During my search process, I noticed that I tended to look into subjects relating to the state of the world today, but also looking towards the future.  How we approach issues that we face in present day in the future definitely caught my attention.  This forward-looking aspect of science fiction and the discussion of afrofuturism and indigenous science fiction in class definitely guided my search towards the end of the semester.  Earlier in the semester, I noticed many articles that I was reading were towards the importance of science fiction and the ideas of alternative histories.  They were definitely more past or present focused, rather than future-focused.  I do not know if the current situation in the world pushed me to look farther into the future, rather than dwelling in the past, or if I tend to look for solutions to current problems and how those solutions could play out in the future.  I feel that my word cloud represents this look towards the future, but does not represent some of my earlier searches as much.  In searching for solutions to today’s problems and imagining how the world will look in the future, I found myself looking into the sub genres of hopepunk, solarpunk/climate change, and afrofuturism.  I found that literature and articles surrounding afrofuturistic views or indigenous science fiction depictions of the future resonated more with me than future-focused mainstream science fiction.  I believe that it has to do with the realistic aspect of these sub genres, and their focus on how to navigate a new but more realistic world.  I found other depictions of the future to be outlandish and exaggerated in a way, that I found them to not be plausible solutions or paths for humanity.  I find myself looking towards opportunistic but realistic solutions to the problems that we encounter today through my investigation of science fiction.

The unexpectedly hopeful ending of “The Last Man” suggests that all disasters — however threatening to particular individuals or countries — are ultimately about humanity’s responsibility to the world as a whole.

In the current state of the world with the pandemic raging, it can be helpful to look towards science fiction as a place for hope not just despair.  Even though many short stories and novels supply us with end of the world scenarios and messages, others like “The Last Man” by Mary Shelley can serve as a reminder that we need to stay connected to others, with the hope that we can get through this together.  We have a responsibility to humanity as a whole to attack this not with fear, but with “an attitude of hope and collective problem-solving.”

It is also interesting to note that this book was written in 1826 and appeared as one of the first post-apocalyptic stories written.  The world looked very different then than it does now; however, deep-rooted political, social and economic systems have not changed drastically enough that the impacts of the plague did not cause similar impacts within society.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/13/opinion/mary-shelley-sc-fi-pandemic-novel.html

The science fiction thriller, Contagion released in 2011 has jumped from the 270th most watched Warner Brothers film to the 2nd most watched Warner Brothers film with the outbreak of the Coronavirus.  Interestingly, some people are watching this 9-year-old SF film to see if it lines up with the current outbreak.  Writer and director Barry Jenkins watched the film and remarked that “It was shocking. It felt like I was watching a documentary that has all these movie stars playing real people.” The topic that keeps coming up when parallels are drawn between this film and the current outbreak is fear.  There is a strong sense of fear and widespread fear in the population, while the film Contagion details a much more deadly virus.  Could watching this film be causing more fear within the population or is it diminishing fear since our current situation is not as extreme? The NY Times article (linked below) noted that Scott Burns, the writer of Contagion, has been receiving inquiries asking for advice about travel plans.  I was shocked that people would be turning to SF writers rather than to scientists or doctors in this situation.  But at the same time, it highlights how much impact SF and SF writers can have on the general public, especially when there is uncertainty or lack of consensus in the scientific or medical community.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/04/business/media/coronavirus-contagion-movie.html

Uploading of human brains to machines sounds like something only found in science fiction stories; however, this might be something that happens in real-life sooner than we may think, according to Professor Brian Cox.  Cox believes that we may soon be able to create sentient machines that have the same intelligence capabilities as humans.  At this point, we have developed software that can bypass security measures set in place to distinguish between human and machine, so we are on our way to turning science fiction into reality.

The big question that this sparks in my mind is: at what point do we become machines rather than humans? If we have a completely robotic body but still maintain a human brain, are we still human? What makes us human?  In the short story “Say it with Flowers” by Ernst Vlcek, the main character’s brain is transferred into this large troop transporter machine, where ‘her’ one purpose is to pick ‘flowers’ (which turn out to be people).  In the context of this story, I do not believe that inserting a human brain into a machine makes that machine human now.  Even as a simple character with one purpose in life, Monica does not maintain the ability to fully comprehend the difference in her actions when her body is a machine.  In my opinion, this crosses the line distinguishing human from machine.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/tech/4617296/human-brains-will-be-uploaded-to-machines-to-achieve-immortality-sooner-than-you-think-says-professor-brian-cox/

“Someone once said that it is easier to imagine the end of the world than to imagine the end of capitalism. Perhaps that is due to some weakness in our imaginations.” – Fredric Jameson

Many genres of speculative fiction, specifically genres of punk, resist the future that is dominated by technology and criticizes the direction that society appears to be heading.  Solarpunk differs from other punk fiction.  Rather than presenting futures as warnings for the direction that society is heading, solarpunk presents possible futures that show an ability to adapt and enact radical change that will prevent the bleak climate disaster future.  Solarpunk resists the current status quo and the present time, allowing imagination to take over.  We can imagine the world where endless consumerism and consumption of natural resources doesn’t decimate the planet.  We can imagine a city, a civilization full of greenery where the best technology to combat climate change is the natural world itself.  Solarpunk highlights a path for humanity that allows us to solve some of the pressing issues facing society, especially climate change and raging inequalities.

Are the subjects and stories presented by solarpunk writers that far-fetched? In some Solarpunk, cities are shown to incorporate the natural world including trees incorporated into the architecture.  Architect, Stefano Boeri has begun to design and create “vertical forests”, the first built in the Italian city of Milan.  These vertical forests incorporate trees and greenery into the building design, providing habitats for wildlife and absorbing atmospheric carbon.  The future described in some stories has started to develop, and can this give us hope for the future of human civilization as climate challenges become more pressing?

Welcome to your Bowdoin Course Sites for the class World Science Fiction.

The first thing to do is go to DASHBOARD –> SETTINGS —> GENERAL and put your name in the SITE TITLE

Then you can change the HEADER IMAGE (using directions in Header Image above)

Then you can change the background color with CUSTOMIZE —> COLORS —>  BACKGROUND COLOR

Then you can play ith the Menus in DASHBOARD –>  APPEARANCE —> MENUS

And the right side cand be adjusted with DASHBOARD –>  APPEARANCE —> WIDGETS

The difference between PAGE and POST
Reverse chronological order vs. static, hierarchical content.

CATEGORIES and TAGS
Categories and tags help you organize your posts and make it easier for readers to find content

This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start posting.