This post was originally published on here
When Mary Shelley penned her famous novel in 1816, it was in response to a betMary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” originated from a ghost story challenge in 1816 at Lord Byron’s villa in Switzerland, where she, her husband Percy Bysshe Shelley, Byron and John William Polidori competed to write the scariest tale during a stormy summer. Mary, then 18, conceived the idea from a vivid dream and, despite initial struggles, won the bet with her creation of the iconic monster, publishing the novel anonymously in 1818., not an effort to shape society.
But “Frankenstein,” often considered the first sci-fi novel, along with other classic and contemporary speculative works and their enduring themes, can inspire ideas about our future, our society and maybe even our social policies.
Those were some of the themes explored in a recent Arizona State University webinar titled “What is Fiction’s Role in Imagining Better Social Policies?”
“Lots of the excitement of speculative fiction of various kinds comes from imagining possible futures,” said Craig Calhoun, a social sciences professor at ASU.
The event featured Karen Lord, Annalee Newitz and Malka Older — editors of the anthology “We Will Rise Again,” and much of the discussion was drawn from the speculative stories and essays in the book. Calhoun was also on the panel, which was moderated by Ed Finn, founding director of ASU’s Center for Science and the Imagination. The Dec. 4 webinar was hosted by the center in collaboration with the quarterly publication “Issues in Science and Technology.”
While speculative fiction certainly can provide a fun read, the panelists emphasized its deeper benefits — offering readers a way to understand different perspectives, correct enduring but inaccurate narratives, and cultivate the ability to see both the present and the future with fresh eyes.
The heart of the matter
Finn opened the discussion by posing what he described as “the heart of the topic of the panel.”
“A lot of people associate great science fiction stories with that amazing new gizmo or the rocket ship or something like that,” said the associate professor. “So I want to open by asking … is the work of science fiction to help us come up with these new technologies … or is it about social and cultural change?”
Lord, a speculative fiction writer beaming in from Barbados, replied, “¿Por qué no los dos?Why not both?”
“Speculative fiction can and should be about both technological inventions and the social ramifications that those inventions set in motion,” she said. “A big part of the reason that science fiction comes with a story and characters is that we’re not just interested in the technology itself … we’re interested in what it does to us as a society.”
The panel — part of the Future Tense Fiction project — discussed “the need for speculative fiction stories that take social science seriously” as a tool for policymaking and civic imagination.
“Historically, speculative fiction authors have been in dialogue with scientists or engineers, or they’ve actually been scientists or engineers,” said Newitz, a science journalist who encouraged writers to talk to people who have real-world experience. “Find out what’s real, what’s realistic and what could you actually imagine happening.”
Lord, a speculative fiction author, added that even speculative fiction as a sort of thought experiment needs to be grounded.
“Being grounded means that you need to have respect for the things you don’t know, or don’t even realize that you don’t know,” she said. “There are different fields of inquiry, scientific inquiry or social inquiry … and different philosophies.”
Speculative fiction can inform public policy by counteracting false-but-persistent narratives of how society works.
Older, a sociologist, used her work in disaster studies as an example. Disaster panic myths show that narratives can distort public perception, which then distorts policy.
“In disaster movies, there’s almost always a crowd panic scene,” said the speculative fiction writer. “And in disaster studies, this is one of the oldest, most studied and reinforced truisms, is that that doesn’t happen. The masses don’t panic. … These movies are telling us over and over again that this is something we should expect and that will happen, and the studies and the personal experiences are saying exactly the opposite.”
One of the most important aspects of speculative fiction is its ability to ignite the imagination.
It forces readers to expand their worldviews — an important exercise when exploring social solutions.
Science fiction starts in one person’s imagination, spreads to many and can ultimately reshape the way policymakers imagine what’s possible.
“There are different worldviews, there are different cultures, and all of these things have an impact,” Lord said. “What speculative fiction does is challenge us to expand how we approach the world.”
