On Speculation as a Strategy
Keywords:
prefatoryAbstract
For a long time, fiction has held a place as one of the most important arenas of the possible. The current global situation, defined by the climate crisis as well as the COVID-19 pandemic, radically challenges our ability to imagine what is possible on both personal and societal scales. At the same time, the importance of understanding imagination as a resource for striving towards a better world has, if anything, grown. In this essay, I discuss how to engage with the possible by drawing an analytical distinction between narrative and speculation as strategies in works of fiction. While the cultural power of narrative is widely recognised, I argue that the study of various instrumental attempts of bringing the possible into the present needs to recognise narrative and speculation as complementary.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2020 Hanna-Riikka Roine

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.
Content in Fafnir is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial 3.0 Unported License (CC BY-NC 3.0).
Beginning in November 2019, authors retain full copyright without restrictions. By publishing with Fafnir, authors grant a non-exclusive license to Fafnir to distribute the publisher’s version of the work, and give Fafnir permission to grant reprint and/or translation requests in accordance with our open-access policy and our Creative Commons license.
Prior to November 2019, copyright for all published material is held by Fafnir, but authors have full permission to use their work as they wish (i.e., self-archiving, reprint requests, using for other projects, etc.).
In both cases, re-use or re-posting of material published in Fafnir must acknowledge original publication and include a link to the publisher version.