van der Riese: We need better marketing language.
Zachary Pirtle: Thanks Malka, i resonate that getting people to see ‘narrative’ as relevant to their lives and decisions is a deep challenge. I think my main concern is that most of the people who make the big ‘decisions’ that shape our lives aren’t reading and reflecting on scifi. But in DC, it’s been 10 years since Octavia’s Brood and Project Hieroglyph, and finding someone who’s heard of either is pretty rare.
I can see optimism too, as you never know if a casual idea in a happy hour might trigger a different policy action. And We Will Rise Again and Future Tense at Issues keep that dialog and reflection alive, even if not fully mainstream.
Malka Older: I hear you Zach, and I wish more people read more of these stories.
Alisa Messer: “Look at all these things that you may not have realized are not inevitable” is perhaps the most important work that fiction can do! LOVE
Mia Armstrong-Lopez: We recently published a story in Future Tense Fiction on Annalee’s point on who maintains the technology. It’s called The Shade Technician by Harrison Cook. It follows a society dealing with extreme heat, and a technician tasked with maintaining shade structures (and, to their point, who also finds small ways to disobey!).
Nic DiPalma: (Thanks, Ed!) My question is also an invitation to talk about games (actual/liveplay, RPGs, etc.), world-building, design fiction prototyping, etc.
Nefertiti Van der Riese: fiction makes us human.
Jim Isaak: Perhaps the Declaration of Independence is a high impact example of speculative fiction … expectations created– with decades before various aspects are realized. But without that “fiction” would we be in the same world
Isa Leshko: And Hopepunk. Automatic Noodle was definitely a comfort read for me and its main characters were traumatized.
Ashley Rayner: There’s SO much cozy fiction out now. I appreciate that not every novel has huge scary stakes. It makes action feel more accessible.
Ashley Rayner: LOVED the new She-Ra series.
Joey Eschrich: @Andrea: In answer to this question about film, many of our colleagues at ASU are quite fond of the film “Sleep Dealer.” I’d also recommend the short film “Afronauts” and the 2017 BBC mockumentary “Carnage”
Nefertiti Van der Riese: @Jim I think that is how we should understand the power of fiction and how nonfiction is also fiction.
Aaron Thompson: “The fun quotient depends on your tolerance of body horror” will be added to my lexicon. Thank you, Malka.
Jim Isaak: @Nefertiti true — some “non-fiction” reflects long term aspirations that can influence the future
Tom Abate: @Lisa for relatively short & low budget films, THX1130 by George Lucas was social commentary. But we know where Lucas went to get famous
Joey Eschrich: @Andrea and others: For this kind of short-form curricular use, our Future Tense Fiction stories on Issues are potentially quite helpful. The stories are all free, we publish one per month, and each is accompanied by a brief response essay from someone with expertise in a related field.
Howard Christiansen: As a scientist/carpenter/writer in that order, everything we do we do for the sake of totally being into the doing/thinking/writing of the thing. For example, we can do everything we can imagine that may slow down global warming and we know that the planet will still warm dangerously in many individual cases of catastrophe but every action or piece of writing that slows climate change even a little is worth doing.
Ashley Rayner: Fun and community so you’re not just in an echo chamber
Nic DiPalma: @KarenLord YES!! Start with the fun.
Andrea Galinski: Thank you everyone! Some great suggestions! .. And yes, also agree with idea of “fun”- trying to actively incorporate this more 🙂
Nefertiti Van der Riese: @Jim Very true and nonfiction in general needs to emphasize and omit details that aren’t important to its purpose.
Jerry Seufert: Great program, great panel, great conversation … please do more on this topic!!
Mia Armstrong-Lopez: If you’re sad that we’re coming to the end of our conversation, fear not! The Center for Science and the Imagination and Future Tense Fiction has a similar event coming next week. Join us for “Searching for Hopeful Climate Futures in the Present,” which celebrates the launch of the book Climate Imagination: Dispatches from Hopeful Futures. You can learn more and register here.
Isa Leshko: Imagination as a form of resistance! Yes!
Alexandra Manglis: Y’all are amazing, and the world is so lucky to have you collaborate on this project <3
Peter Coha: Thanks, using speculative fiction to influence policy and society is so important and should be emphasized.
Nic DiPalma: Play more games. Practice world-building. Try prototyping future products and experiences.
Zachary Pirtle: Excited to dig into We Will Rise Again! Thank you all. This discussion – including focus on fun/joy and just remembering how the world can be different – is very exciting and I hope the book makes me see things differently!
Nefertiti Van der Riese: I think fiction needs to better confront and rebut its detractors as well.
Ryan McGranaghan: Thank you for a brilliant (and hopeful) conversation! Appreciate your perspectives and languages – just sharing that Malka gave a wonderful conversation on the Origins podcast (released last week). Good place to follow up on these threads for those interested
Isa Leshko: The role of imagination in developing empathy is important.
Nefertiti Van der Riese: imo the best fiction is an illustrative argument that also imagines beyond the proposed solution.
Tom Abate: I am so glad to have chanced on this webinar through periodic Issues in Science & Technology emails
Annalee Newitz (they/them): thanks everyone for joining us!!
Ashley Rayner: Thank you so much for this! What a great conversation!
Isa Leshko: This was fantastic. Really looking forward to reading this anthology. It’s next on my list. 🙂
Malka Older: Thanks everyone! This was great!
Malaika Cheney-Coker: Thanks so much for this!
Maria Forero: Thank you for this amazing conversation!!
Karen Lord: Thanks so much for joining us!
Nic DiPalma: Thank you @Ed for hosting and to @Lisa and the panelists! Issues is such a brilliant org.
Andrea Galinski: Thank you everyone!
Karen Lord: Thanks everyone!